I visited the Meiji shrine in the morning. At least that was the plan, except I went to the wrong place. There happens to be an area called Yoyogi Park which is right next to it, and if you walk through the wrong entrance because you aren't paying attention like an idiot you'll end up wandering around there for a couple hours. Which is what I did, but I'm not complaining. Yoyogi park is awesome. There's a bird sanctuary as well as a really nice grove of trees from a couple dozen nations all over the world. I realized I was in the wrong place by the time I got to the furthest end, but that's when I saw a sign advertising bike rentals for two dollars an hour.
So then I spent the next hour biking around Yoyogi Park. This alone would be worth going back to Japan for in the spring. The park was already beautiful when only half the trees were in bloom and the trail system wound through a few groves and along a small creek. I kind of forgot why I had ventured out in the first place; the thrill of being on a bike for the first time in years was starting to go to my head.
I left shortly after returning the bike and started to head back out to Meiji shrine. The shrine itself is huge, somewhere between 70 and 80 acres and I'm pretty sure I covered most of it by foot. Even though there were tons of people visiting at the time, once I got far enough in I didn't see a soul. The shrine itself was built to honour the late Emperor Meiji who presided over a large cultural expansion in the early 1900s. I toured around the inner garden for a while before making the trek to the actual shrine part of the shrine. I had intended to visit the treasure museum as well but for reasons beyond my understanding it was closed. It's ok though because it was only a hundred miles out of my way by foot.
I made it to Shinjuku in the late afternoon, which was good because it gave me time to stretch my legs and finally get a little walking done for a change. Getting out at the wrong station, I decided to walk uptown a few blocks and visit the Park Hyatt hotel, where Lost in Translation was filmed. The original plan was to have a glass of Suntory in the New York Bar at the top of the building, but a few things got in the way. The first being that I was not dressed for how extremely nice that building is, and the second being I was broke-ass. Including the cover charge, my first drink would have cost me about $40. So I decided looking at it was probably good enough.
After this was another trip up the Metro building to see Tokyo at night (if you're in the area, DO THIS, especially if you can get into the North Tower), and somewhere in there I think I sat down once, and then day four came to an end.
On the last full day we visited the Tokyo National Art Museum to catch a travelling Terracotta Warriors exhibit as well as explore some traditional Japanese artwork. There were some truly stunning relics dating back several thousands of years, as well as some artwork that completely failed to translate into cellphone-camera phone. You'll just have to go there and check it out.
That evening we had some drinks, hit up some arcades and watched a chain-smoking guy dominate at Street Fighter IV for a half an hour. And that about does it for my time in Japan! It's a pretty cool place overall. Which I guess is self-evident based on the massive walls of text I've been pumping out for the past week. It was a lot of fun and I'm hoping to go back during my time in Korea. Until then, I once again leave you with the eccentric words of Tom Waits.
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