Katie turns the big 2-4.

It's my birthday! Woo hoo! Officially, my birthday started at midnight Japan time, and I'm going to keep it going until midnight American time.  Why not, right?  That gives me 38 hours of birthday FUN.
I started my day by sleeping in, and it was fabulous.  After having some breakfast and coffee (Mike found me a huge container of instant coffee at Costco...yes, they have those here!), I sat down to figure out what to do with my day.  Earlier, before we left, I had read that Joypolis, which is a sort of amusement park would let you in for free and give you unlimited rides plus some dippin dots ice cream if you showed it was your birthday.  That sounded pretty good to me! I checked out their website before I headed out to make sure I had the right subway stop, and right there on the webiste, I saw a notice: Closed Until July 16th for Repairs.
 This is how I felt:

But, I knew I had to move on and keep positive, so I searched on for things to do.  There were several zoos that I wanted to check out, as well as a few museums.  I searched through my guidebook, and found that every single thing on my list was closed on Monday.  Even the Beer Museum!  So, I googled: "I'm in Tokyo and it's my birthday".  Bingo-bango, I found out that not only would I get into tokyo tower for free, I would get a free piece of cake and a birthday card once I got to the top! They had me at free cake.
I studied the subway map, as this would be my first excursion by myself when I had to transfer trains at Shinjuku.  Turns out 24 year-old Katie doesn't get lost as easily as 23 year-old Katie, since I made it there, ON THE FIRST TRY!  Here was my first view of the tower:

They made it so that it would be higher than the Eiffel Tower, 13 meters higher, in fact...take that, France!  It's 333 meters high, and was built in 1958.  On the bottom is a mall, a food court, a wax museum, and an aquarium.  Oh yeah, and a carnival! More to come on that...

When I finally found the right person to get my birthday ticket from, she was SO EXCITED that it was my birthday. After she got done clapping (seriously) and wishing me a happy birthday about 10 times, she pulled out a postcard that she announced was "original birthday gift card", and then she told me that I got a free admission to the lower observatory, and a "gift cake" at the cafe.  I was pretty excited, and so was everyone else.  The commotion that this lady had made over it being my birthday had also alerted everyone else in the lobby that it was my birthday.  At least 10 people wished me a happy birthday, and bowed at me.  Pretty exciting. 
My happy birthday card:

I got to the top of the tower and took some pictures.  It's overcast here still (we're still in the rainy season) so I couldn't see a ton, but it was fun to be that far up.  Here's some pictures from the top:

There was even a shrine up here:

 With some votives here, too:

Here's my cake! They took my happy birthday postcard, and arranged it next to the cake.  I had to buy the coffee, though, but I figured it was worth it.  The cake was some sort of cheesecake type thing...it was mostly whipped cream, but it was pretty good!

I was trying to get an artistic view of my cake, the happy birthday card, and the view...

Here's another postcard type thing that they gave me:

Mount Fuji was that way...couldn't see it though!

There were a few of these windows that showed what it was like straight down...it made me a little nauseous to look down, so I just took some pictures and continued on.

  I hopped on the elevator back down, and was let out at some sort of carnival.  We were still 5 levels up and it was pretty cold and windy, so I got back into the elevator and took it down another level.  

Here I found the wax museum, which my book said was worth the 500 yen to get in, so I headed in.

It was so bad it was funny.  None of the wax figures looked anything like the people they were supposed to, and then there were all sorts of random tributes to American rock music...what?  It gave me a good laugh though, so I decided that even though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, it wasn't a total waste of 500 yen.  And of course, there was a funny mirror...?

Marilyn???

James Dean

BRAD PITT??? What?

Liz with some apes...

Jodi Foster in the back.

Julia Roberts....hmmm...

Here's the whole American (mostly) crew....

Some Japanese astronauts:

I think this was supposed to be Einstein:

JFK:

Here was the corner of "do-gooders"..., Ghandi,Mother Theresa, Anne Frank, and someone else:

No clue what this was about, but here's naked Japanese dude.

Here was Madame Tussaud...I have a feeling she wouldn't have been to happy that she was even mentioned in this wax museum:

Alice in Wonderland, obviously?

The Last Supper! Why not?

This was weird...at first I saw the sign and thought they realized how bad the wax museum was, and this was them admitting it, but then realized that there were little windows you could look through on the other side that showed wax figures being tortured, which was creepy and weird.  I didn't take pictures.   You're welcome.

Here's DaVinci Painting Mona Lisa.

Jimi!

