Day 3: Tokyo; goldfish art, anime district, and the zoo


 Another lovely day began with an early morning, coffee, veggie juice, and some snacks. If you told me before I came here that I would willingly eat at a convenience store everyday day, I would have rolled my eyes and said “mmm okay”…. But here I am. Happily running to family mart every morning to grab breakfast before I come back to my hostel and sit on the floor and get a bit of work done. 


After a few hours of work, I started looking into ideas of things to do today, and since it was going to be cloudy I decided to check out more of the Tokyo attractions. 


Firstly, I grabbed this delicious mandarin and whipped cream sandwich. It was divine. 






I jumped on the train and headed to Ginza, an upscale shopping district. Now, ordinarily, upscale shopping is not my thing, shopping isn’t my thing (nor do I have space for anything) and expensive shopping might be a circle of hell for me lol, but on the 9th floor of this high end shopping mall is the Art Aquarium Museum.


 The Art Aquarium Museum is an art display made up of thousands living goldfish displayed with lights and interesting tank designs. It was really gorgeous.
















 


Next I wandered around the pure chaos of the Tokyo station for a little while. Mostly people watching it was entertaining. 


The next stop over was Akihabara, the anime district. I found the whole thing pretty overwhelming. There are definitely some gems in there, but it was a bit too much for me, so I headed out shortly after wandering through a few stores. 


Next I decided to go to the zoo at Ueno park. Apparently the park, which contains a number of museums and green space in addition to the zoo, was having a festival for its 150th birthday. There were a bunch of different food carts and stalls and I ended up getting some Japanese curries. Both were delicious! 


I finally made my way to the zoo, and it was really lovely. Some good views and it was nice to walk around and see all the animals. They have a pair of twin 2 year old giant pandas! I got to see them, which was cool. Only 27 zoos in the world outside of China have pandas! And all but 4 of pandas are owned and lent out to zoos by the Chinese government. 3 in Taiwan and 1 in Mexico. 




After wandering around the zoo for a while I decided to make my way back home. I’ve gotten to the point with the trains that I don’t need to check my phone when I’m returning to my hostel, I’m able to find my way back to the trains on my own, which is nice! I even helped out a couple travelers trying to get to Shinjuku station. 


I decided to get off the stop before mine and wander through the town. It’s got an interesting shopping area with a ton of restaurants. There is a central street which is covered and a bunch of small side streets. I took a few side street and ended up at a yakatori restaurant where I ate lots of little skewers that the chef cooked up over an open grill in front of me. I also got a plum wine mixed with soda water for a light drink and it was delicious. I ended up chatting with a Boston guy who was also there on travels. 




I then headed back to my hostel to repack all my stuff, pet the dog, and rest my feet after a lot of walking these last 3 days. Tomorrow I head out of Tokyo for a few days. 




 

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