Asian Adventure with Karen Alaina and Evan: Leaving Tokyo

We are now at the Tokyo airport waiting to board our flight to Taipei. Yesterday afternoon Evan and I went to Odaiba Island which is an artificial island that was created for defensive purposes which now has fancy hotels, shopping malls, museums, an amusement park, and and a Toyota exposition center. It took us about an hour to get there from where we were with Karen in Ueno. We were feeling a little sick of Japanese food so we ended up getting lunch at Kua'Aina, a hawaiian burger chain. We then tried to go to the Museum of Science and Innovation but it was already closed so we ended up going to the Toyota Megaweb. They had all the different Toyota models on display, most of which are very different from the models available in the US. We also signed up to test drive cars but they wouldn't let us because we didn't have international driver's licenses. Instead we went around a track in an automatic car that drives itself by following sensors on the track. We also looked around and saw some concept cars. It was getting late so we decided to head back to the hotel to meet up with Karen. After getting some rest, we went out for some sushi for dinner. We were standing outside in the rain trying to figure out where to go for some post dinner entertainment. I asked a random guys walking down the street for directions to a bar that was in one of our guidebooks but he had not heard of it. It looked like he had just finished a long day of work but he ended up taking us over to a club that he had been to before and ended up hanging out with us. It was ladies night so Karen and I got in for only 1000 yen which included unlimited drinks. We got back pretty late (or pretty early in the morning depending on how you put it). This morning was a slight struggle to pull ourselves out of bed and get packed and checked out of the hotel but we somehow managed to do it. We got lunch at a Korean restaurant across the street from our hotel and then got on the bus to the airport.

Overall I've really enjoyed being in Tokyo. Everyone that we've met has been extremely nice. Not everyone speaks English but luckily most restaurants have photos of each dish on the menu so we could usually just point at what we wanted if they didn't have a menu in English. Below are some more photos of things we've done since we got here. We're going to get in to Taipei late tonight so look for a post tomorrow about our first day in Taipei.