Shinjuku! Karaoke!

This morning I awoke in the early hours, wide awake, decided it was too early to get up and read for a couple of hours until about 6:00 when I decided it was fine to get up in about half an hour to take a shower and get ready for the day ahead (I was planning on meeting my friend who's staying in the same hostel as me and meeting up with a bigger group at about 11:00). 6:30 came around, my jet-lag kicked in and I woke up about at about 9:30, which was fine luckily as my friend had been out to a night club the night before and hadn't woken up either. We were a little late to meet up with the rest of the group but it was fine~ We ate an early lunch at a udon restaurant close to Shinjuku station which was delicious I had mine with an egg and tempura onion!

We then walked to a free observatory on the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and enjoyed the sprawling (and somewhat cloudy) view of the landscape.

Afterwards, we walked to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden which was lovely just to walk around, despite the humidity and heat.

We also stopped into the tea house in the park and had some tradition match and sweet served to us by a kimono-san. Also had a stroll around the enclosed botanical gardens which matched the outside weather perfectly.

After working up quite a sweat from all that walking such humid conditions we went to a cafe close by and rested for a while (I had a matcha float). As we got up to leave the cafe (which in the basement of a tower block) the heavens decided to open and we were blessed with a rest from the sticky as it bucketed it down. We waited for about ten minutes to see if it would subside but it didn't seem like that was going to happen anytime soon so we each shared an umbrella and made our way to purikura (fun photo booths)!

On our way we stopped by to pay our respects to Godzilla (can you spot him?).

We made it to the game centre which had an entire floor dedicated to purikura and an amusing sign on the way up forbidding men onto the floor unless accompanied by a woman. The name of the booth also made me laugh which was somewhat lost on my companions.

After having fun transforming our faces into alien-like masks we made our way to karaoke! We had a private booth for three hours with five dishes and unlimited drinks, needless to say, it was an excellent first day in Tokyo. I'm a little sad to be going so soon but excited for venturing to Takayama-mura tomorrow!

2017年8月19日