I’m a day late on my blog from Day 3, and that’s okay.  We had other priorities like packing our bags to send on to Kyoto from Tokyo.

Yesterday was spent hanging around Tokyo Station. The station itself is gorgeous as you can see from the photos below.

Quite an amazing place.  It looks small from the outside, yet when you get deep inside the station, there’s a whole different world, underground, beyond subways, JR lines and Skinkansen.  There are whole streets dedicated to food, dining and shopping!  Most importantly, character shopping and omiyage, both important to Japanese culture – and their exports to the world outside.

You can spend a whole day here especially if you’re into much of the kawaii geerkey of this place.

We also found the Daimaru department store which has an amazing food hall.  Seriously amazing.  The presentation of food is a feast for the eyes and you want to buy and try everything.

We also found a Kit Kat special chocolate bar vendor within Daimru.  Kit Kat is Japan’s number one selling chocolate bar, and the flavours are spectacular.  You must try them if you can.

If you’re a geek like me, and you have a Nintendo 3DS, be sure to carry it around Japan with you, but more importantly, take it to Tokyo Station and other train stations.  You can pick up a lot of streetpasses, especially on Character Street.

We then headed over to Odaiba.  Odaiba is a man-made island and definitely a center of the port industry in Tokyo.  They’re also trying to make it a bit of  destination with shopping (AquaCity), Fuji TV’s HQ (really neat architecture), Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) and the Museum of Maritime Science.  Beyond that Toyota has a really neat technology showroom.  Odaiba is also where some of the venues for the 20/20 Olympics will take place.
Other things to see in Odaiba:

• There is a massive ferris wheel, which, in 1999 was the tallest in the world.
• There is a replica of the Statue of Liberty
• You can get a beautiful view of the Rainbow Bridge, which is lit up at night

To get there you can take the Yurikamome automated guideway transit service.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Ebisu Mitsukoshi department store, which is akin to a Hudsons Bay in Canada.  I didn’t think they would have a food hall, but we found it.  As always, in the basement. We picked up a HUGE meal of sushi for just over 1700 yen!  So good and tasty!  We also had tea in the lounge of the hotel – a great perk if you have Platinum privileges.