Scavenger Hunt

Last week, after being broken into groups of 4, we participated in a scavenger hunt. My group consisted of:

1. Myself


2. Bumi


3. Lizzy


4. Hartley


To say we conquered a small country, say Estonia for Mark, would be an understatement. I'd say what happened that day was more like hooking in the moon on a moonless day. Yes, we proved we had "it" and more.

The contest started out slowly, as we were inexplicably lost. Tokyo's a big city, so this wasn't quite the way we wanted to begin. But after some regrouping and much needed liquids (mainly, in my sake, Pocari Sweat), things started to fall in place.

We visited many places, traveling from Harajuku to Shibuya to Shinjuku to Chiyoda to Bunkyo and more. In Harajuku one is able to see people like this:



Which, of course, is most interesting. Shibuya is home to the world's busiest intersection, as well as one its most impressive electronic billboards. You may remember the strolling dinosaur in the Billy Murray/Sophia Coppola movie "Lost in Translation"? Shinjuku is a strange place in that it houses two polar opposities:

1. The Tokyo administrative ward- mainly the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government Building (Tokyo-Chu)
2. Kabukicho- the redlight "'soapland" district. I won't go into specifics of
what this is.

The Imperial Palace ("Kokyo") is located a few blocks from the Tokyo Station hub in central Tokyo's Chiyoda district, er "ward". It also happens to be a good place if one is interesting in viewing the Tokyo Tower, albeit from afar. Finally, Bunkyo is where you can go to attend a Yomiuri Giants baseball game. The Giants play in the Tokyo Dome (aka "Big Egg" aka "Biigu E-gu") and are Japan's answer to the Yankees. Personally, I prefer the Chiba Lotte Marines for the Bobby Valentine factor or the Chunichi Dragons for the name factor. Regardless, the Giants are Japan's biggest team and their stadium is adjacent to a huge shopping facility and amusement park.

So we saw alot of places and took a lot of photos to prove it, but we also had to collect alot of random things. Tatoeba:

-disposable chopsticks (after various attempts of politely asking, then failed tries of theivery, we simply ate at a kaiten sushi)
-Osaka guide from a travel agency (thank you Bumi for kanji knowledge)
-Hand out tissues from an insurance agency
-Pictures of our group from a picture box (you know?)
-other stuff...sorry, memory failing at the moment.


TO BE CONTINUED