Two things I noticed about the trains/subways in Japan. First, everyone on the train/subway are eerily quiet and second, between all the different train/subway lines, it seemed like we were in the Jules Verne novel (GIYF), and it certainly felt like it at times. We took our two trains and went to Harajuku to spend our day. Apparently my wife came to Japan to shop at the same stores they have in the States. There are a couple streets with local stores, some with some very questionable clothing designs and styles and lots of cafes and restaurants. We went into a store called Kiddy Land (yes there were creepy people all around this place), which is four levels of toys and other toy themed paraphernalia. One floor was Hello Kitty and some other Japanese character, another was all Snoopy items, one floor was all Star Wars, Transformers and lots of other figures and show characters (Sailor Moon anyone?) and the last floor was probably some other items from a Japanese themed show. I would stay the customers were split between children and actual adults buying these items (I have my own collections, but this seemed way too much) who must have never heard of Amazon or the Japanese equivalent to order from home.
We then moved on to the Oriental Bazaar, which I was looking forward to seeing. Much to my dismay, the bazaar is actually just a store with that name and sells souvenir items (no bazaar in sight). We did find some stuff to bring back, but it was nothing like the markets in Thailand I grew fond of. After that, we went inside to a mall (something Hills was the name) that seemed just like America and was not too impressive other than the ramp that wound around every floor (don’t make it a point to go see). By this point we were done for the day and needed to get back and get ready for Shabbat. We had some of our Pomegranate meals for dinner and called it a day (night).
The next morning we were up early again, but tried to prolong actually getting up as long as we could. We made it upstairs to have some fruit and vegetables and then went out to walk to the Park Hyatt and see the pool. The walk is about ten minutes and we were escorted upstairs to the pool. The views of the Tokyo skyline and Mt. Fuji in the distance were amazing. There is a nice gym on either side of the pool and the pool itself was nothing amazing. We then took a self-guided tour of the different restaurants and New York bar (Lost in Translation) and were glad we did. As we did have a two-night reservation for the PH later in the week, we decided to cancel it and stay elsewhere based on our tour. We were really amazed with the views, but what little service we did have was nothing great and we were not willing to shell out lots of points for the views we got to see. We made it back downstairs went to the park across the street.
This is a huge park, which we would watch people doing Tai Chi every morning and had wanted to check out at. There was a nice children’s area and lots of walking paths around the park as well. One corner of the park had some kind of shrine, but no English signs so we could not really gather too much information about it. After Shabbat went out, I went and booked the Conrad Tokyo as we kind of had enough of the HR and with no pool, spa or way to “normally” warm our Pomegranate meals, we wanted out. With the new hotel booked for tomorrow, we are now waiting to see what microwave Pomegranate meals taste like.
Another couple of days and some more culture witnessed and experienced. Tomorrow brings our tour guide and what will most likely be a much different perspective than what we have experienced so far.