Day 2: Ueno and Akihabara
On the second day of our hostel session, we hopped onto the train headed to Ueno, yet another district in Tokyo. It's home to Ueno Park (where there is a giant statue of eyeglasses) and to Tokyo University (known in Japan as Todai, short for Tokyo Daigaku). The park was beautiful, but the Todai campus was even more exciting. It looks very western, with a ton of brick buildings and architecture that wouldn't seem out of place at a University on the East Coast.
At the end of the day, we wandered a bit farther out into Akihabara, where we came across Meiji University and a collection of awesome shops that we didn't have enough time to peruse. I decided to go back the next morning, and spent several hours wandering around the various shops and restaurants.
On that note:
Day two! Akihabara (again) and Ghibli Museum
I was finally able to find a bag, after two days of searching, only two blocks away from the hostel. Of course.
After that, it was an hour long trip to the Ghibli Museum (!) in Mitaka. It was incredible. They had a room demonstrating different animation techniques, a room of storyboards and sketches and that type of thing, as well as a movie theater where they play a short that isn't released outside of the museum. I won't talk about the gift shop because it knocked me down and took my money.
We couldn't take pictures inside the museum, but we could take pictures from the outside.
For those of you interested in more pictures, here are the links to the albums I've posted on Facebook. I've organized them by day/location.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151103348670734.493081.630850733&&l=2f3b985fca
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151103352970734.493082.630850733&&l=400d89bb36
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151103374855734.493089.630850733&&l=254f871772
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151103408085734.493092.630850733&&l=1acf3f1689
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151103414325734.493093.630850733&&l=a979f023b2