Tokyo - The fun part

So, here are some fun things that I did while I was in Tokyo...pre-earthquake. We went to a temple. The grounds were beautiful. Here's a picture of me in front. They were actually doing some kind of a ceremony, so inside the actual temple, they had monks and the traditional drummers. It was cool. I did not take pictures of that because it just didn't feel right. After here, Alicia took me to the most awesome pottery store in the world where I bought a bowl, something for my sister and a beautiful sake set. One day we went yarn shopping. Here is the Avril yarn store, which is the home of Habu textiles.

They had soo much neat stuff and...were having a sale!!! I bought quite a lot yarn. It was sad.

We went Karoking one night at Big Echo.

Contrary to popular belief, you aren't singing in front of a whole room of people. The Japanese have even refined Karoke. You rent rooms for an hour at time and you have your own personal karoke tv, mics and tambourine, of course!. At this point, we'd had a few drinks, so needless to say, there were plenty of people peeking through the window in the door at the crazy americans.

One day, Alicia and I went to a Girl's Day lunch sponsored by the Tokyo/DC wives club. It was at a traditional japense home, which was totally cool. The floors were heated! We had an amazing lunch of Cherry Blossom tea, clam soup (yes, I ate it) and sushi. Then the lovely japanese women dressed us in Kimono's.

It's absolutely amazing how much work goes into putting a kimono on. There's an under-dress that you have on and everything you have on is tied on. Someone said that they had to do 9 knots to get out of their kimono. Also, kind of feels like you have on a corset with the obi tied around the waist. I can tell you, these outfits definitely not made with well-endowed women in mind.

Finally, I'll leave you with one of the fashion streets in Tokyo. It was packed with people and was fun to look at all the weird stuff. There was a store that sold socks. I don't know how I managed not to find any...