We are back. Actually been back about an hour I would guess. 10:45pm and 45F and it was sprinkling lightly as we walked from the station to the hotel.
I left about an hour after the family. I left the room about 45 min after they did but had to wait at the front desk. Amazon had delivered a package I had had sent to us here and I wanted to pick it up — some show inserts for the daughter. The front desk had 2 people working it and a line so I had to wait a bit. At first I waited at the Bell Captain desk about 5-7 minutes but no one showed up so I went to the front desk.
I caught up to the family at the kimono rental place In Asakusa. We were there another while as they finished up getting fitted. My sons was done when I got there but the daughter was having the hair style upgrade being done. It turned out really nice. It appears to be common to rent kimonos for special occasions or for fun and there were a lot of women and a few men walking around in kimonos. No on bats an eye. They also had the getta shoes (my sons were wooden sandals, the daughters a better material.
We wandered around Asakusa and went to the temple area large gates, the temple, etc. All around the temple is a shopping district with little stalls and then further out special old style shopping streets with restaurants, various vendors, etc.
We spent several hours walking around these streets (and past to a “mall” where the daughter and wife found some clothes on sale (of course) — I kept looking for the “man benches” but they didn’t have any — they’d probably sell more stuff if they had a place for the dudes to sit while the wives and GFs shop since the stores were basically a girl stores like clothes and perfume and handbags.
My daughter did find another game arcade with the prize machines (claw and other similar machines). They ended up with several prizes.
Here are the prizes from the last two days of claw machines (blanket included).
Finally we had to return the Kimono so we went back and did that and then took a train two stops to the Tokyo Skytree, which is the 3rd. Tallest structure in the world and is the tallest TV tower. It as a lower observation deck at 350 m (actually 3 stories from 340m-350m but you Start at 350m I think and then have to go down two levels to go back down on a different elevator). There is also a smaller observation deck at 450m that costs extra and you have to get on a different elevator at the lower observation deck. We were there 9 years ago during the day and went to the 350m one. This time it was dark and we did the combo 350+450. To be honest, at least in the dark, it didn’t look that much different than the 350m deck’s view. In fact being up that high and looking out and down was a lot less “scary” and “woozy”-inducing than the last time we were there during the day. Maybe your eyes pick up fewer clues to the height even though you see small buildings and stuff below you.
There was also a glass flour at the 340m level. I had no problem walking out on it and usually I don’t like those and have to force myself. That and the whole tower was an interesting experience.
After we went down we went to the food court in the shopping center that is part of and around the base of the Skytree — partly underground. I had a Yaki Niku beef rice bowl. It had a barely boiled egg on top and was thinly sliced and Japanese BBQ grilled beef over rice, the egg, and a small amount of Kimchi, Asian style spinach (which is awesome), and some daikon radish. I also had a “Calpis Soda”, which is a good milk based soda — hard to describe but it is really good. The son had ramen and some gyoza (Japanese pot stickers), the daughter just a ton of gyoza, and the wife some Japanese Udon (thick chewy noodles in broth) and some gyoza. Gyoza are common with Ramen.
Then we took the train home to the hotel.
I bought 3 more gachapon (the capsule toys) for my desk toy collection. I got one at the Skytree (the Skytree model, which lights up but I didn’t want to pull the battery tab on yet so I had to hold it down for the pic as the tab was pushing it up and over). The other two (a model of a modular shower) and the pig god thing with the unicorn horn at Asakusa.
And to make this a train post, here are the three Toei Subway “Asakusa Line” trains I took today there and back. Toei is a private rail operator that helps by running some lines of the subway system.
