19 June 2009

Today was another lazy day. I woke-up at noon and got ready by 1:00pm. I had flipped through my two architectural guide books last night, so I had marked two projects that I was interested in seeing. The first project was the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center. It was a decent walk away from Tatsumi Station, but the Tatsumi area was surprisingly green. There was a nice path leading from the station directly to the swimming center, and it was lined with large green trees. The shade was greatly appreciated since it was really hot outside. The swimming center was huge, so it was very difficult to photograph. I noticed that people were swimming in the pool, so I inquired about going in to take a few photographs of the interior. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to, so I made the long walk back to the station. My next stop was Kamiyacho to see the Great Buddha Hall. Supposedly it was a new type of religion in Tokyo, and the building frankly looked a bit intimidating. Since I was alone, I was too scared to go inside by myself. The building was completely black with no windows, and the façade consisted of a stepped system that created a diamond-shaped building. It was like the bases of two pyramids were placed together. Strange! The exterior photographs were sufficient enough for me!
It was really hot and humid outside, so I was exhausted from the heat. It was almost 5:00pm, and I had dinner plans with Uncle Masaru at 6:00pm. I caught the subway back to the Pearl Hotel and took a short nap. For dinner, Masaru and I walked to Tokyo Station. I am continually amazed by how many restaurants and shops are in there! Masaru wanted to get some sort of meat or steak, so I let him choose a place since he was going to pay. First we went to a restaurant that served only cow tongue, but it was already full. We ended up going to a Japanese steak and hamburg restaurant two doors down. I couldn’t read the menu, so Masaru ordered the same meal for both of us. It consisted of salad and sardine sashimi for an appetizer, squash soup, a 180g Japanese beef steak, and sherbet for dessert. Each of our courses cost 5,000 yen! Wow it was good, but it was definitely expensive as well. I fully enjoyed the meal, and I’m really grateful that Masaru had been so generous to me. We talked for a bit, then he walked me back to the hotel since it was close to 8:00pm. We have plans again tomorrow night with Tomoko and Hiroko too, so I’m really excited about that. The rest of the night I worked on my travel journal and began packing to assess how much space I actually have in my luggage.