#70 - Tokyo and Cherry blossoms - April 2013

The themed drinks from the scary restaurant.
Like a mad scientist's equipment.

In the first weekend of April, I visited Tokyo. I stayed at the apartment of someone from my initial training group, and I was very thankful to her! We met up with some other teachers from the same training group who lived and worked around the Tokyo area, and we spent the day touring Ueno park, Akihabara, Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku. In the evening we went to a themed restaurant called the Lock Up. This was actually terrifying! The theme was basically to scare you, so the staff were dressed in masks and costumes. Every so often, all the lights would turn off in the building and UV lights would come on. The staff would then sneak around in full monster costumes and try to scare you to death! Luckily, this only happened once while we were there. We quickly ate and left! But it was definitely an interesting and fun experience!

 Around April it is cherry blossom season. So, on the next weekend I was able to have my first cherry blossom viewing party. This is known as 花見（はなみ ）hanami in Japanese. We went to a park in Sendai and laid down our blue tarp on the ground. Basically what happens in a hanami party is that you sit outside – preferably under or near a cherry tree – and eat and drink alcohol and have fun with a group. If I remember correctly, I think we arrived around midday, and we left the park around midnight. Some of the group got excruciatingly drunk, like the majority of people during cherry blossom viewing. Unfortunately, the peak for the blossoms were earlier in the week, so this was towards the end before they started to fall off more. Nevertheless, it was still a great party and very beautiful.

#65 - A Walk around Omiya

I am currently staying in an area called Omiya in the greater Tokyo area, about 25km north of central Tokyo. It is an active commercial centre in the area and has good infrastructure. Because today was a free day, I went to head to the shrine and park and walked around a bit.

Hikawa Shrine (氷川神社) is a Japanese shinto shrine. The district of Omiya literally means "great shrine". This name was the result of Emporer Meiji who raised Hikawa above all other shrines in the Kanto region. There is a long avenue with three large torii gates. The shrine was actually much bigger than I thought it would be, which was a nice surprise! There were also a lot of people about in the day and long lines to receive fortunes and to pray. Here are a few pictures:

Temple entrance

In the middle of the grounds

Main shrine

As we walked past the shrine we came into the park area and a little bit further we found the Omiya Park Zoo! It is a small area with quite a few enclosures of different animals, like monkeys and birds. As it was part of the park there was no entrance fee so we just had a look around. There was a small section of benches with lots of people and kids around. The kids were given guinea pigs to hold and pet which was quite cute to watch.

Omiya Park Zoo

Diamond Doves

Japanese Monkeys

We wandered back into the main town area to look for something to eat and came across a smallish eatery. I had a chicken, egg and rice dish, with a side of miso soup. It was so delicious! And cheap! We also had a quick look at some shops and stores before heading back, buying food from the supermarket and coming home.

Yummy!

Overall it was a very fun day! Even though I will not be in the area for too much longer, I got to explore and find my way around some more and see some interesting things!