Danny read on lonely planet that if you only see one place in Tokyo it should be the National Museum. I strongly disagree. The museum was ok but not exceptional.
They have a decent collection of art, samurai costumes, swords and other historical items. I was pretty tired by this point of the trip and would most likely have been a bit more excited about it if I had more energy and it hadn't been built up so much by the lonely planet description.
Next we walked over to a shopping street called Ameya Yokosho. It was pretty close to the museum and directly next to the subway stop we had used to get to Ueno Park. As we were walking we saw posters about Falun Gong. Danny wanted me to take a picture so he could show one of his co-workers who he had tried to tell about it. In New York you see people complaining about the Chinese government persecuting followers of Falun Gong all the time. I never knew much about it but Danny's parents went to a workshop once. It basically is a spiritual meditation thing that is a bit cult like and has a system of trying to get the followers to give all their money to the organization. China does persecute the followers as far as I know though, much like it does anyone who tries to get Chinese citizens to practice an organized religion.
Anyway, Ameya Yokosho is a bargain shopping street that runs next to an above ground subway line. Since Japan is really expensive (way more so than Manhattan) everything was still somewhat pricey compared to Shanghai. We didn't end up buying anything except for a few snacks as we wandered around. Danny was really excited to find this fish shaped pastry thing that was filled with cream. They sell them in Shanghai too but he says it is a Japanese food. I thought it was only ok.
Next we headed to Akihabara, the electronics district. I wasn't really that excited to see it but Danny loves technology. We had a hard time finding the area once we got off the subway. Once we found it I decided that since I was really tired we should sit down and eat before we looked around. We found a Tapas place, the food was pretty disappointing but they were nice and made something vegetarian. We looked around the big electronics mall briefly. It had a lot of gadgets which Danny liked and I wasn't that interested in. Danny said he had really been hoping the electronics malls in Shanghai would be more like this one where you could just walk around and browse. In Shanghai the sales people hassle you constantly asking if you want to buy something and follow you around the store. In Tokyo they don't do that but it is really expensive, more than in the states. We didn't end up buying anything and headed back to the hotel after about a half hour.
I was so tired I was thinking about staying in for the night but after a nice rest we decided to try to figure out where Golden Gai was located. Last time we mistakenly went to Kabukicho, which was also an interesting neighborhood. This time we found the right neighborhood after walking through Kabukicho on the way. Golden Gai was a really cute area filled with tiny independent bars. Unfortunately since it was a Sunday night the streets were sort of dead in both areas. After looking around a bit we had some sake at a bar called Champs. It was tiny like all the bars in the area and had karaoke and random kitschy decorations. We got some cheap Indian food at a little place around Kabukicho before we headed back in time to catch the subway to the hotel.
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