Central Tokyo-October 21

This is a toilet!! They have
normal ones too (LUCKILY!)
but they really expect you to
just pop a squat!!! haha






Yesterday Sarah, Sara and I went and saw the government building and went up to the 51st floor of some other building to look down at the city, pretty amazing view, but all there is in Shinjuku are a bunch of skyscrapers. (Tomorrow we're going to go to Central Tokyo and hopefully it will be better, bc there isn't much to see here!) For lunch we went into some restaurant that looked good and just randomly picked out a picture that looked appetizing. I got fried rice, dumpling(amazinggg) and a noodle soup in pork broth..it was pretty good, but none of us finished, the portions were so big. We went to a hands on science museum, which was fun trying to figure out what to do since most of the directions were in Japanese.
We were up this morning at 7:30 (we're almost over jetlag) so we got going early, we hopped on a train and went to Central Tokyo. Here it actually felt like we were in Japan, not just some big city! :) We went to see the Imperial Palace, which is home of the Imperial family. It was build in 1888, but destroyed during WW2. (You know you're impressed by my history lesson!!)It was rebuilt in 1968. Around the castle are stone walls and moats, the picture of the 2 bridges that form an entrance to the palace are called Nijubashi. Then we went to see The Japanese Parliament or The National Diet of Japan. This was the first parliament ever to be established in Asia. We also went to Yoyogi Park, where the Olympics were held in 1967, and the NHK studio, which produces TV and radio stations. We saw a few people running in the 'Race for the Cure' marathon. We also went to Shibuya, where we saw Hachiko, a famous statue of a dog, and went to Ginza which has all the prestigious stores that I wish I could afford to shop in..Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada, Tiffany and Co., Gucci, Coach....which we were walking around we saw some guy doing a photo shoot in the middle of the square, we don't know what for but keep an eye out for this guy. Let me know if you see him in GQ or something!
The temperature had been nice, 22 degrees C, I've been comfy in a long sleeve shirt and jeans. Everyone really obeys hte crosswalk signs here, unlike NYC, when the light is red, NOONE goes, even if there are no cars in sight..there are no buttons to push when you want to cross either, you just have to wait. It's so funny to go into stores because the majority of them have american music playing, I must have heard Justin Timberlake 3 times today, haha. I haven't heard ANY cell phones ring, it's kind of nice! Not many people even go around talking on them, however they are ALL constantly texting on them, even while eating. Today was the first time we saw people in Komonos, they are really pretty, noone wears flipflops unless they are wearing them, and in that case they wear white socks and wooden flipflops that just do not look comfortable at all!
Everyone said that the people here are really short, but that's actually not true, they are all normal height, of course there are a few really short people, but the majority of them seem normal height. They say all the seafood and stuff is what makes their hair so beautiful but they must be lacking in calcium or something because all the older people seem to have osteoporosis or back problems. They look so old and can barely stand up, they seriously walk halfway crouched over, it's terrible!
Russell's words of the day:
I don't understand-Wakarimasen (Wah-car-ee-ma-sen)
Teacher-Sensei (Sen-say)
Water- O Mizu (Oh-Me-zoo)