First day out

After falling asleep at 8 last night, we woke up at 6, ready to go for the day.  Mike headed to work at 7, and I headed to find some coffee and eventually head to Shinjuku.  What I ended up finding was that most of the shops didn't open until at least 8, but usually 9 or 10.  I also found out that almost all of the attractions in Tokyo didn't open until later, but I was already up and at 'em, so I headed to Shinjuku anyways. I stopped at a 7-11 to see if I could find some coffee, and I ended up finding this: 

 It was good! I had planned on sitting at the 7 eleven to drink it, but noticed that there were signs on every table, with a yen amount...I wasn't sure if that meant that you had to pay to sit (apparently a common practice here) or not, so I decided to drink my coffee on the go. I walked past the Tokyo Opera Palace, which was beautiful, full of ponds and fountains and benches.

Then I found the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Center, home to virtually every government office you can think of, including the Mayor.  The center is comprised of two towers, with the first tower the tallest and housing two observation decks.  They didn't open until 9:30 though, and it was only 7:45 at this point, so I decided to head to Shinjuku Central Park.  Below is a view of the first tower:

 Park that backs up to the towers:

 View of the second tower from the park

 The whole first tower, from the park.  The left tower is the observatory that I eventually went up.

 I noticed that there are a ton of stray cats that roam around the park, and Shinjuku in general.

 I also wondered how they were all so fat, as Tokyo is very clean, and you rarely see a dumpster or garbage that the cats could eat out of.  Then I saw this guy, talking to and feeding all of the cats!

 After I moved past the cat guy, I heard the sound of water, so I headed towards it and found this waterfall.  In front of it was a huge open space, full of benches for people to sit an enjoy the water.

 I followed another path from the waterfall and found this path, lined with what looked (and smelled) like lilac bushes.

 Here's one of the flowers up close, I have no clue what they are, but they were pretty!

 After making a few more loops (I'll admit, I went in a circle a few times), I stumbled across this shrine, which I learned was called the "Juniso Kumano Jinja" Shrine.  It's a historic Shinto shrine that dates back to 1400 A.D.  It was very beautiful, and incredibly peaceful, despite the fact that it was right next to a busy street.

 Despite the main shrine, there were many smaller shrines, like this one below.  At first I thought they were for the cats, but I later read that each shrine represents a different God.  Plus, there are fish in that pond surrounding the mini-shrine, so I doubt the cats would make it to the shrine.

 Here's a view from the back of the courtyard, facing the main shrine. 

  I hung out for awhile to see what all happened at the shrine.  I wasn't sure if I could go in or not, since all of the signs were in Japanese, and no one was manning the information desk.  I figured out, though, that people come to the front of the shrine, and pull one of those three ropes hanging down that you can see in the front (above).  They then bow twice, and clap twice.  Then they pray.  After they are done praying, they put a coin (I'm guessing 100 yen) in a machine, and the machine gives them a symbol that they match up to a symbol hanging on the right.  I think I read somewhere that it gives them their fortune.  Before they enter the shrine, they are expected to go to a little shelter where there are giant wooden ladles in a fountain, to scoop up water and wash off their hands, and rinse out their mouths.  There are rocks on the ground where you are supposed to do this over.  I wanted to take a picture but after I washed my hands a "real" worshiper came, and I figured I better not in case it was disrespectful. 

Above is another building that I'm not quite sure about, but it looked cool and was in front of the shrine.
Below is a garden I found in the same park that the shrine was in, with colorful flowers...and colorful people to the left of the camera.  It appeared as though this was a good hangout for homeless people.

Here is the statue of bells...it has a fancier name but I can't remember what it is!

 Here's what appeared to be a camp for homeless people.  I read somewhere that you can camp legally in most parks, so there were quite a few people packed in there.  I didn't take too many pictures though, as they were all staring at me.

 Another path led me back to the waterfall,

 Where there were now a group of students, working on their acting skills.  I watched them for about 15 minutes...

 They eventually did a skit where they pretended to be cats (I think?) and they kept it up for at least 10 minutes...I had to duck behind some trees to take a picture of them.

 I headed across the rainbow bridge to make my way back to the Metropolitan Government Building.

 Here's a close  up of the "Cocoon Tower".  It was pretty cool looking! According to my book, this is the home of the "Pentax Forum", where Pentax has a display of all of their cameras and a testing lab that you can participate in.  However, when I got there, there didn't appear to be anything resembling any kind of camera or Pentax in general, so I gave up after about 20 minutes of circling the building.

I waited in the line for the observatory with about 20 other people, and was on the second elevator to go up.  The elevator takes you to the 45th floor in less than a minute (everyone in the elevator's ears popped, including mine).  In the observatory were some amazing views of Tokyo.  If it hadn't been so cloudy, I would have been able to see Mt. Fuji, so I will have to come back on a day when it's clear.  Here's some views from the top:

 Here's the view of the park and shrine that I had just visited:

There were two gift shops and an italian themed bar in the middle.  I desperately wanted an iced coffee, which was on their menu, so I headed in and was seated at the bar.  The iced coffee ended up being 600 yen (almost $7!) but it was worth it, because the views were amazing.

