After exploring Asakusa, we made our way to the ferry port where we caught a ferry downriver to Hama Rikyu. Hama Rikyu is a traditional Japanese garden right along the river. This is the total contrast between the bustling skyline of Tokyo and the traditional Japanese Garden. This park used to be the private garden of the Shogunate, who hunted ducks here. Well, if you can call it hunting. They still had their "hunting" apparatuses up, and from what we could tell they used tame decoy ducks to lure in wild ducks, then trapped them with nets in smal little canals. The garden today is like a little peacefull oasis in the center of a bustling city. We really had a fun time exploring it. The tree above we saw a lot of. Look closely and you'll see it's many branches being supported by like 10 sticks. 
Avery and I in front of a duck hut, there were little holes in it so they could spy on thier ducks while hunting.
Traditional tea house on one of the three ponds in this garden. Although the 3 tea houses that were original to this garden were burnt down during the war, this one is a replica of the original tea house the shogun would have used.
Our happy family!
Avery seems to be enjoying Japan!
After exploring the gardens, we headed to Ginza, which is a super trendy shopping district much like 5th Avenue in NYC. Seriously rediculously expenzive designer stores. Gucci, Prada and Louis Vitton lined the streets. Needless to say, we did a lot of window shopping! Definately a different crowd down there too, we felt horribly underdressed just to even be walking down the street. At one point we saw these cakes in the window of this bakery that just looked delish! They were rotating on these rods and just dripping in glaze. There was a line out the door to the bakery, so we decided they must be good! Good thing we investigated a bit before we got in line, they were selling those things for 8000 yen- that's about $85 bucks people! And they were small too, like 6 inches diameter! Forget that! But they did look tasty, and people were lining out the door to buy them. After walking through the neighborhood for a while we were just beat. We then had to walk to the nearest train station, about a mile away. After a long train ride, walk back to the base and biking back home we were all exhausted. Burger King for dinner never tasted so good! It was a great day all in all, even if it was the day I turned 30! :(
2 comments:
Sounds like an awesome birthday day! Even if it was your 30th!? :) You are SO old!! :)
Wow! Happy belated birthday! What you've been doing looks amazing! I'm glad that you are enjoying yourself and they you, Rich, and Avery are so happy!
Post a Comment