Touring Tokyo

It's another hot and humid day in Tokyo. So far, my time here has been wonderful. I've really been enjoying it. Right now, I don't have that many pictures to share because

1. My camera wasn't charged at first.

2. I forgot to carry my camera.

3. I forgot to take pictures

4. Some places it's really not acceptable to take them

That being said, I do have a couple to share with you now.

I've been sightseeing so far at Ginza, Shibuya, Harujuku, Sangenjaya, etc. Each of these sections of Tokyo are legitimate cities themselves. Ginza is known for being a very affluent area. It's famous for shopping and for big businesses. Shibuya is more for younger people, as is Harajuku. Sangenjaya is one of the really nice residential type areas around here. What's interesting is that each of these cities actually look different. The buildings will vary in height and design. For example, Ginza has huge glass buildings, but Sangenjaya doesn't really seem to have much over 4 stories.

To give you a better idea, I've collected just a few pictures.

The entrance to Ginza

Ginza

Harajuku

The amount of people here is amazing. Literally, there are millions of people around, but yet things are extremely safe. I mean, people will lock their bike's wheel or something, but not chain them to anything, and nothing is stolen. It's pretty impressive actually. I can honestly say that wouldn't stop anyone in the States.

For example, let's look at one of the busiest intersections ever. This is only one part of the intersection. There are several crosswalks mind you.

All of those people cross in 1 minute. You only see about 1 crosswalk there, but there are actually around 4 if I remember correctly. And this was during the time of day when it wasn't considered "busy."

Carrot tower (seen above) is just an example of one of the exceptionally tall buildings in the area. It's about 26 stories, though when I commented on the fact that it was huge, people kind of shrugged it off as average. The bottom mostly has banks, but there are also some businesses and other things in here as well. The top has a radio station and a restaurant as well as a bunch of windows to look out from. The picture below is just an example of some of the city.

The place on the left with a little green on the rooftop, a banner, and a courtyard is an elementary school. There were actually children outside, likely doing P.E. or something along those lines. If you're seeing any green rooftops it's because the government is trying to encourage people to put plants and other things on the top to lessen the energy consumption of the city and to cool it down some. One of the buildings (not pictured here) actually had a pool on top.

Finally, I'm going to leave you with a little gem. Since I definitely wasn't supposed to take pictures here, and I got yelled at - which really means very firmly chastised - for doing so, I think it's kind of lucky that I was allowed to keep it. There's at minimum a 7 floor Abercrombie & Fitch here in Tokyo. The prices are ridiculous. Around $220 US for a shirt that would sell for about $40 back home. It's a brand thing though. Anyway, the bottom floor had a very muscular guy posing for pictures. On every floor above that had people dancing around the stairwell balconies. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get them, but I did get a somewhat blurry picture of one of the many paintings that go up the entire building all around the stairwells. These pictures had men doing everything from just posing to Olympic sports. It was very interesting. I apologize for the blurriness, but I wasn't able to use flash considering that I knew I probably wasn't allowed to go shooting pictures in here.

And on that note, I'm over and out.

Michelle