Tokyo Days, part 2

Before I start, let me say that I somehow have gotten used to the cold here. It's weird. It's like today, I hit some kinda turning point where it doesn't bother me as much. Odd. Ok, on to the rest of the Tokyo portion of the trip.

Day 4 (pictures)
Now, where was I? Oh, ok. On this day, I went to Asakusa with Atsuko and a friend of hers named Kazumi. This was the first time that I met Kazumi face to face, but I've talked to her on the phone before. And apparently, she's given me the nickname "Bob" after seeing a picture of me. Why, I don't know, but that's the way it is. Anyway, Asakusa was cool. We went to the temple there, and I took some pics. It's been a while since I've done the whole visiting a temple thing. It was cool. And I drew an omikuji which is like a fortune for the coming year. Mine was kyou, 凶, the worst one (or so I'm told). Needless to say, I was saddened by this; all of the things it said were so negative. So in traditional style, I tied it to this lattice to prevent the things in it from coming true. By the way, both Atsuko and Kazumi got kichi, 吉, the second best one.

After walking around the temple a bit and watching a cool street performer with a monkey (see the pics), we walked around all the shops in the area. And let me tell you, there are a LOT of little shops around Asakusa. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, except I wanted to try to see if I could find tabi socks that would fit me. Somewhat obviously, there wasn't any. Damn me and my gargantuan feet (15 in the US, 33 in Japan -- every time someone over here hears that number, their eyes almost pop out of their head).

After that, we went to a famous monjayaki and okonomiyaki restaurant in the area called Kondou, I think. It was SO GOOD! Oh man. I never really liked monjayaki before, but now, I really like the stuff. Oh man, so good.

After this, I parted with Atsuko and Kazumi and went to have coffee with a couple of friends from Stanford, Jonathan and Shiho. It was cool meeting up and talking with them.

Day 5
This was my last day in Tokyo. I wanted to have lunch with Atsuko, but it didn't work out (I woke up too late and wouldn't have been able to catch my train), but oh well. I ended up having lunch with Yosuke and played a bit of Mario Kart for the N64. Wow, that was nostalgic. And fun!

Btw, I'm glad that I put all my stuff in a duffel bag that can actually stand up by itself (last time, one of the legs on my luggage broke in the middle of the trip -- that was quite annoying). It made life so much easier to go from place to place.

Anyway, I got on the Shinkansen and off I went to the next stage of trip!

Next time: What mystery and adventure awaits our hero in Mie Prefecture?!

EDIT: Added photos! See above for links in context or visit http://picasaweb.google.com/mastercko for the whole thing.