Last Night in Japan!

June 3, 2014

This may have been the perfect night, and it was definitely the perfect capstone to my 3 weeks here in Japan. A picnic, crosswalk, amusement park, beach, giant robot, and a ferris wheel. All in one day! Gah. I love Tokyo.

In the morning we took the bullet train, once again, back to Tokyo, my favorite city of those I’ve visited in Japan, and one of my favorites of all time. 

Once we’d arrived and moved back in to our hotel rooms, Mary, Viet, Kirby, and I headed to Subway to get sandwiched to-go for our picnic!
It was a really nice day in Tokyo, and we took our lunches to a park at the foot of Tokyo Tower, near our hotel. 

We ate and played in the park, enjoying one another’s company and the beauty of our surroundings. 

When we’d finished eating, we headed to explore the tower more closely. Tokyo Tower looks a lot like the Parisian Eiffel Tower, and there is a beautiful park with a stream nearby where we hung out for a bit. 

We decided that we’d head back to Shibuya for a little bit since Mary wasn’t able to go the last time we visited, and we felt the crossing was worth returning to! 

It was fun going back there during the day! We didn’t spend much time there, just enough to give Mary the flavor of Shibuya, before getting on another train for Odaiba. 

Odaiba is the coolest place! Another one of those funky pockets of Tokyo. It’s a man-made island with strange and beautiful attractions like a beach, an indoor amusement park, a giant ferris wheel, an even more giant robot, a mall designed to look like an Italian piazza, and a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty. 

It’s much cooler in Odaiba than it is in the city, you can definitely feel the ocean breeze. The whole city feels very “beach town;” I could hardly believe I was still in Toyko.

Our first stop in Odaiba was a funky indoor amusement park/mall. We didn’t ride any rides; we were all getting low on yin and no one wanted to withdraw a bunch the last night in Japan! 

But the park was still a lot of fun! There was a whole area solely dedicated to takoyaki, or octopus balls (the ones I tried at the street fair in Asakusa at the beginning of the trip).

After exploring the mall/parl and its crazy attractions for a bit, we enjoyed our very last meal in Japan with a gorgeous view of the beach and Tokyo skyline. 

When we’d finished eating, we headed to the beach. It was so crazy being on the beach in Toyko! I felt like I was somewhere in California. 

The view was incredible. There were gorgeous colorful boats out, and we could see Tokyo Tower from where we stood! I tried and tried to get a good picture of the boats and the skyline, but I just couldn’t capture it! 

Viet was insistent that we go see a giant robot after that. I really don’t know what the robot is all about or why it’s there, but it was huge and looked really cool! So of course we spent a while hanging out and taking pictures with it. 

The best part of the night came next!

The four of us took a trip on the epic Odaiba ferris wheel, soaring high above the city. The view was magical. 

It was the perfect way to end the night and an even more perfect way to end an incredible three weeks in Japan!

I have so enjoyed my time here in Japan! It has been a really special few weeks for me. I love this country, the people, and the culture, and this has been a precious time for me to connect to my Japanese heritage. I cannot express how glad I am to have had this time here… and how badly I hope I can come back some day! But for now, it’s time for me to get back home to Dallas… at least for the next 3 months. Then it’s off to the British Isles for an entire semester! 

Texas, here I come!