Day 8: Asakusa & Sumida

Last night on the way back from doing laundry, I grabbed a single fruity alcoholic beverage. I had been wanting to try Strong Zero again but since I work at night and Strong Zero flavors that are out now aren't appealing to me, I hadn't yet. But I eyed a peach-flavored drink and bought it. Interestingly, they don't card you at the convenience store, they just make you acknowledge that you are 20+ on the touchscreen at the counter. I thought that was pretty weird.

Anyway, the only reason I even bring that up is because the single drink put me straight to bed. In general, even on nights I don't work, I've been wanting to stay up until 2 or 3 AM so that workdays aren't such a brutal difference. By 11:30 PM I was struggling to keep my eyes open and by 9 AM I was taking out my contacts to go back to sleep. 9 AM???? How could it be 9 AM so quick? I hadn't even taking out my contacts or turned off the lights!

I must've really needed the sleep so I took out my contacts and let myself rest for another hour-and-a-half.

After I decided it was really time to get out of bed, I got to work figuring out where to go. My phone was dead and I had to get ready for the day, so after all was done and I was ready to leave my place with an idea of what I was doing, it was already 1:30.

I had decided to go to Asakusa and to see the Skytree today. I mean you can see it anywhere in the city since it's the tallest structure by far in Tokyo, but I mean up close.

To start off, I rode the train to Kuramae station and started my walk to Sensō-ji, the oldest Buddist temple in Tokyo, first finished in 645.

Before I arrived, I stumbled across Goku.

Sensō-ji has a large entrance gate called Kaminarimon, shown below. Inside, on the temple grounds, is Nakamise-dōri, a street full of vendors of all kinds. Many of the food vendors had pretty long lines, but most of the visitors were just window shopping.

On the other side of Nakamise-dōri is Hōzōmon, another large gate that demarcates the inner and outer temple grounds. In the image below you can see Hōzōmon and a really cool pagoda also at the temple.

After hanging out at Sensō-ji for a bit, I wander around the surrounding area, which is full of shopping streets and places to eat. I found a capsule toy store and now can give reference for how good of a price that Asuka figure I got in Ikebukuro was. The figure I bought was ¥700 but this capsule store has for an Asuka figure for ¥1,500 - and that doesn't even guarantee you'll get the one you want (like if you want version A but get version B)! Although the entrepreneur in me thinks I should grab a few of these since they go for $60 on ebay. 🤔

Since I started my day pretty late, I was already hungry after only a small amount of exploring. To rectify this, I looked for an empty-ish place to eat so I could get a seat right away. One really nice thing in Japan is that many restaurants have plastic replicas of the food you can order so that you can get an idea about the menu selection before you ever even go in.

In retrospect, the plastic food for the place I chose to eat are particularly convincing. Are all of them even plastic? The noodles have plastic wrap over them??? Are any of them plastic? I'm pretty certain that most, if not all, of them are plastic but you never know. The fact of the matter is that they are often so good you wouldn't be able to tell if they are real or not.

I chose to order the Curry and Rice and was eating in a few short minutes.

After a satisfying meal, I wandered the backstreets a bit more until I found a pretty cool looking Uniqlo (there's almost as many of these in Tokyo as there are LVs!) and shopped around there for a bit.

The top level of the building had a bunch of restaurants and Kimono rental if you are interested in that. I wasn't particularly interested today but I did see quite a few people walking around Asakusa in kimonos today.

Next, I walked past a totally normal, completely innocuous establishment.

After basically making a big circle, I made my way to Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center. If you are looking for information on the area or even the wider Tokyo area, I'd recommend visiting here. The building looks really cool and they have English-speaking employees manning some of the stations so you can definitely find someone to ask if you have questions.

I didn't need information, I just wanted to check out the observation deck on the 8th floor. I'm actually considering starting an observation-deck-stamp-collecting game (kidding, but I am going to a lot)!

Before I headed up though, I noticed a cool miniature replica of the local area. It must have been a lot of effort to put it together with such detail! I wonder if they update it if a small building gets demolished and rebuilt? I'll have to come back in a few years to compare!

From the observation deck, you can get a pretty good view of the surrounding area and of the imposing Skytree.

After leaving, I headed towards Sumida, the area in which Skytree is located. To be honest, I felt a bit goofy for using Google Maps to navigate the entire way when you can clearly see Skytree from everywhere. Just head in that direction.

But be careful not to get tricked by reflections!

As I drew closer, Skytree began to tower ominously over me. Soon enough, it was too tall for a landscape photo.

At this point in time, I was amping myself up to ride up to the top of the tower and look out over the city. I was even preparing what I would say if anyone noticed me trembling in the elevator or clinging to the inner walls at the top ("kowai kedo keshiki mitai").

