Japan: Day Three

Rain Rain Rain. It rained pretty much the entire day on Saturday. I got to borrow an umbrella from my hostel and join the crowds of Japanese with clear plastic umbrellas. Megan and I went to the  Tokyo National Museum. I don't have much to say about that so I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Map of Ueno Park where the museum and zoo were located

Tokyo National Museum

You can lock your umbrellas up while you are in the museum - what a good idea!

Mouth harp from the Ainu (a minority in Japan)

Museum gardens

Indonesian shadow puppets

Those are some pretty fancy shmancy stirrups

Samuri armor!

After leaving the Museum, we walked to Ueno Zoo. We saw lots of animals. I think our favorite section was the area where baby monkeys (forget what kind) playing around. We saw some of our native animals - Canadian geese and porcupines!

After leaving the zoo, we went searching for the Imperial Gardens, but gave up because we were exhausted and it was still raining.

We planned to go to a cafe in Jiyuugaoka, but beeacuse of the rain, they were all packed. Starving, we desperately went to McDonalds and managed to claim a seat. It was really stressful when I was trying to order because the entire menu was in Japanese, which of course I couldn't read at all. I finally managed to get a chicken sandwich, while Megan ate a cheese fondue chicken sandwich (sounded good but it had bacon in it so I couldn't eat it :-( ).

We headed back to Megan's room to take a rest. I took a shower there so I wouldn't have to pay for the shower in my hostel. Then we headed to Shinjuku for dinner. We ate at an izakaya called 270 something on the 9th floor of a building. Izakayas are kind of like tapas - lots of little dishes. It was great to eat there because we could just use the touch screen to order things. We got drinks called Sours. I got a peach one and a citris one while Megan got kiwi and honey citron. They sell these drinks in cans and they are called Chuhii. I wonder if they sell them in the States... even if they do, I have to wait 5 months until I'm 21 before I could buy any. They gave us a huge bowl of soybeans to eat for free. We barely finished half of them, but they were delicious. We ordered chicken, a mini pizza, and this cheese rice thing (no idea what it's called). We decided we still had room for dessert, so I got a dessert called Honey Toast and Megan got a dessert with ice cream, strawberries, mochi, and red beans. Personally I preferred mine because it had chocolate, but hers was pretty yummy. We walked around Shinjuku. I saw some hosts. I'm not sure I understand this concept completely, but hosts are men (usually very pretty men) dressed in suits who hang around waiting to be approached. They then accompany you to their place of employment to talk and drink.

Shinjuku at night

Soybeans :-)

Peach and Kiwi Sours

Citrus Sour and Honey Toast Dessert!

Where the hosts hang out