Day 1 - 6

Day 1/2: October 14/15, 2010

Our epic honeymoon adventure begins! After a perfect 10.10.10 wedding, we depart for our 88 day adventure to Asia and Oceania. After a long 16 hour flight with a connector at Chicago O'Hare, we finally make it to Tokyo Japan. The transit system in Japan is insane..there's a million different lines that take you everywhere..makes Toronto's TTC look like...well nothing. We ride the JR (Japan Rail) from Narita Airport to Shinjuku. Automated maps, announcers, and super silent trains...soo high-tech. We arrive at Shinjuku Station, one of the busiest stations in the world with over 2M people passing through the station daily! While others travel with a Lonely Planet or Guidebook, we've got our iPad and iPhone..such geeks! =) We pull out our iPad to find our hotel (Sunroute Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku)...standing at a street corner trying to match japanese characters to street signs. A nice little Japanese business man, noticing we're quite lost, helps us out and points us to our hotel. Japanese people are soo incredibly nice!

We wander the streets of Shinjuku in search of some food. Come across a quaint, little, authentic 'Oden' restaurant. The waiters speech no English and there's no English menu...yet for some reason, despite looking at them with blank stares, they continue to speak to us in Japanese. Luckily for us, a girl sitting beside us at the bar, helps us out and starts ordering food for us. Good, authentic Japanese food...mmmmm.


Day 3: October 16, 2010

Day-tripping in Tokyo. It's the weekend, so downtown Tokyo is pretty quiet. We head to the Imperial Palace to take in some Japanese culture. It's an old area in the middle of the downtown Tokyo core..kinda unique seeing a very old Japanese park with skyscrapers and office buildings in the background. The actual Imperial Palace is closed off, so we can only access the East Gardens.
Next stop - Akahabari, Japan's Electric Town. Electronics-galore! Endless streets of bright lights, and huge department stores of electronics. A techie-geek heaven.
We head back to Shinjuku, and enjoy a nice Sushi Dinner at a Kensei (Round-about sushi belts). Sooooo good, best sashimi ever..talk about melt-in-your-mouth tuna! Sashimi is just soo fresh, and soo good in Japan.

Day 4: October 17, 2010

Off to Ginza we go! On the weekends, Chuo-dori is closed off and becomes a pedestrian friendly high-end shopping meca! It's like a Yorkville, meets 5th Avenue..but with wider streets, and taller buildings...the Japanese really know how to take what's good and make it bigger and better!
After window shopping in Ginza, we head to Shibuya, another major city. It is here that we come across the "busiest" crosswalk in the world. Just hoards of people crossing the same intersection all day long..it's crazy! It's chaotic here with soo many people, but at the same time, it's all "organized chaos". No jay-walkers, everyone follows the street signs and crosses when they're suppose to.

Day 5: October 18, 2010

Today's the day we've been waiting for! Trip to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. We wake up bright and early at 4:30am in hopes of making it to the Fish Market early enough for the Tuna auction. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the Market til 5:30am, so it was already too late by then. Ah well, we still got to walk around inside the market as the wholesalers got ready to sell for the day. Walking through the loading dock area was an adventure in itself. Automated steel cars zooming by in all different directions, it's like a game of chicken trying to cross the street. We enjoy a fresh sushi/sashimi breakfast at 6:30am at one of the popular hot spots inside the Tsukiji Market...mmmm....sashimi tuna for breakfast, doesn't get better than this!

After Tsukiji, we head to Harajuku..the "Hello Kitty" alley of Japan. It's endless alley of Sanrio stores and soo many Japanese school-girls....or rather, regular Japanese girls who dress up like school girls and anime characters :) ..or at least that what they look like. That was my "fob" fix for the day...too much Hello Kitty!


Day 6: October 19, 2010

After finally get a good nights sleep (almost 11 hours!), it's up and out early again to Asakusa. Bad idea to travel during the morning commute! We line up at the subway and as we're about to board the train, one of the attendent stops us and starts talking in Japanese, asking us to step aside...it took a few seconds before we realized the train we were about to board was a "Women-only" train, and Jeff wasn't allowed to board. So we hop aboard the car beside and are jammed-packed like sardines on the subway train. Finally make it to Asakusa, phew!
It's still pretty early, so we make our way to the Sinjoe Temple...Asakusa being one of the older cities of Japan..really takes you away from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo, and gives you a taste of traditional japanese town.
Thanks to our iPad, we decide to hit up "arguably the best Tempura restaurant in Tokyo". It's a small little house (and after searching for it for about 30 minutes), we find the line up outside and know we've found it. After about a 20 minute wait, we make it inside for lunch. Mmmm...tempura, it's good, but more traditional batter which tastes more traditional and less crispy like the tempura we're use to. All and all a good and very filling meal!

Next up, Ueno Park. A nice, big park in the middle of Ueno City...kinda like the Central Park of NYC.

Back to Shinjuku, we head to Omoide Yokocho (or better known as "Piss Alley") for some yakitori. Small tiny alley, with lots of restaurants serving yakitori and beer..I love Japan!