Very impressive panorama!

 

So. Much. Walking. But it seems like we’re seeing different neighborhoods and pockets of Tokyo each day which has been so nice! 

I also feel like y’all can tell who writes each post pretty quickly lol. Chris is WAY more eloquent and an actual writer, whereas I just word vomit.

As you can tell from Chris’ last post, he’s been up since 3AM and me since 5AM; so jet lag is winning 2 to 0 right now. Most difficult thing I would say about these early starts is finding coffee and food in the morning. That’s been enough motivation for me to really work on adjusting to the time change. 

Ended up finding a cute coffee shop (ran in as soon as they opened at 7:30) and chilled there for a bit until a nearby breakfast spot opened. Once we were fueled, we made our way to the Zojo-ji Buddhist temple in Shiba Park - a still-active temple in the heart of the city. The square of the temple was preparing for the New Years holiday, which is very auspicious and a time of reflection here vs party central back home. Also in the square, we saw 2 trees planted by former US Presidents (Grant and HW Bush) when they visited the sacred grounds. The inside was emaculate and beautiful with the black-stoned Buddha and gold plated accessories. 

Checking off more touristy things on the list, we also explored Tokyo Tower! It’s double the height of the Eiffel Tower and painted red and white as a safety for air traffic. It used to be the height of the skyline in Tokyo, but now there are plenty of skyscrapers and another tower (Sky Tree) that exceed the Tokyo Tower. Either way, it’s still pretty iconic 😊🗼. You are able to go to the highest deck of this tower which we did for the views, and they definitely didn’t disappoint. I would imagine it’s even more of a sight to behold at night, but still breathtaking.

Being 250m high must have kicked up our appetite because we proceeded to devour some of the best spicy ramen I’ve had. I told Chris that meal is what my dreams will be made of for the next while 😋 .

We then did some tax free shopping in Ginza which has every store you can imagine, and FaceTimed our friend Sirage to geek out over some Japanese craftsmanship. Miss you, friend! 

Guess I should score jet lag 3 to 0 because we ended up taking a pretty sizable nap at around 5PM and woke up just in time for dinner. We decided not to venture too far and wound up at an Italian joint that was…not our cup of caffé to say the least. But oh well, not everything can be a hit. Ended with some whiskey and sake and calling it a hopefully slumber-filled night. Another long day tomorrow!