 Here's the view from my barstool:

 And a cool picture of all of the bottles:

 The restaurant portion, with all of the columns:

As I was sitting there, Mike called me to make sure I was ok, and informed me that there was a typhoon coming, but that we should be ok.  I told him that everything was going great, and I headed off to what my book told me was the "Pentax Forum", as I mentioned above.  After 20 minutes of walking around and being bumped into by a herd of school children, I gave up and started looking for the Sompo Japan Museum of Art.  After 30 minutes of circling Shinjuku and checking virtually every city map, I discovered that my book was wrong, and I was a block off.  I finally made it to the museum, which is in the top level of this building:

 It cost 1,000 yen to get in (about 11 bucks), which I thought was a lot, but the book said that they had Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Grandma Moses, as well as a variety of paintings by Togo Seiji, who is a famous Japanese painter.  As I headed through the museum, I realized that the first 5 exhibition rooms were entirely Henri Le Sidaner paintings.  I didn't know much about him, so I didn't spend a lot of time looking through everything.  There was an absolute silence rule, as well as a no Cameras rule, so I wasn't able to get any pictures.  Finally, I found a sign that said "Permanent Collection", so I headed for that.  What I discovered was that there was ONE Van Gogh, ONE Gaugin, and ONE Cezanne on one side of the room, and then there were three Grandma Moses paintings on the other side of the room, as well as 4 Seiji paintings.  That was it! I spent a good 15 minutes staring at the Van Gogh, as it was his "Sunflowers" painting, which apparently the museum paid 5 Billion Yen for in the 1980's.  It was very beautiful, but I was still pretty disappointed.  The gift shop hinted that they had way more paintings, but that they weren't being displayed because of the Le Sidaner display. 
After leaving the museum, I headed to East Shinjuku for lunch.  My book (I don't know why I was still trusting it at this point), said that there was a restaurant that had huge portions for under 2000 yen of tempura vegetables and meat.  Huge portions for cheap sounded great to me, since we didn't really eat much last night and I had only had that coffee for breakfast.  After wandering around the extremely busy and crowded streets of East Shinjuku, I finally found the restaurant.  I walked in and found that I was in what looked like a waiting room for a doctor.  A woman in a traditional Japanese Kimono greeted me, and I showed her my book, asking if this was the place (the book said to ask for an english menu).  She said yes, and picked up her phone to call someone.  I assume she said something like (dumb foreigner who doesn't speak Japanese wants to eat here), and then she hung up and motioned for me to follow her.  She brought me to a set of pink doors which ended up being an elevator, and pushed a bunch of buttons then bowed at me as the doors shut.  I had no idea what to expect next, but the elevator doors opened to a very small dining room, with a black bar that stretched across one wall.  Behind the bar was a chef, frying things in tempura batter.  Another woman greeted me and brought me to a stool at the bar.  I wasn't sure if I should have my shoes on or not, so I looked to two businessmen next to me, to confirm that I could leave my shoes on.  Whew.  Then, she brought me a menu to pick from which had 5 options, typed out in broken english.  The prices were NOT under 2000 yen, and in fact the cheapest option (which I selected) was 2,940 yen, or a little over $30.  Yikes.  We have a budget of $50 for food a day for BOTH of us, so I clearly had just blown it.  I ordered anyways and then the parade of food began!  The waitress brought me 14 different dishes total, including cooked fish, raw fish, miso soup, some sort of tofu dish, 2 different sauces for the tempura, a pot containing the most delicious and tender beef I have ever had, rice, and green tea.  The chef gave me 4 tempura pieces, including a baby corn, some sort of potato, and a bunch of shrimp (which I didn't eat due to my allergies).  After I was done eating, she brought me a cute little cup of coffee, some sort of jello/pudding thing, and a glass of water.  It was all SO DELICIOUS, and just what I needed.  To pay, I had to go back down the elevator, and then both women followed me out, bowing the entire way. As soon as I got outside, I realized that it was pouring rain, due to the typhoon coming.  I stopped to buy an umbrella and started making my way back to the apartment, instead of continuing to explore Shinjuku.  Plus, my feet were starting to hurt!
I finally made it back to our street (below), which I was so happy to see.  Our street is filled with cute little shops and restaurants, and compared to Shinjuku it feels like everything is a little slower and more relaxed.

 Here's a view of the side of our building:

 Here's the entryway:

 Here's the open courtyard in the middle:

 Here's our "Kitchen"...microwave, fridge, and sink and a burner are to the right.

 Here's a view of our room:

 Our work space and TV (by the way we get NO English speaking channels...bummer!)

 Here's the bathroom, which has a separate shower room and a very deep soaking tub (woo hoo!).

Well, that's a lot for today! Now I'm just going to keep my eye on the typhoon (it's all over the TV but I have no idea what they're saying.  From the looks of things, it will hit Japan further south and west of Tokyo, so we should (in theory) be ok, we'll just have a lot of rain and wind.