Tremendous Tokyo!

The Tokyo Central Youth Hostel definitely does breakfast so right! We started an early day with an unbelievable buffet breakfast just down the hall. I'm not going to have any trouble getting used to rice and miso soup for breakfast, I am in food heaven! And the coffeeeeeeeeeee...

We took a little time for a Lattitude Orientation meeting starring the first ever Lattitude Volunteer to visit Japan, Anna Pinsky. She is still living here after 12+ years! I wonder how long I'll decide to stay?

For lunch, ramen! They have amazing restaurants here where you make your meal selection and pay before you even enter the restaurant. These vending machine style resto’s are the greatest! And the ramen was unreal. Going to be having more of that for sure. I also tried gyoza, similar to dumplings, which were quite delicious.

Ide san then took our group to Meiji Shrine in an area of Tokyo called Shibuya, a surprisingly tranquil park smack in the middle of such a busy city. It made you feel like you had teleported to an entirely different place. The grounds begin at the torii gate and just after are hundreds of decorated barrels of donated sake that have been donated as offering to the deified Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken (right). It was a very quiet and truly a beautiful place. There was also the opportunity for wish making on blocks of wood to hang around a sacred tree (left).

We then said our goodbyes to Tomoko Ide as she left us to explore the Harajuku area. This buzzing area of Tokyo had tight streets, packed shops, crepe stands all over the place and so much shopping!

Myself and two other Lattitude Volunteers visited near Shibuya station, one of the busiest intersections in Japan. Also found here in the statue of the dog Hachiko. This dog used to walk from home to the station with his owner every morning on the way to work, and meet him there on the way home. One day, his owner passed away while at work. Hachiko is famous for waiting at the Shibuya subway station daily for nine years for his owner who would never return. There has been a movie made about Hachiko starring Richard Gere that I plan to watch soon, with Kleenex at the ready.

For dinner we tucked into a yakiniku place to grill our own meat and vegetables on a small grilling rack brought to your table.

Exhausted, we made our way back to the Tokyo Central Youth Hostel barely making it into our beds and deciding to pack for Fukuoka in the morning!