The morning started a bit rough for Lucy (she was having a nightmare about being attacked by bugs; Benton woke her up, but she wasn’t in the best mood). After Benton woke up, Lucy decided to go back to sleep for a bit (no nightmares this time) while Benton went for a run around the Imperial Palace.
Once Benton got back, we both got ready and walked to Key’s Cafe for a very cheap breakfast (Lucy got a souffle pancake with a tomato + other juice drink, and Benton got some toast with tea). From breakfast, we walked to a Shinto shrine nearby (Hie Shrine). The shrine was pretty neat (it wasn’t very big, so it was cool to be in a park right among a bunch of much taller buildings).
After the shrine, we took the metro to Shibuya to roam around and see some of the stores/chaos. This felt a bit like going to Times Square, but it was cool to seeShibuya Scramble Crossing. We also went into a huge Don Quijote (a super chaotic + large department store), where we got some random items + generally had fun looking around.
For lunch, we went to a noodle place (Tokyo Aburagumi Sohonten Shibuya). This was our first experience with vending machine ordering (there are buttons on a vending machine for selecting the various options with your noodles, and then when you pay, you get a meal ticket, which the host takes before seating you. Pretty efficient overall.
It started raining during lunch and had gotten pretty chilly, so we decided it was probably worth buying something a bit warmer (both Benton and Lucy didn’t bring anything too warm). We managed to acquire some (pretty cheap) jackets from a big chain called Gu, before heading to a different neighborhood (called Daikanyamacho). This turned out to be a pretty dead area, so we hung out for a bit in a cafe before heading back to our hotel to take a rest.
The weather was pretty gross (cold, windy, and rainy), so we walked a bit to a seafood bowl place for dinner (Nihonbashi Kaisen Don Tsujihan - Ark Hills Branch) before going to a very high-up cocktail bar (Rooftop Bar Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills). The cocktail bar was very high up, so the views of Tokyo were really cool, but the open air made it a bit chilly. (Also, getting to the bar was quite an adventure; we went through multiple unmarked doors and had to click an elevator button that looked like a rock, but ultimately we made it).
We stayed at the bar until pretty late and then went back to the hotel to sleep.
