Shinto, Sake, and Skytree

Another 2 days. Another 40,000 steps. My feet be achin'. We've covered a lot of ground. It's been so fun to pick a district of the city and wander. You pop out of the train station and see some interesting food. That then leads you to a fun shop. Which begets another. Then you stumble upon one of the cities many parks and shrines. We're a week in and it feels we've barely scratched the surface. Thankfully, I can confidently say we'll be back. 

Two evenings ago, we had dinner at the Spice Lab in the famous Ginza district. Situated on the 10th floor, it served as wonderful vantage point to witness the hustle of our surroundings and gaze at the amount of ground we'd covered that day. The views were upstaged only by the food. Serving Indian cuisine with a Japanese twist made for a delightfully unique experience. Did you know that oxtail pairs well with Biryani? You do now.

Another highlight came serendipitously when we stumbled upon a multi-story arcade in Akihabara. In addition to a multitude of claw machines, they had some of the most insane games I'd ever seen. DDR ain't got nothing on these. They know exactly what they're doing with those claw machines because I blew more yen than I care to admit trying to grab a Mario Kart Bowser that seemed just within reach. 

Before that, we did some shopping at the famous Don Quijote. This places sells anything you could possibly hope to buy in Japan 24 hours / day. I even stumbled upon a box of Oreo O's. A breakfast cereal I loved as a kid that I had thought went extinct. Alas, I decided not to become a diabetic on this trip. Sorry old friend. 

We visited the Meiji Jingu shrine yesterday. It's been interesting to learn more about Shintoism - a religion with no founder and no holy book. From my limited understanding, the religion doesn't seem to "require" anything of its followers in the way the Abrahamic religions do. There's no weekly services, mandatory prayers, restrictions on diet, etc. Seems like a pretty good deal if you're shopping for doctrines. It's common for its followers to gather at the shrines during the new year, so I'm glad we beat that rush.

Last night, we visited the Tokyo Skytree. This tower often overshadows the Tokyo Tower now both for being more modern and for being significantly taller. Given that we went up the Tokyo Tower in the afternoon, we wanted to see the views from the Skytree at night. While the views were absolutely stunning, the amount of people they let up at once was insane. Glad we checked the box because I don't see myself doing that again.

Speaking of large swathes of people, we're going to Disneyland Tokyo tomorrow. This wasn't remotely on our itinerary when we landed here, but with many things likely to be shut down for the New Year holiday, and it being surprisingly affordable, we decided to go for it. I hear they have a Beauty & the Beast ride that's awesome. 

We closed our time last night by sipping some sake and soaking in the views of the city. Perfect way to unwind after another stimulating day. Kanpai 🥂