Continuing with my winter vacation. On Monday (Dec. 26th), Kirsten and I went into Tokyo to go to the Tokyo Tower. We made a brief stop at Zozoji Temple, a little ways away from the bottom of the Tower first. After a little looking around we went to the Tower. Tokyo Tower is a communications tower in the heart of Tokyo. It looks a bit like a red and white version of the Eiffel Tower and it's also a bit taller than the Eiffel Tower. We were lucky enough to make it up to the Tokyo Tower's observation deck just as the sun was starting to set. This made for a gorgeous view. I love viewing the city at night from the Tokyo Tower. Everything looks so beautiful and alive, and if left to my own devices I would sit and watch it for hours.


Tuesday was a day full of nostalgia. Leslie, Kirsten, and I went back to Makuhari, where we all met each other when we studied abroad at IES two years ago. We visited the places we used to go all the time in Makuhari. It was so nostalgic, seeing all the things we used to do, but at the same time a bit sad because we'll never get to go back to the way things were back then. We went to the Carrefour a shopping mall we used to go to, which has since been turned into an Aeon (a different shopping center). We also visited the Sumitomo Building (where our study abroad office was located and where we spent a lot of time during our weekdays) and went up to look at the IES office, even though we knew it was closed for the holidays. We would've visited KUIS, where we went to school, but the campus was also closed. The three of us then met up with Shin-san, the director of our study abroad program, for dinner at Kappazushi! Kappazushi is a kaitenzushi (or conveyor belt sushi) restaurant. It was fun to see Shin-san. Everyone in our study abroad group loved him and it was nice to see that he's just as awesome as ever. He was even nice enough to pay for our dinner.


It was back to Tokyo on Wednesday, with Leslie, Anna, and Kirsten. We started our day with lunch in Shin Okubo. The main strip near the station is filled with Korean restaurants and stores. We had Korean food for lunch and I ate some yummy bibimbap. Afterwords it we went to Shinjuku and visited the Square Enix Store. I didn't buy anything there, but it's always fun to look. The last stop of the day was Shibuya. We went to the big Disney Store there. I also managed to not buy anything there, despite the large amounts of cute Stitch stuff.


On Thursday we went to Tomiokahachimongu Shrine, where Kirsten worked as an intern during her time studying at IES. (Some of you might remember that my internship was at Japan Trilingual, a translation company.) It was a really nice shrine dedicated to the war god Hachimon. Kiri's former co-workers were happy to see her and they gave us all presents of some food to mix in with our rice. I bought an omamori for good luck because I hadn't gotten a new one since returning to Japan. After that we stumbled upon a nearby temple, which was pretty cool because it also had an Inari Shrine within the temple grounds. (Temples are Buddhist and shrines are Shinto. The Japanese don't really have issues with mixing customs from both of these religions.) At the end of the day, we walked back to Leslie's place through Ueno Park, which was nice because the main path was lit up with some really pretty lanterns covered in traditional ukiyo-e art.


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