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| Edo-Tokyo Museum |
Today's activities started off quick. After having breakfast and getting our rail passes from Dr. Laurence, it was off to the train station and to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. The museum itself was amazing. There was just so much information and artifacts throughout the entire thing. I really enjoyed how some of the things were hands on. Like, there was an old-styled classroom you could sit in, an old fashioned house you could walk in (but you had to remove your shoes), and even a rickshaw you could sit in. Seeing so much of this history and just the design of the museum itself was truly an experience I was happy I could have.
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| Arriving sumo wrestlers |
After the museum, it was time for everyone to go off and find lunch. I ended up eating with Dr. Laurence, Dani, Chris, Ray, and Laura. We found a small little restaurant nearby and decided to try it out. We all ended up getting the fried chicken which came with rice, a soup, a salad, and a drink. The lunch was refreshing and ended with enough time for us to go to a store close by called Family Mart in order to grab some drinks before going to the sumo tournament. The sumo tournament was something everyone had been waiting for and it truly did not disappoint. We arrived just as the lower class sumo wrestlers were finishing, which means we got to watch the entrance of the higher class. They came in two groups and the ceremony was quite fun to watch. The matches were short, but the energy in the entire arena from the preparation, through the fight, and all the way to the end of each match made everything extremely enjoyable. Unfortunately, we did not get to see the top two wrestlers (both which had 11-0 records for the tournament) wrestler, but we did see each of them win their own match. The size and power of a lot of the wrestlers was intimidating, one of them even had legs that looked like little tree trunks. After going to this day in the tournament, I could really see why people get into this.
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| Start of the higher ranked sumo wrestlers |
After the tournament, it was off to Akihabara. Akihabara is known as pretty much the best electronic district in Japan. There was an entire stretch that was just lit up by all of the buildings and there was literally everything here. There were arcades, themed cafe's, huge department stores, restaurants, pretty much anything you could ask for. Dani, Ray, Chris, and I explored pretty much all of the main stretch and a few of the stores, but ended up spending quite a bit of time in an arcade called Club Sega. The arcade was six stories high, with the first three floors being just a bunch of the claw games. From the fourth floor up though, that's when it truly became an arcade. Ray and I played a few games and they were a lot of fun, but I was really enjoying just exploring and checking out the building. Some of the really surprising things were the people at the arcade. I was expecting to see students and younger people, but there was actually a lot of older businessmen, most who were still wearing their suits! They were getting really into the games too. You could tell they were concentrating just as hard, if not harder, then some of the younger kids at their games. I probably could have spent an entire day just exploring this area, so I was a bit bummed when it was time to head back to the hotel. I definitely would like to come back here though, especially if I knew how to read Japanese so that I could understand what some of the places were a little more.
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| Akihabara |
After the tournament, it was off to Akihabara. Akihabara is known as pretty much the best electronic district in Japan. There was an entire stretch that was just lit up by all of the buildings and there was literally everything here. There were arcades, themed cafe's, huge department stores, restaurants, pretty much anything you could ask for. Dani, Ray, Chris, and I explored pretty much all of the main stretch and a few of the stores, but ended up spending quite a bit of time in an arcade called Club Sega. The arcade was six stories high, with the first three floors being just a bunch of the claw games. From the fourth floor up though, that's when it truly became an arcade. Ray and I played a few games and they were a lot of fun, but I was really enjoying just exploring and checking out the building. Some of the really surprising things were the people at the arcade. I was expecting to see students and younger people, but there was actually a lot of older businessmen, most who were still wearing their suits! They were getting really into the games too. You could tell they were concentrating just as hard, if not harder, then some of the younger kids at their games. I probably could have spent an entire day just exploring this area, so I was a bit bummed when it was time to head back to the hotel. I definitely would like to come back here though, especially if I knew how to read Japanese so that I could understand what some of the places were a little more.
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