Tokyo Day 3: The last day of our Korea/Japan trip

We started out our last day in Japan with Paul's mission to ride a few more roller coasters. We hopped a commuter train out to the Northern Tokyo suburbs, and went to Tobu Zoo. It was a nice little park, and the zoo side looked really large on the map, but we just rode a couple of coasters before heading back into town. Both coasters were fun, especially Kawasemi!

Paul and Tobu Zoo's mascot

"Regina," the wooden coaster

This coaster will make you cry?

Air time!

I do enjoy Itarian food. ;)

Back in Asakusa we found a chinese restaurant with some affordable set plates for lunch.  We had some eggplant, fried rice, and a few other yummy dishes.  We really like Japanese style Chinese food.  It's way less greasy and better overall than American style.

Lunch sets are a steal in Japan.  Look Mom, I don't look half-dead in this one!

After lunch, we headed across town to the Meguro neighborhood.  We were looking for the Museum of Parasitology, which is not shown on our guidebook's map.  After getting a little bit lost, we asked a young guy passing by. He knew exactly where it was, and walked us most of the way there while practicing his English! The museum was small but quirky, with lots of creepy parasite specimens in jars.

8.8 meter tapeworm.  Scary!

Gross

There also happened to be a festival at the Ootori Jinja shrine in Meguro. It was the "toro no ichi" festival, which celebrates the "day of the rooster" and anticipates spring. People buy decorated bamboo rakes for good luck. Each time someone bought a large extravagant rake (for over $100), the sellers would do a short little song with lots of clapping. At one stall, the seller would strike two pieces of flint together, sending sparks over the rake. It has something to do with the fact that there are three "days of the rooster" this year, which is unusual and predicts the year will have a lot of fires. It was really crowded at the shrine and a lot of people were taking pictures and videos while admiring the rakes. Paul got some delicious takoyaki from a stall, and we bought the smallest rake possible and it still cost over $10.

Those are all rakes hanging from the top

Takoyaki!  Look at the octopus at bottom left!

David still didn't quite get his fill of Akihabara, so we decided to go back and play some more games and search for more video game memorabilia.  David found a few more little items to purchase and played a bit more Street Fighter IV; he even beat the game in the arcade on one try!  Now he can scratch off "beat a video game in Japan" from his bucket list!  Akihabara is a really unique place.

This game was really popular

Saturday night in Akihabara is hopping!

After Akihabara, we took a train back to Asakusa to grab dinner and pack up.  We had dinner at Yoshinoya, a Japanese chain with a few locations in America that specializes in sliced beef over rice.  It's nothing special, but very simple, cheap and tasty.  Someone please open one in Atlanta!

Our flight back to America is on Sunday at 3:50 PM Japan time and we arrive in Atlanta at 1:30 PM Eastern Time (so we sorta arrive before we leave).  We both have to go to work on Monday morning, and I'm sure we'll be jet-lagged and exhausted for at least a few days.

We both had a really great time in Asia.  More pictures will find their way to facebook in the coming week or two.  We'll continue to update this blog with future trips, so check back if you hear we're going somewhere!