Robot Claw – Page 483 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

King Kong’s Finger

June 9, 2013

Tokyo Sky Tree wasn’t built when we were last here. It’s a ~650 m tall communications tower with two observation galleries at 350 and 450 m. From the ground, it seems impossibly tall.

Bernard and I went up yesterday. KLS waited at the bottom since she gets afraid of heights. We had to wait in line for a while, but overall the line management was well done and ran smoothly. Here’s two example shots of the view from the top:

Visibility was very good, and the Sky Tree is a great way to see just how colossal Tokyo is! We didn’t go to the higher terrace (due to a wait for the additional ticket) but thought the Tower was absolutely worth the visit.

Down at the base is a large mall in which most shops include Sky Tree themed items. These run the gamut from predictable (plastic models of the tower, t-shirts) to just absurd:

That’s a flattened squid (to eat) in Hello Kitty Sky Tree packaging…

And who can resist the Rilakkuma Sky Tree merchandise?

Japan loves the old ‘lets cut a hole in a picture so you can stick your face through it for a photo’! I love them too, the more absurd the better!

There was more to the day, including a visit to Tokyo Dome city where we saw many cosplayers and had a laugh in a Lupin themed treasure hunt. Also, I won two prizes in a Monster Hunter raffle at a convenience store and also saw a performing Monkey. But due to tiredness, I’ll leave the details of all this to your imaginations 🙂

Romancing The Hakone

June 8, 2013

We got up very early today, and waited at Shinjuku station for the train to Hakone.

The trip took about 90 minutes in a very nice train, and before we knew it we had arrived at the popular vacation town in the mountains.

We were doing the ‘freepass circuit’ and the next leg of our trip was the Hakone-Tozen railroad which utilizes 3 switchbacks as it rises to nearly 500m elevation. This in turn was followed by a cable car…

And then a rope way…

…over sulfur-spewing mountainside to the top of Owakaduni mountain.

The rain had come out by this point, but I was prepared (after a quick Y500 stop at the shop!)

The commode in the facility behind me had perfectly understandable instructions on how to use the robotoilet:

At Owakaduni you can walk further up the mountain to the hot springs where a local specialty is sulfur-boiled egg. Here’s the crowds eating said eggs:

The pool in the bottom left is where the eggs are boiled in cages:

Lunch was simple…

….and followed by a treat…

….a quick unintentional use of an employees only crapper…

…and then the trip on the next leg of the rope way down to a volcanic crater lake.

The next leg of the trip was on this:

And we were all silly tired by now:

And after I ate a Hot Dog…

And regretted not buying SFL an ear-cleaner…

We started the journey home, ten hours after we’d started! Bernard’s feeling a lot better, but all of us are aching and painting a bit now!

Another great day in Nippon 🙂

Happy Life With Rilakkuma

June 7, 2013

Firstly, Bernard is actively blogging the trip, so be sure to visit his blog as well.

Today we had plans for Skytree, but changed them due to potential rain to a day in Shibuya. The idea was low impact activities due to Bernard’s feet, but it seems – happily – he is on the mend 🙂

His friend in the above shot is the side of a print club photo machine. They promise the world now: despite how you look the machine will make beautiful photos of you. Hrm…

That’s the (terrifying) controls for the toilet in Tokyu Hands. The seat was heated and possibly slightly vibrating already, but I kept my hands far, far away from those buttons since I’m not yet at the level of using a robocrapper.

Lunch was Subway, but for second lunch, we had the limited time only Super Potato at McDonalds, which is the biggest serving of fries they have ever done:

It cost Y490 (about $5) and contains about three large fries. Between the three of us, we soon had it looking like this:

That’s 1,000,000 calories well spent I reckon!

We visited a few stores, bought a bunch of stuff, played some UFO catchers and had some laughs. Before we knew it 7 hours had passed! Our last stop for the day was this place…

OMG you can almost see the fries in my belly! The Kuma store was even crazier than you could imagine. Products for every aspect of your life were obtainable here and it was difficult to choose what to buy! For instance, while wearing your hat…