The Beatles, of course:

And, just when you thought things couldn't get weirder, there were a bunch of rooms full of American music paraphernalia...

Then there was a Electric Guitar section:

Which of course, Yoda was a part of:

MAIDEN RULES! That's for my little brother.

Then there was a random article about the Shat up.  Again, why not?

I was getting pretty creeped out, so I hightailed it out of there. I was the only person in there, too, which made it even more sketchy.  On my way out, I spotted this sign...had I not just been through the creepy wax museum, I might have checked it out...but I was ready to be around some real people and maybe find some food.

I grabbed lunch in the food court, and then I headed off to find the Zojoji Temple, which was founded in 1393 as a fundamental dembutsu seminary of the Jososh School in east Japan...whatever that means.  On my way there, I passed this group of statues of animals:

Some parting shots with the tower:

A park I cut through to get to the temple:

The flowers ( I think hydrangeas? Were huge! Here's my hand next to one so you can see how big they were:

Here's one of the entrances to the Temple:

Most of the gates were destroyed in WWII, but this one still stood...from the early 17th century:

You could see the tower behind the temple, which I thought was pretty cool:

This is kind of like the votive tablets, people write their prayers on the pieces of paper and hang them from a tree, which is under there somewhere.

Here's the inside of the temple, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be taking pictures, plus there were people in there praying, so I just took the one.  There was gold EVERYWHERE, and tons of incense burning:

View looking out from the temple:

It was a huge complex, with lots of buildings:

I think these things were some sort of tombstone.  Each one was a little different, and most of them had crocheted or knitted caps or outfits and flowers and pinwheels by them:

There were a ton, and as I was taking these pictures, a huge gust of wind came and all of the pinwheels started spinning like crazy.  It creeped me out big time, so I high-tailed it out of there:

Then I took off on a 25 minute walk to find the Hama-rikyu Gardens.  They are completely surrounded by water from Tokyo Bay, and used to be the Gardns of the Tokugawa Shogun family during the Edo era. The main pond is designed to change with the ebb and flow of the tides.  They are the only tidewater ponds that still remain in Tokyo.  The tide was out when I got there, you can see the wet spot where the water would be if the tide was up:

There were some pretty typical park areas inside:

I read that it was a good idea to stop at the traditional tea house in the park and get a cup of tea and a sweet for 500 yen. 

I got there, and I had to take my shoes off before I entered, and put on these slippers to go outside:

I scored a pretty good view!

My tea came (you could get it hot or cold), and the thing next to it was a confection...then there was a wooden stick below it...I had no idea how I was supposed to eat that!  Luckily, the lady must have seen my panic, and she brought me a sheet on how to eat the confection, and drink the tea:

 It said that you were supposed to eat the dessert thing first by slicing it up with the stick, and then stab the little pieces with the stick and eat them one at a time. There was also a whole production on how to drink the tea.  Grab it with your right hand, move it to your left palm, turn it three times, 90 degrees each time, and then take a sip.  When you were done with that sip, you were supposed to wipe off where your lips had been.  I got nervous I was going to mess it up, but I did my best.  Then some Japanese people sat next to me and didn't follow any of the rules.  Harumph.

Here's where I was sitting:

Some more views of the park and the main pond:

Tokyo Bay:

You can see the rainbow bridge in the background:

Here's the water gate, which controls all of the water that goes into the park:

Here's where the Shogun used to board boats.  During WWII the whole park was bombed beyond recognition, and some of the steps fell into the Bay.  They left them there, so you could still see where they fell:

Some more shots of the park:

The biggest aloe plant I have ever seen!

This used to be where they would harvest and package rice:

Here was what the map said was a flower field...looked more like a weed field to me:

Close-up of the aloe plant:

Here's a 300 year old pine tree:

And the exit of the park:

I headed home from there, and then Mike came home with flowers for me! Awww.  Then we went to dinner at a nice french restaurant in Shibuya, and he took me to the top of the Cerulean Tower (where he used to stay in Japan), and we had a drink.

  It had a great view of the city at night!  We were tired, so we called it a night and then I woke up this morning and headed to a free concert at the Tokyo Opera.  It was great! 4 trumpets and one piano player, it was wonderful.  

 This was the ceiling...the whole thing is made out of some sort of wood imported from Brazil (I think??) that is supposed to be great for acoustics:

 Now, tonight I'm going to head towards Mike's factory to meet him and some of his co-workers for a happy hour.  I'm really excited! It will be nice to talk to some other people, and some of them even speak English!
Thanks to everyone who sent me Birthday messages!!