It was a fine Sunday morning. I managed to get up plenty early for a long day of touring. Today, it would be a visit to the Hokusai Museum, the Solomachi Mall Pokemon Center at the Skytree, then Akihabara afterwards.
After getting ready for the day I wandered down to the McDonalds near Shimbashi Station. The restaurant is on a corner in a narrow space, but all the dining spaces are on the next couple of floors above ground. I ordered my favourite which is a sausage egg McMuffin and hashbrowns. They always make it really fresh and perfectly done. From my window seat, I had a great view of the Yamanote Line tracks and all the trains rumbling by.
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| McDonalds finally made a big turn around this year. They had closed underperforming stores, focused on quality, paid and treated their workers better, and made a comeback after the bad chicken scandal three years ago. |
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| I always have this once every trip to Tokyo. Always seems to be done right and better than at home most of the time. |
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| Kurios advertisement. Great show that I caught back home. |
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| Walking the streets to the Hokusai Museum. Basically started from the Tokyo Edo Museum as it was the closest stop by train. |
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| Love these daikon radishes. They are so good in stews. |
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| This was a grocery store right under the train tracks. They use all the space in Tokyo. |
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| Walking along the train track. |
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| The Hokusai Museum. |
The Hokusai Museum is pretty new, only opening two years ago. It has many of Hokusai's works on display and a great little gallery and timeline of his work. If you are a Hokusai fan you will want to visit. If you are not, or only kind of into his work, it is a museum you could pass on. I wanted to see it anyways and enjoyed the overview of this works. I didn't realize that he was also like the father of manga and made many art books to train other artists. There is also a cool life-size diorama of the artist working there (he wasn't known for neatness). If you haven't seen the movie Miss Hokusai, then you should try to have a watch as it is a pretty cool flick.
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| The 36 Views of Mt. Fuji. |
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| The Great Wave off Kanagawa |
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| Mt. Fuji |
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| View of the Skytree from the Museum. |
After the museum, I went walking over to another train line east of the museum for about a kilometre. It isn't far to the Skytree, but I still would take a train to save wear on the feet and time.
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| Lots of drink vending machines. |
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| Closeup of some drinks. |
The morning was really nice. I was picking up all sorts of food souvenirs as I went as there were all these supermarkets and who wants to make a special shopping trip again if it is just there.
My previous post about this morning and views of the Skytree.
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| Skytree! |
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| The Skytree is really a great looking tower. |
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| There is a robot exhibit at the Solomachi Mall that also has a giant Macross Valkyrie. |
The Solomachi Mall is a great place to shop and to eat. I visit this mall every time I come to Tokyo and have stayed at a hotel in the area. Many conveniences and easy access to eastern Tokyo from here. During my last trip here, a new Pokemon Center had opened up.
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| Pokemon Center Skytree Town. It has a giant Rayquaza on display. |
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| Pikachu rides the Ray! And it is big. |
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| Pikachu Stuffies exclusive to the Skytree. |
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| Solageo |
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| Loads of merchandise here. |
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| This is like a half scale gashapon machine that is Pokemon themed. It was to big to carry so I didn't pick one up. As usual, these are limited edition and you'll have to luck out to find one. |
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| Stuffies! Bought a Lapras. |
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| Pokemon Cup Noodles. They have little naruto discs inside with pokemon faces. |
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| Soon enough it was lunch time and I needed a break. So MOS Burger it was. |
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| Had a tasty teriyaki burger and fries. |
That was all for the morning. I even managed a quick trip back to the hotel to drop all the loot off before continuing onto Akihabara, see the posts below.
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