Japan Day 8

Today was a day of strolling, and shopping, and looking, and eating.  Before we traveled, we talked about using today to travel to a city outside of Tokyo.  We wanted to see Mount Fuji, but found out that at this time of year, it is almost always under cloud cover and it isn't worth going.  And then after that, we couldn't come to a decision on where to go.  So we left it up to Finley and she said she just wanted a day that wasn't scheduled where we didn't do much.  So that was today.

We got up late, and then spent the afternoon walking around Shinjuku.  It was fun.  There is stuff everywhere - just stores packed wall to wall with anything and everything you could ever imagine.  There is always something fun to see.

Arlington and Finley wore some of their new clothes today

 Shinjuku

 Godzilla!

 He is enormous!

 I finally got to have sushi in Tokyo!  It was really good

 Cainan really is the best one of us at chopsticks.  He hasn't used a fork yet

 I had lamb steaks for dinner.  SO GOOD

 Shinjuku at night.  It reminds us a lot of New York.  Just cleaner

 Godzilla at night

 Shinjuku

 We have passed this store several times, so we decided to stop and check it out.  They had an ice cream - it was a cream cheese between two sugar cookies.  It was good!

 Finley's dessert - oreas and a vanilla cupcake

Japan Day 7

We have been gone for a week now, and we are still enjoying our time in Japan.  Even with Coronavirus creeping up slowly in numbers, we are still able to enjoy everything we have set out to do.

Today we got off to a later start since we didn't have much planned. We spent the day in two places. (still working through Finley's to do list) First was Akihabara City.  Here was Anime overload.  Plus Gachapon and Claw machines.  The kids had a great time.  We just explored the shops, and Arlington actually won one of the claw games.  We were shocked.  We roamed and snacked and shopped to Finley's content.

Our second stop was Shibuya.  We stopped at the Hachiko Statue, and walked across the famous Shibuya crossing.  We strolled the streets picking up good things to eat, and popping in and out of shops.  We even found a huge Nintendo store for poor Cainan who has been a great sport through this trip.  Mat has also introduced the kids to the 100yen shops ($1 stores).  They love them.

What we saw when we came out of the Shibuya subway station

 Hachiko Statue.  Hachiko was an Akita dog who used to meet his owner every day at Shibuya Station.  One day his owner died at work and never came home.  For nearly 10 years Hachiko would return to the station to wait for his owner after he died.  He represents loyalty and fidelity

So Shibuya Crossing is a HUGE scramble that you have to see to believe.  From every angle, pedestrians can cross all at the same time which makes it fun to watch.  We crossed it a few times and then I tried to film it from above so you could get a general idea.

This is us crossing

And this is taken from up above

If you want to see a better video (that isn't mine) - go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtOdSgf6Ic

 Some views of Shibuya

 Finley spotted a Starbucks drink that was made with cherries.  Now that it is Cherry Blossom season, we see a lot of representation of that around the city.  She said this was delicious

I also took two extra pictures.  The first is the Subway map of just ONE of the 4 subway companies that run throughout Tokyo

The second is just a small example of the "lining up" for the subway.  These are not at all the stops, but it doesn't matter.  The Japanese line up one person behind the other anyway.  It is incredible.

Japan Day 6

Today we went to Disney Tokyo!  The kids were so excited that we were able to fit this in during our trip.  It was a pretty good weather day - pretty sunny and warm....ish.  And since it is still winter, the park wasn't that crowded. 

The kids were able to ride everything several times.  We snacked all day and explored the whole park and the shops and left when the parked closed.  It was a great day.

We have not been to 4 Disney parks - Disneyland California, Disneyworld Florida, Disneyland Paris France, and Disneyland Tokyo.  Pretty cool

The entrance

 In front of the castle.  It was under construction

 Arlington and Finley bought themselves headbands - Winnie the Poor and Monster's Inc

 Disney Tokyo does a really cool thing with its popcorn containers they offer.  They have about 50 different ones you can pick from and a ton of different popcorn kinds all throughout the park.  Mat picked this one for our take home container of popcorn - it is Steamboat Willie.  There were so many - it was really cool!  I think all the parks should jump on this instead of just the regular round tin.  So fun

 Our other fun food for the day was these little alien dumplings.  They were so cute!  And yummy

Japan Day 5

Still working our way throught Finley's wish list, we ticked a few more boxes off today.  AND - we may have added one thing to the list she didn't.  It happens.

This morning we started out at teamLAB Borderless museum.  It was amazing.  We spent several hours in this museum walking through all the moveable art.  All the kids loved it as well.  We had such a great time.  I took a ton of pictures and videos so you could see what we saw, but if you want the full effect, go to their website HERE.  This is an extremely popular museum, so we got our tickets will ahead of time of our visit.  The tickets are untimed, which is nice, but usually it is sold out weeks in advanced, so I am glad we had our ready to go.

Huge ferris wheel outside the museum

 The art was really beautiful

Here is some video of the room

 Here is a video of that room:

Room with lanterns - it was really cool.

 

 Finley and I in the lantern room

 We walked through this room which these circles were like the tops of flowers

 room with a lot of balloons - the kids had fun with these

 In this room the kids could color a picture of a sea animal, and then the workers scanned it and it went up on the wall and was moving around.  It was cool.  This is Cainan's

 And Arlington's

 And Finley's

The waves were cool

We did get green tea and ice cream as part of our tickets, and it was fun to eat it in this room.  When we set down the bowls, it started to fill with digital flowers - the kids thought it was cool.

After the museum, we walked around the Koto area of Tokyo.  It is along the water, so it was quite breezy and really pretty.  That area is fairly new.  We saw the Gundam Statue (that was not on Finley's list - that was Mat's list), and went to the Toyota Car Showroom (again - Mat's list) - which ended up being a lot of fun.  They had a place for kids (And adults if they wanted) to drive a small course with cars.  Arlington opted to try it.  She and Finley had some fun doing that.

Arlington had to take a little driving test before she could take Finley in the car (since she doesn't have a driver's license yet).  IT was funny to watch

Finley and Arlington on the course:

Mat and Cainan doing some simulation driving

 Orange Toyota Mat liked

 Cainan in the driver's seat.  Yep - Japan drives on the left as well

We saw the Fuji Business building, the Statue of Liberty Replica, and the Olympic Rings on the water.  We also got a really nice view of downtown Tokyo and was able to take in its full effect.

Gundam Statue

 Fuji Building

Statue of Libery replica

 Olympic rings out on the water

 Tokyo across the water

 Huge bridge

 Downtown Tokyo

After all of this, it was late afternoon, so we headed back into the city to do some shopping.  That is at the top of Finley's list - lots of shopping.  Today she wanted to go to a regular fashion store.  She loves the way Japanese people dress (muted, flowy - almost baggy - clothes) and so while Mat and Cainan did some guy stuff, the girls and I went into a 7 floor clothing shop so Finley could buy a few things.  She had a great time in there.  I will have to get her to model some of the clothes at some point so you can see what we are talking about.  They aren't flashy dressers.  It is perfect for Finley.

Another great day!