Japan trip Summer 2014 - Part 4: Sightseeing & Food

This post will basically be a photo dump of the "tourist-y" things we did. All photos taken with my iPhone 5s, sorry! Didn't even take my DSLR along with me on the trip because I didn't want to carry it :| Even though we were there for 9 days, most of the time was filled with shopping, so we didn't actually do much sightseeing! Not going to caption everything because a lot of it is self-explanatory, but let me know if you have any questions about anything, and I'll do my best to answer lol.

Tokyo Tower
closest station: Tokyo Metro Onarimon on the Marunouchi Line / Tokyo Metro Kamiyacho on the Mita Line / JR Hamamatsucho (multiple JR lines feed into Hamamatsucho)
We decided to go to Tokyo Tower because S wanted to go to the aquarium there lol. I hadn't been here during my last trip (only went to the Sky Tree) so it was a new experience for me :)

Ticket to go all the way up to the top

Lol my hair that day wtf.

Views from the first level

There was this random reflective surface on the top. *can't resist selfie* wtf

Elevator to go up up up

 

Ootd: Liz Lisa gingham OP with puff sleeve cardigan

idk why my face looks like that. excuse me lol

Tokyo Tower Aquarium
After we had enough of the view, we went back to the first floor to check out the aquarium! It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be with lots of interesting freshwater fish that I don't usually see.

Lol yeah another selfie opportunity wtf

There were two of these guys. Not sure of the English name?

Nara Deer Park
closest station: any Nara station. We got off at JR Nara on the Yamatoji line from JR Namba
This was my mother's request! She really wanted to feed the deer lol. Luckily for us, it's quite simple to get from Namba (where we were staying in Osaka) to Nara.

If you've never been there, the deer immediately attack anyone with food lol

A tourist dropped their map and this deer immediately picked it up and ate it >:|

SO much deer merch

Ootd: Liz Lisa jumper skirt and off brand white top. It was SO HOT that day, and we did a lot of walking outdoors so I'm glad I was sweating on a non-brand top wtf tmi

Nara mascot

We didn't actually explore the whole park or even go into Todaiji because it was too hot and my mom only wanted to feed the deer anyway lol. We even taxi'd back to the station because it was that hot and we were that lazy wtf.

Kaiyukan (Osaka Aquarium)
closest station: Subway Osakako on the Chuo Line
Another aquarium! This one is QUITE large. I think it's the second biggest in Japan besides the Okinawa one? I've already been to this one once when I was last in Japan for my study abroad, but I was happy to come back although we did get a little lost on our way to get there wtf, trying to transfer between lines in Bentencho.

Ootd: Liz Lisa Hep Five limited dress and puff sleeve cardi

ALL THE CAPYBARA pls

Lol sorry all the fish pictures are probably boring. It's a lot better irl, and they have a lot more than fish, but I didn't take pictures of everything because they were either too fast or in a place that was hard to photograph.

Tokyo Sea Life Park
closest station: JR Kasairinkaikoen on the Keiyo Line
On the last day of our trip, we had to check out of our hotel at 11:00am but our flight didn't leave until 11:55pm, so we had a lot of time to kill and decided to go to an attraction that was mostly indoors.

Big attraction is the tuna tank that goes 360

Feeding time

Got lazy and was sitting in the seats

There's a lot more to the park (outdoors) but we only went into the domed area and spent like 3 or 4 hours in there somehow. There were also a lot more exhibits, but we were there on a Sunday, and it was SO CROWDED with young families. I could barely get a good view of the tanks, much less get a picture.

Food pictures 
Sorry we didn't really eat anything of note or interesting. If you don't know, I'm an extremely picky eater. Like REALLY picky so it really limited what restaurants we could go to if we were all going to eat together. I basically only eat cheese pizza, meat sauce spaghetti, katsu, ramen and beef. And I'm not really a dessert person either :O

 

This was the first real place we ate at in Japan. Ramen place near Shibuya 109. The guy working in there gave us GREAT customer service. Awesome way to start our trip.

 

"Breakfast"

 

This was like a vegetable fondue thing with a flame under the bowl!

 

 

Cheap gyudon-ish

 

Shinkansen bento

From a super good pizza and pasta restaurant in Nakameguro called Seirinkan. It's a tall, narrow restaurant and we got the basement to ourselves! (There was only 5 seats down there at the bar anyway lol). Def recommend

 

Of course, we ate a lot more than this, but this is all I managed to get pictures of. S refused to take pictures of his food and would just immediately dig in when it arrived lol. I know I probably missed out on a lot because I'm so picky, but I don't mind personally.
The focus of this trip was shopping more than anything, so maybe the next time we go, we will focus more on attractions and cool food!

This is the last of my posts on my Japan trip besides some small posts I may do to review some of the items I bought!
Hope these were not too boring & actually slightly entertaining to you, although tbh they were really helpful to me to help me remember what we did lol. If it's financially possible, I'm thinking about visiting again in Oct/Nov 2015! D:

  Japan trip Summer 2014 posts -
Part 1: Getting around/Hotels
Part 2: Liz Lisa shopping/items
   Part 2a: Liz Lisa coordinates post
   Part 2b: Liz Lisa coordinates post cont.
Part 3: Other shopping
Part 4: Sightseeing & Food