Sunday: Tokyo Day 2

Wake up to a nice earthquake.  Seriously.  Shook my hotel room all over the place.  It wasn't really a scary thing, just "holy fuck, everything is shaking all over the fucking place."

Counter balance this with the fact that earthquake emergency notice was followed directly by a classic episode of Pokemon.  This is the one where Satoshi and Kasumi meet Takeshi for the first time.  

This is the default breakfast set.  Rolls, yogurt, juice, pumpkin soup, salad, fries, scrambled eggs, super thick slab of bacon, two sausages, coffee.  ¥‎1500, but I was good after this until dinner, so I may do it again tomorrow.

 Today's plan was the Meiji Shrine.

This is not the shrine, it is the Treasure Museum.  Basically, you get Emperor Meiji's biography through 80 paintings, plus a sample of his belongings.  You know, other than "an empire."

Despite the trees, this is right in the middle of the city.  

There was a mom and young daughter looking over the side of the bridge, so I did the same.  I saw Mr. Turtle here, lazily swimming around.

The shrine itself.  Holy crap was it full of people.  I didn't do much here.  Not pictured: the dozens of kids dressed up in their super fanciest clothes for a reason I didn't understand.

Another view.

 What's right next to Meiji Shrine?

Harajuku.

I didn't see many people dressed up, but there were definitely a bunch of shops selling various fashionable clothes.  There's a ukiyo-e museum here, so that was on my list of places to visit.  I probably wouldn't have found it if I didn't have access to the free wifi they have randomly on the street.  No photography allowed inside the museum, though, so I had to buy the book for the exhibit to show you this picture:

"I have a sandal!" "NO!"

 Yes, those are bats dressed up like people.  That's part of the theme of the exhibit.

No, I have too many ducks of my own to worry about storing yours!

Eventually, following gravity, I made my way down to Shibuya station to ride back up to Shinjuku.  It was crazy busy today, mid-afternoon on a Sunday.  I can't imagine it when it's really busy.

Hachiko statue.

Yes, I cheated on dinner again today, and went to the Italian place in the shopping area of the hotel I'm staying in.  For some reason, there are three restaurants in the hotel, plus nearly another in the same building, but somehow unaffiliated.

Potato gnocchi in meat sauce; spaghetti with mushrooms in tomato cream sauce.

Those aren't really what I think of as gnocchi.  They were flat, fat disks, where I usually think of tiny bite size things.  Whatever you call them, they were delicious, so it's not much of a problem.

• I discovered this show, which seems to be showing a lot on NTV today.  Here's another page to look at.  Imoto Ayako is the only major star on the episodes I've seen.
• I think I've seen samples of this show (which I discovered clicking around) on KIKU at home.
• This song was playing in the restaurant at dinner, but I can't get the sound to work today.