jennajapan-facebook-login

So then we went to Ikebukuro. We went in Bookoff and Tokyu Hands. For lunch we went to Shakey's which is an "American" pizza place. We had the viking, which is what a buffet is called in Japan. They had some pizza that you wouldn't typically find in America (like squid pizza and corn pizza), but others wouldn't be surprising in America (like vegetable pizza). My favorite was the strawberry Orea marshmallow pizza. It's on the left in the picture below.


Next, we went to a karaoke place in Ikebukuro. The lights in the room were a lot of fun! :)


After finishing karaoke, we headed for Shinjuku to go to the skyscraper district. In Shinjuku we stopped at a McDonald's for coffee. It was neat because the counter was outside!


We wandered around a bit and found some neat plazas and lights.




Our destination was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. It has really neat architecture and looks strange without other tall buildings behind it.


The observatory had short hours that day so it was already closed (we figured it would be), but we still enjoyed walking around the outside of the building.

The next morning Lauren had to leave. :( I went with her to Tokyo Station. The Narita Express is expensive though so she went to the airport by herself.



After saying goodbye, I went to Yoyogi Park. It was very interesting. It used by many people to exercise and practice various things. There were a lot of trees and open fields. In the shaded areas there were many exercise classes, singing groups, and drama groups. One drama group was acting out something that made me feel like I was watching a cheesy romance drama on TV. It was really funny. I also saw a guy playing a ukulele.


There were a TON of runners. Many of them were running as teams. It's hard to see in this picture, but those two guys are holding onto a loop and are running together.




As I was leaving the park I saw a sign for Meiji Shrine and decided to visit. There were a bunch of people heading there. It seemed like some sort of event was going on. A lot of the older women were dressed in sparkly outfits and had cat ears and face paint. I wish I had a picture of them up close, but here's a picture of the back of three of them. They didn't even have the cat ears like the rest of them though. :(


I don't know why they were dressed like they were, but at the shrine was a dance festival! I love how in Japan sometimes I just have to follow a crowd to find something exciting! I never know what I am going to find next.


My camera was almost dead and the memory card was almost full, so I couldn't take much video, but I still managed to take a few short clips. I edited them into one video. It's my first time ever doing anything like this and I didn't really put a lot of time into it, but it's more convenient for you to watch this way. I don't like the way the title screens look or the way the beginning/ending music sounds with the music from the dances. Oh well...