Japan :: Day 03

We let ourselves sleep and were excited to hit the pavement for our first full day exploring. We walked by the Imperial Palace Gardens and National Garden to Tokyo Station so we could pick up some train tickets for our next leg of the trip. After that, we saw Shibuya Scramble Crossing. It's all the chaos you would imagine. Streets in Tokyo also cross diagonally. The amount of people that gather before the walk light turns greet is incredible. Next stop was Meiji Jingu. The walk alone was stunning. Beautiful, serene gardens. We purified our hands and mouths, wrote a couple wishes and bought a few prayers. Next was lunch at Tonkatsu Maisen for pork cutlets. Walked through Takeshita Street to see the crazy shops and mini pig cafes, then went back to our neighborhood and shopped at Itoya Ginza, an 8-story paper and stationery store I could have spent hours at. After our long day, we had dinner at a tempura restaurant near us. It was absolutely delicious.

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Funny story. Our hotel had a public bath. They are pretty amazing, especially after a long day. Typically in public baths, tattoos are not allowed, so we weren't even sure we'd be able to use them. Our hotel assured us it was fine, so we decided to take advantage of it. The first night (yesterday), I went down and decided to try it out. No one was in the changing room, but as soon as I opened the door to the showers and bath -- naked, because that's how it's done -- there were probably 6 other people. I took a deep breath and went for it. It's a whole ritual. Before you enter the giant, steaming bath, you shower. For some reason, you sit on a little plastic bench to do so. My knees were basically at my chin. I felt so awkward. I sat in the bath a bit, covering my tattoos best I could with my hands. Not that I needed to, but again, I just felt so weird. Needless to say, I survived, and it really did feel great. But then I realized I had to bring my own towel from the room, which I didn't. Some nice person called the front desk for me, but by the time it came, I already had dried myself off with a shirt. The whole thing was just really uncomfortable for me. Brian's experience was nice and relaxing, by the way. It didn't stop me from trying again the next day (this day). But as soon as I entered the bath area and saw the cubby full of shoes, I turned right around and soaked in the large tub in our room. I was not going to do that to myself again.