Last Saturday we took advantage of the cheap tickets United Airlines was offering from Seoul to Tokyo and flew to Tokyo to spend a few days in Japan. The flight was around 2 hours and thankfully Japan and Korea are in the same time zone. When we arrived at Narita International airport we first stopped by the tourist information desk to get what they had. We were given a very helpful pamphlet with a map of the train/metro stations in both English and Japanese. That was by far the most helpful thing we had since we had to travel by train/metro several times a day. We then took the Skyliner from Narita to the Ueno neighborhood of Tokyo. It took about an hour and was one of the quickest ways to get from the airport to our hotel. Here are a couple of pictures from the train.
I had planned the 4 day itinerary and it was packed full of things to do. Maybe too many things to do. We were supposed to go to the Tokyo National Museum and Tosho-gu shrine before 5:30 pm. At least I thought we had until 5:30. By the time we checked into our hotel it was around 5:00 pm, so Ben and I walked quickly (maybe even slowly jogged) our way to the shrine since the museum closed at 5:00 pm. Unfortunately the shrine closed at 4:30 pm so I was an hour off. We did get to see the outside though. It was built in 1651 and survived all of Tokyo's disasters.
We then walked to the Saigo Takamori statue
and a little bit around the Ueno-park.
We were lucky to see one of the cherry blossom tress blooming early.
I love cherry blossoms. It reminds me of Macon, which of course got it's trees from Japan. We were both pretty hungry so we headed to Izuei a place that specialized in eel grilled on charcoal.
I had planned the 4 day itinerary and it was packed full of things to do. Maybe too many things to do. We were supposed to go to the Tokyo National Museum and Tosho-gu shrine before 5:30 pm. At least I thought we had until 5:30. By the time we checked into our hotel it was around 5:00 pm, so Ben and I walked quickly (maybe even slowly jogged) our way to the shrine since the museum closed at 5:00 pm. Unfortunately the shrine closed at 4:30 pm so I was an hour off. We did get to see the outside though. It was built in 1651 and survived all of Tokyo's disasters.
We then walked to the Saigo Takamori statue
and a little bit around the Ueno-park.
We were lucky to see one of the cherry blossom tress blooming early. 
I love cherry blossoms. It reminds me of Macon, which of course got it's trees from Japan. We were both pretty hungry so we headed to Izuei a place that specialized in eel grilled on charcoal.
I had never really been interested in eating eel before, but it sounded good so we tried it. It was actually pretty good. We also had some warm sake, tempura, rice and soup. After dinner we walked around the area a little bit which included an outdoor market of sorts. A lot of karaoke and pachinco (like slots but with pinballs) places. After walking around we went back to the hotel to sleep. We knew it was going to be an early morning. We had a good view of the park from our hotel and were happy to look out onto the Tokyo lights.
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment