Kiddy Land

On the same street as the souvenir shop, we came across Kiddy Land, an enormous toy store. By this time we were in a rush to get to the airport, so we didn't linger for long in Kiddy Land. I snapped a few photos because the shop's six-floor layout really appealed to me; all the toys and novelty items were arranged according to characters. Can you recognise and name all the ones below? You're doing better than me!

Downtown Tokyo

After visiting the temple and Tokyo Tower, we took the train to Shibuya to see "the busiest simultaneous pedestrian crossing” in the world.

Here I am with the famous sculpture of Hachiko, the loyal dog said to have met his master faithfully every night at a certain hour even after his master died.

We spent a few hours wandering the streets of Shibuya, looking in the shops and soaking up the nightlife atmosphere.

Today we had two hours to spare before our flight back to Hong Kong, so we headed downtown again.

As you can see from this map, the Tokyo train system is a lot more complicated than our Hong Kong MTR!

Craig loved the way that passengers are informed on a screen how many minutes it will take for the train to reach all the stations on the line.

Is any one else curious why the expectant mother's belly on this sign has radiating lines? Is the baby shouting? Is an alien ready to explode out?

And speaking of signs, the Japanese add extra special embellishments to their public toilets.

This Tokyo shop name reminded us of our nephew, Jonathan.

Our final destination before the airport: souvenir shopping.

Tokyo Tower (by Craig)

As we heard that Tokyo Tower was the 'must see' place in Tokyo (and we got a bargain price at the hotel next door), that was our next stop. Based on the Eiffel Tower deisgn, it is painted orange and white according to the Civil Aeronautic Law. Originally intended for television broadcasting, radio antennas were installed in 1961, but the tower is now used to broadcast signals for numerous Japanese media outlets.

View of our hotel from the 150 m Main Observatory...

...and as half way up is only half as good, we took the extra elevator trip up to the highest public Special Observatory that is at 250m.

Whilst Tokyo has almost double the population of Hong Kong, (13 million v's 7 million) and is almost close to double the geographic area (~2200 square km v's 1104 square km) the city's architecture in our opinion lacks some of the charm and design flair of our familiar Hong Kong skyline.

The pollution is a common element.

The Tokyo harbour with it's large bridges had a bit of a Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) feel.

And the raised free(toll)ways did add a Hong Kong flavour.

Bottom left is our hotel and bottom right is the Zojiji temple that we just explored.

I did have to constantly remind myself that surely a countless number of people had already safely traversed the same path before me over the transparent flooring for this photo.

With a Valentines Day promotion on, we were there at the right time to receive some free strawberries and milk chocolate.

And get a few nice couples photos.

Happy Valentines Day 2013!

So if you ever visit Tokyo, what I call their 'Eiffel Tower' is a must visit.