(Day 6) I want to live like animals.

It appeared as though another lovely day was upon us. As you might have guessed by now, any day in Japan is lovely day as far as I’m concerned, but this one was rain-free, so we were determined to make the best of it. We boarded the Yamanote line train with no specific destination in mind and when the train reached Ueno, I grabbed Mother and off we went. Immediately beside the station was the expansive and attraction-filled Ueno Park, so in we wandered.




Doraemon!

The first place we happened upon was the Ueno Zoo; since this was on my list of things I wanted to see, I decided there was no time like the present. 600 yen into the ticket machine and here we go. Let’s see animal! (I left out the “s” on purpose to sound more Japanese.)



Unfortunately, the Giant Panda died in April so there was no chance of seeing one of those. We did, however, get to see the red pandas, who were sufficiently cute.




Falcon? Eh, I should remember.


Vulture


Lion


Gibbon


Hee hee! Cute.


More Gibbons.


Growl! Actually, he was quite silent. A tiger.


Gorilla


Just chillin’.


An Erin. People sometimes said I belonged in a zoo.


Penguin. Lil’ friend.


Polar Bear – I think he was a bit cranky because it was uber-hot.


Brown bears


Fighting brown bears


Elephant, surrounded by his poop.




The mountain housing the adorable Japanese Macaques. I took many pictures of these little friends.










These guys had many fans. There were two of them scrapping so it was an interesting display of their characters. I couldn’t stop having my own commentary, so Mother got an earful. Aw, chuu!


A view of Ueno from the zoo.


Giant Anteater

We then stopped at the Shinobazu Pond terrace and had some lunch. I kept having to fight off a bee who seemed extremely interested in my digestive pills and yakisoba. Eeek! I hate bees.


’Delicious! Snack Box’ indeed.


Zebra



Pygmy Hippopotamus


Rhinoceros


Giraffe


I think this is a komodo dragon…


Big, ugly snake


Turtle


Flamingos


I think you can see what these are…hee hee!

After staring a the animals and battling the seas of elementary school children in their adorable little hats, we headed out past the obligatory pagoda and onto our next stop further down the line, Akihabara.





If any of you are familiar with Akihabara (or ‘Akiba’ for the real fans), you are probably what I would call an ‘otaku’ or nerd. The reason I say this, is because Akihabara is also known as ‘Electric Town’ and features an innumerable amount of electronics stores and anime shops. When I stepped out of the train station, I was greeted by the sight of white dudes in groups of two or three, clutching shopping bags, walking down the street with their unkempt facial hair and XXL anime tshirts blowing in the wind. Whatta sight to imagine, ne? Actually, there were some guys who were facial-hair-less and wearing cheap leather jackets, but I digress. If this is the place in the world where they can go to feel cool, then by all means, go nuts.











If you’ve been to Japan, you also may have heard of the largest electronics store one can possibly imagine on the face of planet earth, Yodobashi Camera. This store is a behemoth, consisting of about 10 floors selling goods beyond what would ever normally be in an electronics store – Louis Vuitton handbags anyone? Yodobashi Akiba is approximately the size of a small football stadium.



We were to meet Mayuko in Shinjuku for karaoke at 5:00, so we made our way there and enjoyment was had by all for our first Japanese karaoke experience for the trip.



Our tummy’s empty from the energy exerted during karaoke, we made our way to Lumine’s restaurant floor and I finally got to eat my long-awaited kake-soba.



We shopped at Lumine for a while before heading out onto the streets of Shinjuku to see where our fancy would take us.





Since Mayuko is the Queen of going to cafes, once the stores closed, it was time for just that. Back into Lumine, we found a lovely little café overlooking the street below.


This is a marron cream dessert. I was unaware that such a thing existed, but it was pretty, so I ordered it. Yeah…it certainly looks better than it tastes. Oh well.


Mayuko and Mother, concentrating hard on their desserts.

After dessert, we bid goodnight and headed back to Ikebukuro. We made our nightly stops to Family Mart and am pm. I stayed out for a while and absorbed the sights and sounds since our time in Ikebukuro was coming to a close shortly.



I decided to go out on a limb and bought some hot fire devil chips (as I call them) and they certainly turned out to be some strange kind of hot.



Everyday is such an exploration. Tomorrow is Mother’s last full day in Tokyo, so we will do our best to cover more ground and show her a good time, ne?