Tokyo Day 3 - 31 July 2012

Day 3 of my Tokyo Journey started in Asakusa. Meiqin and Tricia came over to meet us in Asakusa where we visitd Sensoji Shrine and Korinamon Gate. The gate is famous for the giant red lantern that hangs at the entrance and it leads to a long street flanked by street-stalls. These stalls sell a variety of items ranging from tidbits such as senbei (rice crackers) to souvenrs such as sumarai swords. At the end of the two rows of stalls, one can see the impressive sensoji temple. When we were there, it was filled to the brim with tourists. We then left Sensoji temple and headed for Ueno. Our aim in Ueno was to visit a particular shop that stocked Japanese snacks at cheaper prices. While we were there, our wallets deflated themselves as our bags of snacks increased. Not long later, we had lunch at a quiet ramen shop tucked into the side of a building, completely hidden from view. The speciality of this shop was that the ramen soup base was made from a combination of pork bones and fish bones! This resulted in a stock that was both rich and fragrant! After lunch, we headed for Akihabara. We came across the 7-storey porn shop that Tricia was excited about but Tricia and Yan Ting were pretty shy after entering the shop that they came out soon after. We decided to explore the arcades and it was in Akihabara that Tricia caught her first prize from the UFO Catcher! As the afternoon was really scorching hot, we took refuge in McDonalds for an hour before going to Shinjuku for dinner. After leaving our belonings in Meiqin and Tricia's hotel, we walked to Shinjuku Station where Tricia bought her ticket for the next morning's ride to Narita Airport. It was getting dark so we headed towards Kabukicho and looked for an Izakaya to have dinner in. Dinner was a pretty mundane affair as the place was really dark and the food portions small and expensive. We spent about 1200yen per person
and Yan Ting was pretty much half-asleep after dinner. We quickly walked back to Meiqin's hotel where we decided we would spend the night in before returning back to Asakusa the next morning.