Monday, July 29, 2013

Sightseeing Day 2 in Tokyo

We started the day off with some team prep for our poster presentation and hotel made breakfast while the masses headed off to work in the many high-rises around our Hotel in Shinjuku. Steve had our day planned out super well - starting with a walk and shop to one of the craziest department stores we have been to - 6 floors and everything (actually everything) imaginable from Hello Kitty Onesie, Bento boxes, Passionfruit Kit Kats, paper clips, fake Chanel bags, crazy dress-ups etc etc



Steve in his element at the Cat Cafe


Isaac loving the cats as much as his face mask 

It's not only bowls of milk available at the Cat Cafe...


Menu of the cats - just so you know who you are patting 


Calico Cat Cafe - 5 Star rating from NZ iGeo Team
From there we headed to what had to be the highlight of the day - The Calico Cat Cafe. Cat Cafe's are places where you can pat and play with cats as many people are unable to own them as they live in apartment buildings. You can pay extra to feed the cats - which makes them want to hang out with you more and order drinks and snacks. We were all amazed by the variety of cats - including the munchkin cats (ones with really short legs) and huge massive cats.


You pay by the hour after our time was up we washed our hands and headed to a Ramen Noodle shop next door where we ordered by selecting what we wanted using a vending machine and handing over tickets to the chefs.

Kujoji Temple


We caught the train to Hamamatsucho following lunch to visit a Buddist Temple and Tokyo Tower - an replica Eiffel Tower with a Japanese twist - painted red and white. The day wasn't so clear so the observation deck wasn't amazing but it still gave us a great sense of what a vast built up area Tokyo is. On a clear day you can see Mt Fuji but unfortunately we missed it today so made up with it by getting delicious ice creams before we headed to Shibuhya.

Shibuhya is the site many people will be familiar with seeing in Tokyo as it is the home to the giant intersections. It also has many great shops and we stumbled across the 100 Yen shop, 3 coin store, another 6 floor electronic shop and an amazing craft/building/everything you could ever need shop called Tokyu Hands - a great number of rolls of washi tape brought by the Team Leaders :)

Shinbuhya Street Scene

When choosing somewhere to eat we stumbled across a place which was easy to say no to - A whale Meat restaurant. Not only did they have a million signs outside but they also had a pamphlet explaining their viewpoint on why whaling was good. Pretty sad from our NZ viewpoint.

Whale Meat Cafe Menu
After finding a great non-whale restaurant we jumped into the train to head home to out hotel for our final night Tokyo - we haven't scratched the surface of this amazing city but we have a job to do in Kyoto and these kids are ready and rearing to go!

Anna :)

Before crossing the road 




Isaac's quote of the day about being in the train - " If your not touching people it's not really busy"

No comments:

Post a Comment