Sunday, June 3, 2007
Again, I woke up jetlagged, but it's getting better. I woke up at 6:50 am yesterday. Since it was Sunday and we had work tomorrow, Brad and I decided to try and find our way to our respective work places. Luckily for me, mine is walking distance away, so we decided to try and find my work first. Across the street we saw the Hie-jinja shrine and decided to check it out.
I found my work place, which indeed was a 7 minute walk. Then we decided to brave the Tokyo metro to find Brad's place of work, which involved making a few transfers, so we were a little anxious. We found Akasaka station and went underground when we were confronted by 5 ticket machines with random prices. Brad and I had no idea what price ticket we needed but eventually figured it out because we're geniuses.
On all the metros they have this sign. From left to right, those that have priority seating: 1. People with monkies. 2. People with tumors. 3. People with a peg leg. 4. People wearing uggs.
One thing I noticed is that a lot of people sleep on the Metro. They just fall asleep. At least 1/3rd of the people on the train are knocked out.
Eventually we got to our destination in Shibaura and found his work, The Japan Times, an English language newspaper in Japan.
After that, we decided to go to Akihabara, because I wanted to buy a wireless network for our apartment. 
I was really surprised at how crowded Akihabara was. There were a ton of people. The rest of Tokyo was fairly empty as was expected on Sunday.
When Brad saw this he said "They spelled Asian wrong"
Afterwards we decided to go to Asakusa to go to Sensou-ji temple. Here's a giant carrot.
At Sensou-ji temple, you put a 100 yen coin, shake a little metal box until a stick of wood comes out with a number. Then the number corresponds to a box with your fortune.
Needless to say, the both of us weren't happy with our fortunes that indicated we would have very bad luck. Good thing we actually didn't do it right. You're supposed to tip over the box and shake it until a stick comes out on its own, but we kind of forced them out.
We tried again, the right way. Brad got an average fortune and I got an extremely good one. 
The smoke here is supposed to cleanse your spirit.
You throw yen in front of this temple for good luck.
Afterwards I got some delicious green gelato. Green tea ice cream here is AMAZING. but more on that later. I'm going to devote a whole post to it. 
I also decided to try this coffee shop: Tully's Coffee. It's everywhere, more prevalent than Starbucks.
We finished the day by going to Roppongi Hills and eating at The Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant which has famous Steamed soup buns that burned my tongue. They were delicious, but also expensive. We got 4 plates each around 800 yen.
Afterwards we went to Roppongi to explore nightlife, but that's a story for another blog.
Stay tuned!
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