Kamakura Adventure Pt. 3 (Saturday Evening, Nov. 1)

After lunch, Hiro, Sonja, and I went around Akihabara, the electronic center of Tokyo. One of my "missions" of the weekend was to get a denshijisho: an electronic dictionary. There were stores in Shimizu with them, but none came with English directions! So surely, I would find a model I liked with minimal English directions in TOKYO, right? And I DID! Pictures are still to come.


In the evening, Hiro took Sonja and me to a Meiji Shrine that was to be lit up for a festival. Before the main entrance were a BAJILLION lanterns with the names of sponsering companies of the festival. Here Hiro and I are in front of the many many lanterns that couldn't all fit into the picture!



Japan has two main religions: Buddhism and Shintoism. Since this is a SHRINE, it is associated with Shintoism. If it were a TEMPLE, it would be associated with Buddhism. I only know a few facts of either religion so please do not ask me for intense details!
Here is the main entrance to the shrine.



This is the entrance to the main courtyard area.



The place was PACKED with people!!! There was to be entertainment on the stage at 6:30, but we had dinner reservations at 7pm so we couldn't stay to watch.




We were able to see a little bit of entertainment at the lantern area. Different groups participated in the dancing and this group had castanet dealies.

So dinner was probably at the most stunning place EVER. After visiting the shrine and the festival, we hopped on the train again to Ebisu. Out of the station, we took about 6 moving sidewalks across on walkway to Yebisu Garden Place.
How to describe it? Imagine Branson Landing Outlet Mall in Missouri or Easton Mall in Ohio but already decorated with Christmas lights on NOVEMBER 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What?! Yeah, that's what I said when I saw them.

So we walked a ways enjoying the lights, and then there was a HUGE building on the right, we went inside and stepped inside the elevator. But the elevator only had three buttons: 1st floor, 38th floor, and 39th floor. Seriously?! This is wild! And I suddenly felt under-dressed in my green khakis, t-shirt, and blue hoodie. Stepping out on the 38th floor looked like a grand hotel lobby... but unlike any hotel lobby I had ever seen. Every door off the carpeted hall led to a restaurant!!! And what spectacular views of Tokyo by night!!!

So Hiro treated Sonja and me to shabu-shabu. In the table is a hot plate. On the hot plate is a huge pot of water with kobu (a form of seaweed). Then green veggies are added into the broth followed by thinly sliced meat, usually pork. "Shabu-shabu" is the onomonapeia for the squishing sound made in the water when the pork is swashed in.

And for those of you who have eaten out with me, you know that despite my little size, I can eat A LOT. And of course, this was no exception. We had a curious appetizer of rare meat, salad with egg/cheese dresing, cucumber salad, two servings of green veggies, and 5 racks of pork. Oh, and I had plum wine!! It was delicious. Of course, I chose to have it diluted in soda water since I really didn't know what alcohol would do to me yet, but I managed fine without getting red in the cheeks or whoozy in the head. I felt so... "grown-up". Tee hee!
Here Hiro is serving out the meat. Sorry for the blurry picture.

This picture cannot capture the amazing taste of pork and veggies in sauce. When will Japan make scratch-n-sniff digital photos? I dunno. But this was heaven after weeks of sushi and salmon at my apartment in Shimizu.

Afterwards, Hiro joked "So when we get back to Kamakura, we'll go have some ramen." Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!! I was surprised I managed to waddle back to the station.
And one last video... if you listen closely at the very end, you can hear Hiro saying "Jill! Stop eating!"
Thank you for such a great day, Hiromasa!!!!