vacay day 10 : tokyo 360.

woke up early and went for a run around the imperial palace. we were under the impression that it would just be a couple miles, and were somewhat embarrassed at how tired we were and assumed we were super out of shape due to the vacation. however, we just mapped the run, and it was just under five miles, so we feel better now (=

last night, we looked into how to get tickets to the ghibli museum (ghibli as in studio ghibli, as in hayao miyazaki movies!) and found out the only way to get them in japan was to purchase them from a machine (known as loppi) at lawson convenience stores. and it's all in japanese. so it was quite the adventure in trying to get these tickets, even with the detailed instructions we were able to find online. luckily, people in japan are very helpful.


we went to iidabashi for lunch with a kimiko's friend icchan and her son hayato. she took us to soba neriya bunraku, a soba kaiseki place. we met with her because she's the one that got us tickets to three baseball games at three different stadiums in japan. we brought two little shrek toys for her son, who's a year and half old, and super duper cute. i so wanted to pinch his freaking cheeks.

made a quick stop at shibuya crossing to check out the hachiko statue, and shibuya crossing. however, not being the weekend, the crossing wasn't nearly as busy as we expected, so we left and will be returning on sunday for the full effect.

before going back to the hotel, we went to the tokyo metropolitan government building, which has two observation towers that give you nearly 360 views of tokyo, and even mt. fuji if the day is clear enough (it wasn't). it was pretty awe-inspiring. there was also a toy store up there and i bought a bunch of totoro goodies.

at night, we went to experience "high culture" as pushed onto recommended to us by mr henderson, who got us tickets to suntory hall for the tokyo philharmonic orchestra. tonight they performed mozart's concerto for flute and harp in c major and mahler's symphony no. 5 in c-sharp minor. it freaking blew my mind. plus the concert hall was absolutely gorgeous. since we arrived early, we grabbed a glass of wine in the lounge of the adjoining intercontinental hotel, and afterwards grabbed dinner at aux baccanales. the food was amazing, but it was strange as we were essentially kicked out at 11.30p for closing, which we've never had happen, ever, in a nice restaurant. but i guess that's the price you pay for dining out in a country where tips are not paid.