Ginza is kind of like the ritzy shopping part of Tokyo. There are lots of international name brand stores including Apple, Coach, Swarovski, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Tiffany & Co., H&M, and more.
The major intersection of Harumi Dori and Chuo Dori in Ginza.
An Apple Store in Ginza.
Some cherry blossoms were out.
Still love how interesting the side streets were.
Ginza signs go on forever!
On the opposite side of the major intersection seen in the first picture.
Uniqlo is my new favorite clothing store. I must have gone into six different ones all around Tokyo. Really good prices and the clothes fit my form well. The Uniqlo in Ginza is the largest in the world. I believe it had 12 floors!
Now, I'm not a major shopper, so you might be asking why I bothered visiting Ginza. Well, it is a nice area with fancy buildings, but most importantly, they close down one of the most major streets there on Saturday so that pedestrians can walk on it.
The street wasn't closed when I first arrived in the morning, so I thought maybe I got some bad information, but after I came out of Uniqlo, no more cars!
There was kind of a post-apocalyptic feel to walking down the street like this, but it was neat.
This toy store on the south end of Chuo Dori in Ginza was awesome. Bought quite a few gifts here, including...
...these light saber chopsticks! They were much cheaper at the toy store than they are online.
It did get busier as we reached noon time. Sidewalks would have been really crowded.
One place a lot of sites tell you to visit at Ginza is the Sony Building. It's semi-interesting, but not a must-see unless you have time. I wasn't incredibly impressed, though it was cool to see their 4K camera.
They do not close off traffic on Harumi Dori, so pay attention when you get close to there.
Another interesting side street. Dude brought his umbrella. Smart.
This little fellow likes to peek around corners in Ginza. Any Doctor Who fan might be a little concerned when they see this. Just don't blink.
This place called Manneken was really popular and had a line going around the corner. They were making fresh Belgian waffles.
After I felt like I exhausted most of Ginza, I hopped on the train to Ueno. Ueno contains a lot of Tokyo's cultural sites, like the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum of Western Art, and the National Museum of Nature and Science. The popular Ueno Park is also here, and that's where I was hoping I would see at least some cherry blossoms.
Ueno Station was a lot bigger than I expected it to be.
It was after lunch time when I got to Ueno, so I searched for a ramen restaurant that no one could ever stop talking about. Ichiran. Here is the line outside of the restaurant. Keep in mind, this was already after 2 pm.
Ichiran is a unique ramen shop in that you sit by yourself at a tiny thin cubicle. There are dividers on both sides of you, which can be removed if you are there with one other person, but I never saw anyone do it. You buy a meal ticket at a vending machine and then fill out this card circling what you would like or not like in your bowl of ramen.
Water is free and each cube has their own little tap. That red button in the background is pressed when you want to call the server to you. Also, if you purchase the kaedama option, you get a small dish that you place on top of this button to get a refill of noodles as long as at least half of your broth is left.
After your ramen arrives, a bamboo curtain is lowered so that you can enjoy your ramen in peace. It's truly a different way to consume ramen in a restaurant. The benefits are that you can slurp away as loud as your want without other looking at you. Slurping ramen is a normal thing, yet women seem to still be embarrassed about it, so they love places like Ichiran. Also, if you're visiting the restaurant solo like me, it's a nice way to not make you feel like so much of a loner. And the ramen is top-notch. Really tasty, highly recommended!
Here is what you see when you walk out of the main part of Ueno Station. I went into that Yamashiroya store you can see in the bottom middle of this picture. Really neat anime shop.
Ueno Park is right next to Ueno Station. It is one of the most popular places to view cherry blossoms in Tokyo. Walking around, it reminded me a lot of Seattle Center, minus the Space Needle. The museums, the fountain, the park, the rides, and the museums all felt similar.
Under the train tracks in Ueno.
The same intersection as above, but from the Ueno Park steps.
Tomb of Shogitai Warriors in Ueno Park.
There were a couple sakura trees still in blooms, but the traditional ones that line the main path through Ueno Park were completely gone.
Still, there were quite a few people having picnics under the sakura trees. They didn't mind then, but they would mind about something else in just a couple minutes.
Yep, that's when it started to rain. I was anticipating this before I even left Seattle, so I whipped out my umbrella and continued to roam around the park. Most others had umbrellas, too. Clear ones are a favorite over there for some reason.
Intersection between Ueno Park and Ueno Station.
Walkway down to the main part of Ueno. Love the stone design of it.
This is about the time where it started to rain harder and the wind kept blowing my umbrella inside out. This cause my camera to get some raindrops on it. Canon's don't like even a tiny bit of water on them, so I made the decision to put my camera away for the day.
That doesn't mean I stopped taking pictures. I was able to use my much more manageable Windows Phone to get more shots. This is that main path in Ueno that I mentioned earlier that I bet looks gorgeous when the cherry blossoms are out.
Since the wind and the rain wasn't going to stop all night, I decided to cancel my plans of visiting Asakusa. I wanted to be able to take good pictures there, so instead, I went to a place I've been to before. It was back to Akihabara, where I was the night before, to look at more anime stuff!
Sorry for the smearing on this picture as the camera lens on my phone must have been smudged, but I wanted to mention AKB48 really quick. They are a J-Pop group that I've featured on my top three before. AKB48 has 91 female singers in it. Producer Yasushi Akimoto wanted to create a girl group that, unlike a regular pop group, would have its own theatre and perform there on a daily basis, kind of like Broadway musicals. I tried to get tickets, but it's a lottery format and I wasn't lucky enough.
I went into Animate as it was closed the previous night and found their K-On section. Unfortunately, there wasn't really anything I wanted there, but it was the most I had seen so far. A lot of the K-On merch is gone because it has been out for a while now.
I was so giddy to see this standee of Kotoura-san as an Animate employee promoting the release of the season 1 DVD. She's pretty adorable in her "koshi koshi koshi" mode.
I also checked out Mandarake, which is a block off the main drive of Akihabara. Once again, really cool anime store, but be aware of the hentai section on the fourth floor. I couldn't believe they had that there, especially when there were more regular toys and figures on the levels above that. Again, this is something I would have checked out for the fun of it if I were with others, but being a solo guy on that level just seems kind of creepy.
After Mandarake, I went inside Yodobashi-Akiba. Man, I wish we had an electronics store like that in Seattle. It has everything you could possible need. Saw tons of these "gashapon," which deliver little toys in plastic balls. Obviously we have similar things in the States, but these have much cooler things inside.
For dinner, I went to another place I had heard so much about called Pepper Lunch. It's good quality cuts of beef served raw in an iron hot bowl. It was incredibly delicious, and as you can see, they do use a lot of pepper. Yummy! The location in the Yodobashi Camera store is a diner version instead of the typical vending machine ticket thing. Ladies dressed in maid outfits with high-pitched voices serve you. It's the closest thing I got to a maid cafe experience, but still not even close.
To wrap up the evening, I went to another Uniqlo and gave them more of my money.
On the next episode: Day 4 - Harajuku, Shibuya, Asakusa, and Odaiba! Phew!
See all 75 photos from Day 3 of my Japan 2013 trip here. See all 28 mobile uploads from Day 3 here.
Day 1 is here.
Day 2 is here.
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