Day 3

Today, after experimenting probably our first ever actually significant earthquake, we were off to get some culture. We were originally planning on making a trip to the Ueno Zoo to see a panda bear, but were a bit animaled out from yesterday. The subway was incredibly busy for 8:30 on a Saturday morning - we were surprised.

We went to Asakusa, in the north east of area of Tokyo. It has the famous Senso-ji Temple (aka Sensi) and an area that is supposed to have some great shops. So far this trip, we have seen a handful of non-Japanese people, most likely because we haven't yet hit the tourist areas. Asakusa was packed! There were also lots of tours from China, the Philippines, etc. One group was on a panda bus (it seriously looked like a panda complete with a tail in the back of the bus!) Anyhow, the temple was such a tourist trap. We only made it half-way inside the temple (there was a sign saying there was so event in it) and while it looked cool, there were walls of people. They were also selling anything you could think of for the temple - good luck wishes, blessed items and incense. The shopping area was pretty pricey, so we got out of there. Did I forget to mention that it was also hot as blazes outside and we were baking in the sun?

We cleared out and headed for the Ueno area to see the oldest "flea market" area called Ameyoko Dori.  It was interesting to walk around - especially to see all of the food items. Although a few of the vendors were selling fish and it was pretty stinky. There was a really cool toy store right outside the train station and Dave of course needed to go in. They had probably 30 gauchapon machines. They're basically capsule toy machines where you try to collect the set. The thing is - some of them are really weird. Here are a few of my cute finds.

We left the market area to see the Giants Baseball game at 2 pm. I was relieved to know that it was in a dome and not outside where I could bake further! The Japanese take their baseball very seriously. It felt like a college football game where there was an away section (dressed in blue) and then the home team (dressed in orange). The blue team even brought in their own instruments - there was at the least some type of bass/tuba. The concession stands were reasonably priced (except for water), with beer running at about 550-650 yen (about $5). The beer girls in the stands had a keg strapped to their backs and there were flying up and down the stairs to sell their beer. I was tired just watching at them.

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Speaking of tired, I fell asleep in the middle of this post, so here we are again in the morning!

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Everyone was very into the game with songs and chants. They went crazy over anything. Your pitcher threw a strike - cheer. One hit - crazy cheering. Two hits in a row - rally towels! The game started out with the Yokohoma Baystars getting one run in the the first and one in the second, so they pulled the pitched in the second inning. The Giants caught up later though with a 3-run homer by Leslie Anderson (not exactly Japanese!) and we left in the 8th with the Giants leading 6 to 2. The seventh inning stretch was just a few cheerleaders out there, so nothing too exciting.

While there, we bought some bento boxes for lunch all shaped like baseballs or the Tokyo Dome. We're not entirely sure what we ate, but it tasted good enough. We also bought a few souveniors in the form of rally towels. We became a house divided with Dave supporting the Giants, who have a large bunny called Giabbit (Giant-Rabbit - get it?) as their mascot and me supporting the Baystars who have a kitty with a star on its face as a mascot. Not sure of its name though.

The kid sitting next to me at the game, who was maybe 16ish, was singing every single chant and song. Dave had to record it though because it was pretty funny and he had a voice completely lacking of bass. The men around here from what I've seen don't mind having feminine qualities (which is odd for a male dominated society) and I feel like a giant. Not just height, because I'm not the tallest, but I probably outweigh everyone by 50 pounds.

We left the game a bit early to avoid the traffic getting out of there and found our first Daiso 100 yen store. It was pretty tiny but we picked up a few things. Going to hit the Daiso  in Harajuku today which is supposed to be huge.

We went back to the Ameyo dori area to see if we missed anything. It was probably about dusk and the environment had changed. There were now a ton of Jamaicans out there hawking goods and being super aggressive. We got out of there and went back to near our hotel and hit up a sushi conveyor belt place. It was cute how when you ordered food it came to you on a little tray. The sushi was OK, nothing exciting, but not sure how good this place is overall. Maybe one of these nights we'll find a good dinner! Then we came back for much deserved showers (man, it was hot out) and as I mentioned before, I pretty much passed out by 10.