Day 2 - Nakamise Shopping Arcade

We leave Asakusa Kannon Temple by another gate to head to Nakamise Shopping Arcade, and I grabbed this photo because of the cherry trees.

You can't really see them, but the left side is lined with vendors.  This isn't even the shopping arcade, but you can tell there's quite a bit of buying going on in this area.  Strangely enough, there was also a primary school along this path, and some of the children were out playing.  They were extremely cute.  There was a fairly substantial gate so strangers just walking along the area couldn't get in, and several signs were posted about not taking photos.  It doesn't surprise me that this is a common issue for them to deal with given the location.

We keep going and end up at the shopping arcade, which is packed with people.  Moko, the tour guide, walks us through the area, pointing out things here and there.  I was too busy looking and tended to forget to take pictures, but I did get a few.

Now it was time for food.  It was around 3pm, and I thought it was strange since we had a welcome dinner planned for later that night.  But I wasn't complaining, and neither was my stomach.  Moko started leading us to a restaurant that looked like it was selling ramen and other quick dishes, but the place was packed.  Lizzy, Amanda (Lizzy's mother), and I decided we would go elsewhere and look around, so we broke off from the group and explored.

We found a walking path known for the cherry blossoms.  The next few photos were all taken along the path.

 This one was actually just as you're getting to the entrance.  You can see the cherry trees of the path at the very right-hand side of the shot.

 Not cherry trees, but this was along the path.  Supposedly this building is known for looking something like a beer mug.  While strange, I don't really see it myself.

 I wish now that I'd taken a movie of this shot.  The cherry blossoms, or sakura, were swirling around in the wind.

 Tokyo Tower in all it's glory.

This is looking back along the path that we'd just walked.

Our appetite for sakura blooms now filled, we set off to fill our bellies.  As we were looking, we found this guy.  I wish I could tell you what he was doing or what he was carrying, but I never was able to find out.

We finally found a place for a quick bite, but we realized we had a problem right as we ordered.  We were never going to get our food in time and make it back to the bus to meet with the others.  And even worse, I had left my bag and souvenirs from the Koomon on the bus, and I couldn't remember the way back.  Amanda volunteered to run back with me so we could get my stuff and tell Moko that we were going to make our own way back to the hotel.

Yes, we left Lizzy at the restaurant, but we couldn't just run out on the poor staff.  As it turns out, our server was quite concerned that our food was going to get cold, but we assured her that we would be right back.  Thankfully we made it to the bus and back in short order, but it did begin to rain.  Just enough to be annoying, but not enough to slow us down.

The food at the restaurant was good, but I forgot to get a picture of my chicken and noodle soup.  Apologies to Katy and any other culinary experts out there.  I've tried to get better about that over the last day or two.

Once we'd eaten, we managed to make our way back to Shinjuku via the train system.  However, we were not going back to the hotel yet.  We had a whole hour and a half to play with before the welcome dinner that night at the hotel, and Amanda, Lizzy, and I were on a mission.

To be continued!