17,112 steps, 10.3km, just as many struggs

At least, that's according to our borrowed cell phone, which has a pedometer. No wonder my feet hurt, my knees feel funny, and my lower back is b**** slapping me. Amanda, of course, is fine, although might have developed narcolepsy.

Really, I shouldn't be surprised since we covered Shinjuku, Harajuku, Meiji Shrine, and Shibuya on a collective 7 hours of sleep for our first full day in Tokyo, which shall be presented in an extended series of pictures. So if your viewing this on a mobile device without WIFI, please do not send your new giant phone bill to me. Goodness knows I've already sent/received ~10 texts while abroad. Oops.

Oddly our first unaccompanied venture into the Tokyo subway system was struggs-free. We even finagled a ride into a women only car. 

Because Tokyo has had recent incidents of groping, the system has instituted women only cars during the morning rush. Take that men (aka grown-up bros)! Also, most of the stations have barriers between the platform and the tracks...aka no pushers.

 NYC could use a lesson. The fancy artsy chairs are an appreciated albeit superfluous touch.

Each exit out of a station is also numbered/labeled. O.o

I would say our first struggs came in trying to leave the station to visit Shinjuku...there were a lot of choices, we asked an official subway gatekeeper, universally dubbed “information dude”. He told us A9, and to go straight ahead. Not finding A9, and not liking our choices ahead, we turned right. ~15 min later we finally emerged from the station womb after this unnecessary labor, and it was nice:

There was one point where we were standing at a street corner holding a map at all different angles, prominently flaunting our dumb tourist status. A nice person, in English, then told us where to go.

People cleaning a cool building:

Our first detour was the Shinjuku – ji, a Shinto shrine in the area:

#pro:

The temple (although, after visiting other temples, I learned that it was impolite to take pictures at a sacred site):

Votive board: here people write down their wishes and hopes for whatever the want

A very nice English one:

Mister Donut (Japanese equivalent of Dunkin Donuts)

Cute things at Taito Station (a chain arcade)

Brunch? A surprising number of people came in for a quick bite to eat...the waitress was one of many strangers we encountered who understood our American-ness and kindly answered all of our questions in English.

This is rice, beef, onion, green onion, and raw egg yolk:

Our next stop was the Meiji shrine and Harajuku. The Meiji Shrine was built in the honor of Emperor Meiji and his Empress Shoken, and is a classic example of a Shinto temple.

There was this cool telephone booth:

Big gate:

 Long path:

Cute waterfall:

Japanese coin struggs + ticket to the iris garden

In the iris garden

old people doing better on the stairs than me:

koi:

flowers in water:

funny bushes:

Iris garden (side note: yup, all those umbrellas means that our treks were in the rain...super sadface yo)

SELFIE!

Iris close-up

Iris garden:

Amanda has bought some mosquito bite meds #cutewrapping

hut:

#superpro

a well:

long path (to nowhere?):

According to Shinto belief, every time you pass through a Shinto gate, your soul is cleansed. In order to properly pray at the temple, one must also clean one's hands and mouth done here:

Bonsai tree collection!!! (there's a lot more)

Selected close-ups:

Gate to the temple:

Giant votive board and temple:

You could also buy charms for the following things:

Cool handwriting:

Sake and French wine to sacrifice in honor of Meiji and his empress:

Cute candy:

Back scratchers with old people's head on the top (Wendy, I was seriously thinking about buying you one of these)

Harajuku (as my family friend describes, where little girls go to shop and/or hang out

Crepes!!!

Strawberry chocolate gelato crepe:

WTF

Amanda at a bar:

TAKOYAKI!!

Shibuya (city of youth):

Happy Amanda:

Emilly's dinner:

Amanda's dinner:

What what? That's my spoon??

A whole floor devoted to dessert

Besides some struggs and a great deal of Emilly's feet hurting and consequent resting deemed unnecessary by Amanda, the first day was pretty successful and fun. Hopefully it was enough for us to overcome our jet lag.