Today is New Years Eve!
We did a bit of research before the trip to work out what there is to do on new Years Eve in Tokyo and it seems like Zojoji Temple in Minato was the place to be.
They hand out about 3000 balloons and at the strike of midnight everybody releases them into the air.
Minato is also home to the Tokyo Tower.
We entered the temple grounds via a huge gate at the front and as we walked in we could see all these people setting up small stalls for the celebration.
Inside the temple is a large shrine were alot of locals went to pray and burn inscents.
After looking around the temple and getting familiar with the area we decided to check out Tokyo Tower.
Tokyo Tower is situated over a large building with a whole bunch of shops and entertainment.
When we got there, we paid to get to the main observation deck to get a view of the city. We could have gone higher up, but it cost more and didn’t think it would be worth it.
Inside the building were plenty of places to eat and shop.
There was also the Guinness World Records Center were we walked through and saw the records for the worlds heaviest man, the worlds tallest man and the man who ate the most grapes (which Lee is probably going to challenge) amongst a lot of others.
After that we spent quite a while looking for the Pokemon center. We eventually found it. It was just one huge toy shop with nothing but Pokemon toys and a Pikachu mascot. So we got our photo taken with Pikachu and headed home to get some more clothes.
On the way home Rob stopped at a CocaCola vending machine to get some hot coffee in a can - which was actually hot!
Then we were on our way back to Zojoji Temple for new years eve.
To get a balloon you have to get a “wishing card”, then use that to get your balloon, but by the time we got there the wishing cards were all gone so we missed out.
The weather was so cold that we were really glad we went back to the hotel to rug up some more, but poor Sarma couldn’t really take the cold too well.
We were standing around the temple grounds shivering the whole time, then the scouts came out and lit a few bon fires. Sarma was shivering the most and went over to the bon fires to heat up were he started talking to some Japanese girls who were laughing at his shivering. They ended up giving him these small heat packs that stick to your body. They apparently stay hot for about 10-18 hours!
Eventually midnight came along and everyone released their balloons at once, and what a view! It looked so good!
And so it was 2010 and we wanted to get up early to get to Akihabara the next day for new years show bags, so we headed home to get some rest.
By this time I was so tired from a really long day!