After I crossed the Sumida River, I found a relaxing park and another shrine. Ushijima Shrine, another millenium-old shrine, was pretty empty which surprised me considering its proximity to Asakusa and the Skytree. It was really nice and well-kept. I fought off the urge to buy a charm or get my fortune and continued on my trek.

Once I got to Skytree, I found out that a single ticket to go to the 350 meter (1148 feet) was ¥2,100 (I could get my Asuka figure and the capsule figure for that!) and a ticket to go to the 350 meter and 450 meter (1476 feet) observation deck for a single adult was ¥3,100. At this point, I decided that I didn't want to pay 30 bucks just to go to the top and be scared! I could be scared from the bottom by just looking upward, thank you very much.

Instead, I decided to visit Sumida Aquarium. It was just slightly cheaper than Sunshine Aquarium that I visited the other day so I ended up comparing them a lot as I was walking through.

The first thing I noticed was that Sumida Aquarium's first exhibits were much more vivid.

I think I caught these guys at feeding time.

A lot of the exhibits in Sumida Aquarium were about Jellyfish. I'm not sure if it's because they are easy to raise or just because they look cool or multiply quickly, but both aquariums I visited has lots of them. The one here was better though because it had one area where it had live specimens at all stages of the jellyfish life from polyp to adult!

There was also a penguin exhibit here as well! I personally liked this penguin exhibit more than the other one. And that's not even including the detailed flowchart on the oft-tumultuous, oft-salacious goings-on of penguin romance - CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS!

Although there was a real life soap opera playing out in front of my very eyes, I averted my gaze out of moral duty to mind my own business and found myself head-to-head with an aquatic animal that could actually hold a candle to my level of intelligence.

The vibe in this aquarium was a little more relaxed and the majority of the aquarium was basically housed in a single open atrium. On one end is a cafe and viewing area for the largest tank in the venue (it has a shark!). There are lots of seats for just sitting and hanging out.

All-in-all, I personally think that Sunshine Aquarium is a better deal if you want to go see lots of fish and other aquatic animals. It has a larger variety and more exhibits overall I think. If you just want to relax and watch some fish hang out while you have boba, Sumida Aquarium is likely better. One place that Sumida probably has the upper hand though, is in Instagramability. There are just a larger number of bright colors and textures in Sumida. Plus they have a color modern logo.

That being said, neither is considerably more expensive than any other entertainment option like going to the movies - especially if you plan to make an afternoon out of it. So I'd probably be wishy-washy and recommend both!

After my excursion to the aquarium had successfully concluded, I decided to wait out rush hour (ha!) at the mall. Tokyo Skytree as well as the Sumida Aquarium are actually a part of the larger Tokyo Solamachi mall complex. After once again finding myself at a mall, I did the sensible thing and looked for anime stores.

There were actually a decent amount of toy and anime stores! From the widely known Pokemon Center and Kirby Cafe to the Jump Shop, there was a lot to look at.

I entered one store because of a Lycoris Recoil collab pop-up but ended up buying some completely unrelated Hatsune Miku stuff (IDK why I'm like this now, I don't even like Miku that much).

I also found a pop-up Harry Potter shop that was pretty cool, but it had most of the same stuff you'd see at Universal Studios or somewhere like that. After walking for another hour or two, I'd worked my appetite back up. Surprisingly, the restaurants at Solamachi weren't very crowded considering it was like 6:15 PM, I'd have thought there would be a dinner rush or something. Actually even when I was leaving later, the train in this part of town was pretty empty so I feel like maybe it's more popular on the weekends and that foot-traffic due to office workers is low here. Since I don't think I saw many high-rises in this part of town, I wonder if not many salarymen would be here at that particular time of day?

Anyway, I ended up at a this place and ordered an Omurice Hamburg Set, maybe a bit to the dismay of the cooks I could see staring out into the dining area. Maybe they were hoping I'd order a steak or something a bit more intense for them to duke it out over the grills. Unsure.

The omurice itself was good and probably slightly better than the one I had yesterday, and the hamburg was leagues better than the one I got from the family restaurant in Ikebukuro. Whatever I gave that one, take off at least 2 stars retroactively! I think this entire set was cheaper than my meal at that other one and the service was better.

I had ordered a pudding as well which was delectable, as they say.

After I demolished my pudding in a completely respectable manner, I confidently paid with the air of a job well done. I finally made my way to B3F to board my train and head home for the day.

Unfortunately, I was not able to avoid rush hour. Who would have known it doesn't end exactly at 7 PM? Drats. Activity-wise, today wasn't super crazy.