Tokyo tower

Today's first thing of note was distinct shake I felt soon after opening my eyes. What was that I wonder? If it was earthquake it had to be real small as it was just one shake. What else could make the apartment shake like that I wonder.

Anyway after raising up I decided to head toward the tokyo tower so after google-mapping the location and checking train schedule from the blessed hyperdia off I was. I had noticed there's also Zojoji shrine(and I can't pronounce that name. Zo and jo sounds awfully same pronounced by me so it sounds like zozozi ;D) nearby along with some sort of park which I figured I would go as well.

Temperature's been steadily climbing up lately and today was actually bit warmer than I prefer on the way. Maybe I should ditch the outer shirt? T-shirt and jacket is probably enough for me. Looks like it breaks 20 degree on Sunday though drops again next day.

This location at least was easy to find! Drop of the train, walk bit forward, turn left and there's this frigging huge tower ahead. The place is tad longer than the Eifel tower it was based on so it was pretty easy to find ;) The Zojoji shrine was pretty much between station and the tower though so that was first place to visit.

(You can see the Tokyo tower at the background)

I have no idea what these are except they are pretty cute actually :D There was occasional sprouts of wind that made the wheels spin real hard. There was LOTS of this statues.

Front of the tower was some sort of memorial for some dogs. I found the ones on 2nd picture particulary funny ;)

Tower itself had 2 levels to view. Main floor about and then special observatory platform for even higher. I got combo set that gave access to them both. First with elevator to the lower one though still well over 100 meter off the ground. The view there was pretty good already though unfortunately horizon wasn't clear which was kinda bummer. On clear day I'm told you can see mount Fuji from here...

Then it was time to head even higher! This one was 250m off the ground. First few stairways up and then rest on elevator.

I remembered my camera has panorama feature as well. Not sure how well these show up though.

There was small windows looking straight DOWN. Have to say it did make me feel bit nauseous looking down like this :D

By now good time for lunch for which I picked something called "katsu curry-rice".

Japanese are excelent at flattering people. I finish meal, nod to the salesclerk and say "arigatou gozaimashita" and got in return "nihongo ga jouzu ka wakarinakute gomen nasai" roughly translated "sorry, didn't know your japanese is good". Seeing all I said was "thank you very much" that's bit exaggeration :)

With Tokyo tower seen goals of day almost achieved. Just the Hamarikyu park to visit. On my way I accidentally ran into small Italian park with pretty colourful and marble statues. Mostly scantily clad woman but one bearded men which seems bit random. I could understand better if there were more but 1 out of 12 or so seems...Well random! Maybe there's some ancient legend or something behind it. Or it's just random :D

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TheHamarikyu park itself was only short walk from here. Superbly peaceful park with some old fashioned Japanese architecture. The place seems to have been used as hunting areas and place where shogunate members welcomed important visitors in the past. Pretty big place and couldn't actually see it all before closing time arrived.

Around this time my camera's battery ran out! Argh! Luckily I had just seen place that looked a lot like one that sells drinks etc and figured this being place visitors are likely to use lots of camera maybe they have some AA batteries on sale as well. They did so I could continue taking pictures.

There was some mound or something from whose top I took some more pictures(including panorama ones). I also found cute little cat. Wonder what it was doing here? Pretty sure I saw no pets sign somewhere...

Now what this is I have NO idea whatsoever! Couldn't find any text that might explain it nor was anybody visible.

Then I headed toward exit gate as there was another part of the park I could go from there. On my way nice cool forest. With today's temperature it felt blessedly cool there.

Based on text below the stature I figured this is some sort of mythical god of war from Japanese folk lores.

Unfortunately by now closing time announcement came so had to leave. On my way I noticed one of these little bit of details that look normal but on closer inspection are still different. Green light on left...In Finland that would be on right.

I had plan to go to play little bit of go but night was still young and since I was so close I figured I would stop by Akihabara again. I visited this place briefly on the first day on the search of power adapter but now I wanted to see the famous "nerd side" of the place. Well I sure found it. Right of the bat walking out of the station I couldn't help but to avoid AKB48 cafe. For those who have not even heard of it AKB48 is ridiculously popular all-girl J-pop band. There's almost _100_ members varying in age from 14 to 24 top of my head. They are based on Akihabara and actually only perform there that I know of. It's basically idol factory with new girls coming in steadily and old ones graduating. And they sell like ice water in Sahara with easily million copies per single sold. Other big sellers that I know of are selling like 100k copies...

One example from their songs found from youtube.

Anyway this being Akihabara and with above mentioned in mind it was hardly surprising you could hardly turn around without seeing some sort of AKB48 related store. There was obviously also tons of other idol-stores, manga stores, anime stores, tons of adverts, one adult cloth store, J-pop was sounding everywhere(probably many of them AKB48 songs). There seemed to be even store dedicated to Hakuna Miku or however the vocaloid(computere generated singer basically). And you could hardly walk 100 meters without running into bunch of cute girls in maid costumes inviting people to another maid cafe. Sensory overload case extraordinary! And I read somewhere the place was even more nuts before the case of guy randomly stabbing bunch of people with knives. Holy smoke.

Well I know where to buy the one piece souvenirs I was asked to buy! If I can't find them here I can't find them anywhere!

With this I was so exhausted I called it day except for the trip to the go salon. Less crowded than usual which I found bit strange seeing it's Friday. But for first time I saw young people(usually the people playing in either salon are like 50+ old men and women) as there were 2 young girls playing together on one corner. I played 2 games against person I hadn't met yet here before(change of pace. Previous two times here I played vs same guy. Think he's the owner?). First with 9 handicap stones which I won(yey), then with 8 and this I lost. Might have been able to win but screwed royally on the upper left resulting in lots of stones being killed. Still again fun time. 1-1 is not half bad result though obviously getting full 9 handicaps was help :)

Then just straight to home. Picked some onigiri's(?) to eat at home. At least they were triangle shaped rice packs with some filling inside. Think other was some sort of fish by the taste of it.

Tomorrow probably will be taking another day mostly off. Blisters(?) still not fully healed and next week will be very busy. Maybe prep the schedules and maps for the trips.