It's Chinese New Year break and here we are freezing our tushes off at the Dalian Airport. Sidney is off to Mexico to meet up with family and San Francisco to hire new teachers at the job fair, and Megan, Veronica and I are off to Japan! Two nights in Tokyo, two night in Kyoto (staying at a temple!), two nights in Hiroshima, and one more back in Tokyo before we head back home. We flew into Seoul, then hopped on a connecting flight to Tokyo. The flights were on time and uneventful...that's a good thing after my last flying adventure.
I'm in JAPAN!!!
Our first line of business was too meet up with Kara at the airport in Tokyo. She was on a different flight and arrived a bit later. After a wild goose chase on both our parts and two ships passing in the terminals, Kara finally found us!
There was an accident with the express train we needed to take into Tokyo from the airport, so we ended up taking the subway into town instead.
Once in downtown Tokyo, we hired a taxi to take us to our first destination... the Weekly Dormy Inn which became our home for the next two nights. It's a hostel, but we had our own sweet little rooms with all the amenities our little hearts could desire, plus our own bathrooms. It was located near Nakameguro Subway Station that took us into downtown Tokyo within minutes. Our first order of business was to go to Shibuya Station and see the sights. Shibuya is famous for its fashionable shopping district, a multitude of restaurants, Karaoke establishments and the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world.
Walking from the hostel to the subway, we found this little sushi devil...
Shibuya Station...our first destination!
Big city. Bright lights. We're in Tokyo, Japan!
Shibuya is famous for its scrambled pedestrian crossing. It is located in front of the Shibuya Station and cars are stopped in all directions to allow pedestrians to inundate the entire intersection. It truly is a sight to see a huge mass of people coming from all different directions and fill up this massive intersection in seconds.
Kimberly and Veronica
Streets of Shibuya.
Shibuya 109 is a massive shopping center. The Shibuya is a shoppers paradise with any store imaginable, but I have never seen items so expensive in all my travels! A plain, nothing fancy hoody sweatshirt with Tokyo written on it was 25,000 yen!!! Whew! Too steep for this teacher!
Megan and Kara going wild in Shibuya Crossing.
Veronica, Megan and Kara having a blast in the middle of the intersection.
A Japanese frog just for you, Christiane!
Back on the subway on a line we thought would take us back to our hotel...nope! We ended up hiring a taxi and as we climbed in, we all realized that not one of us well seasoned travelers had the sense to take the hotel address or phone number with us! We were working from memory, telling the taxi driver where we thought he should go, but ended up getting lost and going way out of our way. With the help of a local phone book at a gas station and Megan's video from when we arrived at the hotel, the driver was actually able to piece it all together and lead us back to the hotel, but not until the meter read over 5,ooo yen! Yikes, that was an expensive lesson for us all to learn...carry directions or at least a phone number of where you are staying!
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