Saturday, May 3, 2008

J4: Asakusa, Clock, Monorail and the Ferris Wheel

Today we went to the famous Japanese temple Asakusa. It is probably famous because firstly, it is a very large temple in Tokyo, and secondly because it has a huge open-air market within its outer walls.


That's *maybe* a sixth of the market. Maybe.


Erika and the temple.


After Asakusa, Remi had a rendez-vous with his French friends, so that left Luan, Erika and I to explore without our Japanese translator. After a moment of discussion, we decided to head to go take a ride on the monorail and maybe visit the Toyota show room if we could find it. So we took the subway for one line and then walked to the monorail (since changing lines tends to be quite expensive). But, on the way, we found this strange clock on the side of a building. On the hour it activates and does all sorts of strange things!

Giant clock on skyscraper.


After the clock's show, we jumped on the monorail.

While on the monorail, we saw a ferris wheel and decided to visit it, since, well.... it's a ferris wheel!!! Cool!!!

The ferris wheel, posing with Erika and Luan.


Picture taken while on the monorail.



While approaching the ferris wheel, we discovered that the Toyota showroom was located right next to it, as well as a giant mall. Pleasant surprise! So, after eating at the Toyota resto, we looked at all the pretty (and the pretty strange) cars.

Toyota's car of the future?


After the showroom, we were somewhat saddened to discover that the ferris wheel had a huge lineup. But, the fire dancers we found thereafter cheered us right up! Following the show, we wandered around the mall, which was styled like a European promenade. We also found strange stores, such as this one:



Oh yes, it's the Barbie store, to make yourself into a life-size Barbie.

Finally, after a long day of exploration, we returned to the apartment to sleep (or rather to drink, but whatever).

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