Tokyo day 2

So after our relaxing evening at the hotel, Robin woke up at 3:30am, and wouldn’t go back to sleep. It doesn’t help that in summer, it gets light at 4am in Tokyo. We got broken sleep from 5am, but only left the hotel room at 11:30am, as we were all moving slow this morning. We caught the metro subway to asakusa temple. Asakusa temple is the largest in Tokyo. There are long lines of shops leading up to the temple and huge crowds of people. Robin was getting a lot of attention, with people stopping us and asking if they could take his photo! It was very hot today, so we had a quick look around before heading to a nearby mall for some shopping and air conditioning. We bought a lovely traditional fan, and the shop owner gave Robin an origami crane for being so cute. He promptly tried to eat it.

Our next stop was Ueno park, which is a huge park in the middle of the city. There is an area full of children’s rides, a zoo and lots of performing arts centres. We stopped and had an ice-cream, which Robin really liked. Then we headed to the lotus ponds, which were just about to bloom. There was one section we found that had a few lotus flowers already starting to bloom, as well as lots of turtles and fish. A bit further on, there was a lake with people in paddle-boats shaped like swans. As we walked past, we saw a man hand feeding little birds. I thought it was fantastic, and he gave me some time and instructed me to hold my hand out. Within a few seconds, birds were eating out of my hand! It was brilliant.

Lastly, we went to the Akihanara district, which is known for electronics shops. We were desperate for some air conditioning to cool Robin (and us) down. We had a look around a department store and went to the video game level. There were lots of displays of character figurines and TVs playing cut scenes from games. Lots of bright colours and noise and cool air, Robin was in heaven! He was laughing and kicking his legs and really happy.

We started getting hungry, so walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. They had a promotion on, where you could win a prize when you purchased a beer. On peters second beer, we won an Asahi beer stein! Woohoo!

On the train on the way back to the hotel, after a big day walking in the heat, Robin decided it was a good time to poo his pants. We then had to desperately find a change room, because that nappy could not wait! Timing buddy – we’ll have to work on that. Luckily there was a great change room at the station and we had all the things we needed to clean him up. Except a bath, which he had as soon as we got back to the hotel.