Dogstar Travel

Day 2 - 2014/10/01 (Wednesday)

Character Street and SkyTree

A very late blog of day 2 of my trip so some photos such as those of items are outdated. Omatase Shimashita.

Ohayou gozaimasu. View from hotel room. Got a room nice and high. With my luck I thought I would get a lower floor.

Took the Ginza line to Tokyo Station and headed out the Marunouchi exit (west side where the original Tokyo station building is). Time to find Godzilla.

Love the logo for Yamato courier service. During trip previous year I would see many people pushing carts with this neko logo and did not realise they were doing deliveries.

Here he is. Kawai! Not really, he is no taller than me at 5'7.

Had a light snack at this hotdog bar on the west side of the Tokyo International Forum.

This is what it looks like in the International Forum. My camera lens did not have a wide enough angle to see this interesting architecture.

Food vendors setting up for lunch.

Walking towards the Post Office at the Kitte building. If you like to collect stamps make sure you visit this post office. There are stamps of trains and shinkansen and other types of souvenirs. The black building is the Shin-Marunouchi building which has an outdoor terrace btw. The Marunouchi building which is out of shot directly opposite has an observatory on the 25th floor. The views are limited though but it is free.

After buying what I wanted at the post office proceeded inside Kitte.

This is the other reason for visiting this building. The view of Tokyo Station. When I visited in 2013 Tokyo Station had completed a renovation to restore the 3rd floor and the original domes which were never replaced after WWII. There seems to be never ending construction at the front of the station.

Excellent view of the trains coming and going. Perfect for timelapse videos. I think mostly JR trains and Shinkansen use these above ground platforms while other companies use the underground platforms. On my first trip my parents and I got off here and it took us a while to find our way out to the Yaesu exit. After a few days finding our way through the main entrances and exits was second nature.

It was a rainy day so used the underground passageways from Kitte and Tokyo station and checked out the shops within them. You can spend a whole day underground shopping here. Other destination was Character Street in the 1st Avenue basement area of Tokyo Station.

It was extremely tempting to buy something from every shop. Don't bring your children here.
You have been warned. Loot of the day will be posted at the bottom.

First stop Tamagotchi store.

If you buy a Tamagotchi 4U make sure you setup it up and use these touch station (see below) to add extra items to your tama. As of the date of this blog the tama4u is the current version so this post is still relevant.

History of Tamagotchi.

The large tamagotchi at the front of the store.

As a Pokemon fan I had to go to this store. You can only get the Pikachu station master plushi from the Tokyo station store so pick one up.

There were other mascots and to see in Character Street that I did not photograph but here is Rilakkuma.

KitKate store. There are only a few varieties you can buy here but I have since learned you can get other flavours from other stores besides the offical store and flavours you can only get in specific regions in Japan. There is a snack store that I did not visit at the station that has many varieties of snacks such pocky.

Mikimoto store in Ginza on Chuo dori. Last year was a pearl display but this time Hello Kitty.

Headed back to Asakusa to drop off purchases. I would always take a different patch to/from the hotel. This street has various men on the lamp posts. I don't know the reason or history of this street.

Heading towards Nakamise. This is the same street I walked the previous day but in the opposite direction and during the day. The store hours vary as they were not always open. I would like to return here one day and check out the stores not only in this street but the other side streets.

Map of Taito area at the Asakusa Tourist Cultural Information building.

View of Nakamise from the observatory terrace.

View of Sumida river, Skytree and Asahi Beer. There are a few large Asahi billboards that you can see from the observatory.

About 7 blocks south on Edo dori is the Bandai office. The Tamagotchi 4U had just been released so they had a display promoting the device.

Here are other familiar characters.

Crossed the Sumida River for my last destination of the day.

And there is my destination. About a 13 block walk.

An interesting sign. During my trip the previous year to my surprise I did see a man pee in Shinjuku. Must have been out late drinking.

Along the way I stumbled upon this but it was closed. I saw it on Tokyo eye documentary about Skytree but did not know where it was located. A special mirror to take photos of Skytree and a building that looks like a boat with slide for kids. Walking is a great way to see things you otherwise would not see.

And before I knew it I had made it. What a beautiful sight.

Hot and humid was replaced by cool and refreshing. I was able to relax here before heading inside.

This canal is the scene in Oreimo s2e14 (16:35).

Here is a comparison photo but taken from the opposite side. The fountains change colour but I was having a difficult time trying to get a good composition. If you watch this episode and been to Solamachi you will recognise other areas from this episode.

A cafe with a panda outside.

A parking bay. Notice parking bay 1 is very small. Only a Kei car would fit there I guess.

After walking along the canal decided to head into Solamachi. I recommend if you have the time spend a few hours visiting the shops. There is also an aquarium and planetarium.
Here is a link to Solamachi and their free wifi ssid is TOBU_Free_Wi-Fi.

I was not planning to go up to the observatory because I have seen videos and read that the lines are long and you get specific time to go up but on this night there were no lines and the observatory was not crowded so I changed my mind. Yatta \(*O*)/

The view is spectacular. Too bad my camera is very bad at low light. Kranking up the iso produces soooo much noise. Do yourself a favour and get a dslr. The latest models have excellent low light performance. No tripods are allowed at many of the observatories in Tokyo including Skytree.

Tokyo Tower in the distance. Large building that looks like a fat at-at from star wars in the middle left is the Edo Tokyo Museum which I failed to visit this trip.

Bright lights from Nakarimon dori. You can also make out the 5 story pagoda illuminated by lights and Don Quijote by the red lights. It is a blurry photo so it does show up too well.

Looking north with the Sumida River on the left weaving its way up.

The bright lights are the buildings surrounding Kinshicho Station. Tokyo Gate bridge is in the distance illuminated in purple. Odaiba would be to the right of the bridge while Tokyo Disney to the left.

When heading down and on the way to SkyTree Station you get to see this impressive wall mural. My photo does not do it justice. It is far wider than shown here and the middle sections are animated. See this before you leave.

Brief video of a section of the mural. There is actually a lot of details to see.

After getting off the train took a relaxing walk along the Sumida River near Sensoji. Skytree was illuminated purple this night.

A short video of Skytree. No matter what setting I used I could not get a good video.

Asahi Beer building reflections.

Loot of the day. The YuPack Danbo I got from the Post Office. I later found you can actually get it at the Kotobukiya store in Akiba and not exclusive to Japan Post.

Got lots of free stuff for buying 3 Tamagotchi4U's and a phone cover.

Tokyo Banana Tree cream thing and biscuits. The Tokyo Banana Tree is just the same as the original Tokyo banana you can can get at Tokyo Station. I really liked the biscuits.