Every year when the leaves change color, there is a crysanthemum festival at Hirosaki Castle. We went this year! The castle itself was.. small. Not like European castles at all. However, the area around was truly grand. At night, there was a 3D dragon and bird sculpture that was lit up to animate it and make it look like it was moving.
Our local mall has a Pokémon Center Pop Up shop for the one month only. Naturally, it’s the most popular store in the whole mall. Pokémon is big in America, no doubt, but it’s hard to express just how big Pokémon is here.
On our last day in Tokyo we went to TeamLab Planets, an interactive art exhibit that is just really cool. There’s no way to describe it well or capture it on video, so you’ll just have to come see it.
According to their website:
“Together with Others, Immerse your Entire Body, Perceive with your Body, and Become One with the World
teamLab Planets is a museum where you walk through water, and a garden where you become one with the flowers. It comprises 4 large-scale artwork spaces and 2 gardens created by art collective teamLab.
People go barefoot and immerse their entire bodies in the vast artworks together with others. The artworks change under the presence of people, blurring the perception of boundaries between the self and the works. Other people also create change in the artworks, blurring the boundaries between themselves and the works, and creating a continuity between the self, the art, and others.”
Neither of us are big into art but I’ve gotta say this exhibit was actually really cool.
After some last minute Tokyo food, subway confusion, and Pokémon Go playing, it was time to head home to Misawa. When we arrived it was in the 40s to 50s and it has already snowed north of us in nearby Hokkaido prefecture. Time to get out the coats!
Disney! This was the highlight of the trip for sure. We went to Tokyo Disneyland, which is akin to Orlando’s Disney World Magic Kingdom. One major difference was the Beauty and the Beast ride however which is a Japan exclusive. Another big difference is that popcorn is huge here! We tried berry cheesecake and matcha white chocolate but there was also soy sauce flavor, salted, and a couple other flavors. The lines were so long though so we just got to try the two this time and they were both really delicious. Since it was Halloween, they completely redid the Haunted Mansion to a Nightmare Before Christmas theme which was really incredible to see. Also, we got to see the Spooky Boo Parade (equal parts spooky and cute) which only takes place this time of year, as well as the Electrical Parade which I miss in Orlando Disney World since it stopped when I was a kid. Luckily Leanne got to experience this magic from my childhood.
Today was all about checking out all the different neighborhoods of Tokyo.
After checking out Shinjuku which has high end fashion, shopping, business, and most importantly Disney and Samsung stores, we went to Harajuku and Takeshita Street. Here we ate matcha tiramisu crepes and went to a puppy café! A café, filled with puppies, that you can play with and feed! Leanne had a lot of fun here.
The other best part of Shinjuku was the Samsung Galaxy store.. no, I should say experience, in Shinjuku. This 6 story building is filled not only with all the latest models of Samsung phone/watch gadgets, but also tons of interactive areas including one room where you can interact with dinosaurs! Dinosaurs are all throughout the walls and you can send arrows from your Galaxy phone to catch them. Once caught you can release them back to the “wild.” The experience was actually really cool!
After all this, we went to our Disney hotel because tomorrow is a big day. Tomorrow is Disneyland Tokyo.
This is my second time in Tokyo and Leanne’s first time. I wanted her to have the same amazing experience I had 11 years ago. I didn’t realize it would end up being a new experience for me too!
We started in Asakusa which has the big temple Senso-ji that is one of the most visited temples in Japan. There were tons of vendors outside with great street food.
Video: Leanne getting a fortune in front of the Senso-ji temple.
After this we went to Ueno Park, a refuge from the crazy cityness of Tokyo.
In front of the reflection pool in Ueno.
In Ueno park there was a 150 year celebration of.. something (my Japanese is still coming along), and there were lots of stands for environmental protection. And since Japan is so cute, there were also panda stuff everywhere.
In the evening after going to Akihabara electric city, we went to Shibuya scramble crossing. According to Wikipedia: “Shibuya Crossing is the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing, with as many as 3,000 people crossing at a time.” So many people, holy moly!
Our hotel is in Shinjuku area (that blue tower straight ahead in the next pic). So much still to see and do but we have to sleep sometime!
We took a tour about 3 hours from home to the Ryuseendo Caves. This cave system is a limestone cave, of which 3100 meters have been explored (the cave is believed to be about 5000 meters total). We got to see a lot of it, and saw the deep, super clear underground lakes (up to 98 meters deep!), stalactites, and stalagmites. We didn’t see a bat in the cave even though we really looked, but we ended up seeing a bat in another close by much smaller cave.
Right outside the cave is beautiful nature of Japan which we walked around.
After spelunking, we went to an amber museum and made amber jewelry. Amber is from tree sap up to 85 million years ago. One of the biggest mining sites for amber is here where we made the jewelery in Japan.
Can you believe that one hour from our house, in a no name town in Japan, is a completely Pokémon themed playground?? Pikachu benches, Geodude swings, climb an Onyx, ride a Tyrunt! Can’t wait to bring my kiddo here one day!
Nara is about an hour from Kyoto so we made a day trip there today. Though there is a massive number of UNESCO World Heritage sights as well as many national treasures, we were more interested in the polite deer! Since these are Japanese deer, they will bow when you bow. There are so many deer and they are so friendly.
After our day trip to Nara, we went back to Osaka to catch the sunset at the Umeda Sky Building. We went about 425 ft high where we saw the sun setting behind the mountains on the Osaka skyline.
We stayed until the evening and watched all the lights light up the city.
The view was beyond spectacular. We could not believe how big Osaka is, and how it sprawls in every direction for as far as the eye can see.
After this we had a big dinner and then went shopping at the Osaka Station.
At night we went to the onsen in our hotel to rejuvenate and relax.
This morning we went to Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, walking through all 10,000 torii gates to get to the top of the mountain. My feet hurt by the end of it!
Kyoto, though it seems small wherever you are, is actually massive with so many different areas. Japan is a land of contradictions. You can be in a serene quiet temple, walk two blocks and you’re in the heart of Downtown hustle-and-bustle Kyoto. You can be in Gion district and see a giesha and walk a little further and be in a Studio Ghibli store. Which is exactly what happened!
