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GOODNIGHT TOKYO! Japan day 20

Kyoto to Tokyo

It was another nice day and we headed to the platform temple in the morning, Kiyomizu. It is the Friday before Golden Week and there are school kids everywhere!

Kiyomizu


It's early and we're tired


Can you tell?




Main Hall of Kiyomizu-dera temple






We head down some steps and while I'm snapping photos, Chris, Brendan and Rob are approached by some school girls to sign their books. As they finish up, some more school girls come by, and some more... They ask their teacher to take a group picture so I take one too. Aftwards, some school boys come up and ask for more signing! Hilarious.






In the background, you can see the Otowa Waterfall which this temple ("Pure Water Temple") is actually named after, but are the kids interested in it? No, they want English speakers to sign their books!




We do some more exploring and the guys jump every time we see some school girls. "Oh no! Doe they have books?!"


Feeling tall


Skip in a candy shoppe!


We head back to the hotel to checkout and take the train back to Tokyo.


Speedy shinkansen back to Tokyo


Train snacks


After checking into our hotels, we meet up with DaveC and Charlotte at Shibuya station in the evening.


At the station, we checked out these next generation vending machines which are supposed to detect your gender, outside temperature and your mood and then make suggestions on what items you need from the vending machine!


Shibuya scramble!

We wander around Shibuya a bit and then head to a restaurant called "Alcatraz + ER" for dinner. It is pretty much what it sounds like! It is a theme restaurant and the theme is horror hospital/jail. So we are escorted to our "cells" where we will have dinner. We're in a big cell with lots of tables because we're a big group, but they have lots of small cells for small groups that look cramped and cool.


Alcatraz + ER Entrance


Our lovely table

As we're looking around and checking out the gross menus, all the lights go off and a strobe light comes on and a scary voice starts speaking. Unfortunately, the scary voice was speaking in Japanese, so it wasn't very scary for those of us who didn't know what it was saying!!! At the end, a masked man in black snuck into the back of our "cell" and would jump at you and try to scare you. At one point he almost dragged DaveC across the cell and out into the hall! Eeeeep! Finally the lights came back on and we proceeded to order food and drinks, also themed Alcaltraz + ER!


Themed food and drinks

After dinner we wandered around Shibuya again. It was so busy because it was Friday night (and also now Golden Week) we could not find a reasonable place to go. Lots of places were packed and there were even neat little nooks outside restaurants where business men were eating and drinking off of palettes stacked on top of each other. It was a very interesting and neat area!


People eating outside restaurants on stacked palettes, Tokyo

Dace would try to negotiate with the various well dressed men with host haircuts to see what kind of deal we could get. One karaoke place was going to give us a deal, but only from 11pm - 5am!


Last night in Tokyo! In Shibuya with the gang.

Finally, we found a suitable place with good prices and room, so we followed the host-man to an elevator a few blocks away. We took the elevator up a few floors and exited into what looked like a subway station. Not the kind of place where you'd expect a restaurant!


This is where the host man takes us!


We wait outside while they get our table ready

We went in and it was a cramped little space with all these nooks and crannies and in each nook and cranny was a small table and a group eating and drinking! What an efficient use of space! Our "room" was only just big enough to fit the table and for us to sit around it and lean against the back walls! It was VERY cozy. The service ended up being alright and we had some lovely ice cream and fruity drinks. We had a great time hanging out in our little nook! Dace and Charlotte had to leave to catch the last train home so we headed out.


Our nook


It's a bit cramped

It was our last night in Japan, so the remaining 5 of us went to an Irish pub that was previously too busy. They remembered us from earlier and they had a table now so we sat down and had some snacks and drinks.


Irish pub in Shibuya

We wandered around to check out some other places. We went to one place and they were playing Toy Story on the tv!! Afterwards we went to an expensive dance club called Womb where we got our boogie on! The DJ's were decent!


decent DJ


Womb

We tried to get our money's worth, but by the time we got back to the hotel, the sun was coming up! A fun last night in Japan.


Goodnight Tokyo.

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