Day 5: Tkoyo (part 1)

Sorry I forgot to talk about yesterday and a lot has happened since then so please forgive me if my memory is patchy.

Yesterday we decided to go to Asakusa, because Shara and I hadn't been and it looked like it might have some exciting things. We got out of the subway station and were immediately confronted by a giant panda hell yeah:


We are doing that pose because we once saw an elderly man do it while posing for a photo and it was amusing to us. Anyway we first went to Senso-ji because Lyndal had yet to see a temple. While we were looking at the map on the street trying to plan our trip a man came up to us and asked us if we wanted directions. We told him what we wanted to do and he gave us very detailed help. We thanked him and gave him a Caramello Koala that Lyndal had brought with her for just such an occasion. He initially refused but we insisted and he got really excited and said "thank you! It is so rare!" which was good.

Anyway here are some photos of a temple (Shara wanted me to point out that she hasn't fixed things in Photoshop yet):






While Shara was taking that last photo she got stuck in a river of elderly Japanese people. It was a very slow-moving river.

These people walk very slowly

Fortunez

Shara and Lyndal got their fortune at the temple (they both got "regular" fortunes which is better than a bad fortune I guess?) and while they were doing that some old Japanese dude came up to us and spent 5 minutes asking us English Conversation 101 questions. After he ran out of english to ask us he took his photo with us and left.

This woman is a taily

ilu vending machines

This guy is everywhere

Thoughtful Lyndal is thoughtful

After we had a look around the temple we wandered through Asakusa looking for Kappabashi-dori. On the way there we walked past a porn theatre which just had a bunch of pictures of nude ladies out the front which was weird to us (NSFW obviously). Next door were these clown figures:




The entrance to Kappabashi-dori had many streamers for some reason, maybe to differentiate it from the streets with brothels and porno theatres for the tourists.

Lyndal waves to Japan

The purpose of Kappabashi-dori is to house many different shops that sell supplies to people who own or wish to own diners. There were heaps of stores selling knives, bowls, cooking equipment, LED signs, and what we were there for, fake food. Almost all Japanese diners and restaurants have a bunch of shelves of fake food in the front window, showing people what they can order and how much it costs. This all gets sold in Kappabashi-dori. Unfortunately because it is being sold to businesses it is all mega-expensive, so we couldn't buy anything :( It looked amazing though!

This fake beer is very cold (it is not very cold)

On our way back to the station we found our first ever Japanese supermarket! This was very exciting to us because up until then we had only ever been into the convenience stores that populate the cities. Here are some exciting products you can buy from a Japanese supermarket:

This watermelon was like $30

After this we went to Ginza for a look around and some more stuff happened, but it is late and everyone else has gone to bed so that will have to wait until tomorrow.