Quakes
Late last night we were getting ready for bed and the ground started rumbling, moving as if we were in a car going down a bumpy road. Now, I have been feeling the ground move little tiny amounts the whole time I’ve been here but this was much more intense. Shocked, we just kinda sat there, bouncing around and looking at each other. “Should we…do something?” I asked Cole, who replied, “Nah we should be fine I think”, and was right! The trembling stopped moments afterwards we later found out a 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit about 350km north of us near Fukushima. This was the first time I’ve ever felt even the slightest shock of an earthquake in all honesty and I didn’t know what else to do but sit there and wait. I’m glad nothing more serious happened and now I’m just more afraid of earthquakes.
Cafe Veloce
For the entire time we have been in Tokyo, there has been this one cafe that has looked really good that we keep walking past, it was always busy and we always decided to go somewhere else. This morning was the first time we saw it less-than-completely-packed and decided to give it a try. It actually wasn’t the greatest, the sandwich I got was about a quarter of the size that it looked like in the photo and was pretty bland! We then found out that this place is a pretty big chain and that it was pretty much the cafe equivalent of fast food. So we checked it off the list of places to try. Always try everything once!
Tokyo Skytree… Sort of
After breakfast we jumped on our usual train (plus a couple others) towards Tokyo Skytree. Only took about 30 mins to get there and as soon as we left the subway station and got to ground level, we could instantly see it over the high-rise building right beside us. When I was a kid, I went to the CN Tower and it was the first time I had ever seen a building that was taller than a house. I remember looking up and seeing it for the first time, looming over me and so unreal in it’s scale that it felt like it was falling towards me, and I (as an 8 year old kid) just started crying with fear and I didn’t want to go up. Since then, I’ve had issues with all tall building or even just looking straight up at anything. In recent years it’s subsided quite a bit and no longer really bothers me, but as soon as I looked up at the Skytree (a bit taller than the CN Tower) I felt my knees turn to jelly and I was right back to being 8 years old again. Over the next few minutes it subsided and I was able to get some good pictures of it (although it took quite a bit of a walk to fit it into frame). We were planning on going up the tower but then realized it was Sunday and the line was huge! so we opted out and will be going later this week!
Sumida Park
In order to get shots of the tower (and to escape the heat and pass the time) we walked to a small park nearby. Turns out this park was actually really pretty and full of photo opportunities! There was a small pond with turtles in it, a large river right next to it, lots of women with umbrellas (seems to be the secondary theme of my photos here, right after crowded side-street with lots of signs), and pigeons! After spending close to an hour just exploring the park, we decided to head back and wait until Brandon’s plane landed.
The Brandini Cometh
Turns out, his plane landed later than it was suppose to, and the express trains stopped! While he had planned to be landed by 7:00pm and be there by about 8pm, it turned out that he didn’t end up getting to us until just after 11pm! Since almost all the food places were closed we ended up eating dinner at midnight at the stir fry place from the other night! I ended up eating my food as well as some of both Cole’s and Brandon’s food; needless to say, I was full and satisfied.
However, we didn’t end up sleeping until about 2am after hanging out together and catching up on the past couple months. Super good to see my friend and have him as a part of my time in Japan! Excited for the next couple days with him and Cole.
Keep Capturing,
Eric