Tokyo Imperial Palace and a night out in Shinjuku

The Emperor of Japan and the imperial family live at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, however the public is still able to visit the palace gardens. They are so vast and beautiful (Mike you'd be impressed), and give you a real sense of old Tokyo whilst being in the midst of new Tokyo (see photos below).

After our tour of the gardens our class decide to do a tour of the izakayas (Japanese pubs) of Shinjuku. This ended up much harder than we thought as surprisingly, traditional izakayas aren't too keen on having a group of 10 gaijins (big, ignorant westerners) take up half of their seating area. Somehow we managed to find a Korean bar which served 1L steins of Asahi and cook your own wagyu meat on the provided BBQ.

As most people know, I'm pretty slow at eating, especially when I'm savouring food while drinking. So because I was too busy talking and drinking my huge stein of beer, the BBQ got taken away before I'd finished cooking all of my steak! Luckily I'm not indifferent towards eating raw meat so, when in Japan...

3 days later and I didn't get sick! I think the majority of meat I've eaten so far has been raw: beef, fish, squid, prawns, pork, but yet to try chicken (there is a place in Tokyo that is renowned for it's chicken sashimi, not so keen on trying that one though).

On the way to Shinjuku there was a huge crowd of young girls in a corner of the station so we had to see what the fuss was about. Was there someone famous in the station? As we managed to push our way through to the front of the crowd we saw the hottest boy band in Japan at the moment!! But not in person, just on a new poster they'd unveiled for their upcoming album. The crowd was going nuts, everyone trying to get pictures of it! I couldn't believe all this fuss could be over a poster! I still have much to learn.

In the spirit of learning, we all went to a cosplay karaoke bar where they provided us with different cosplay outfits. I had to take a photo of this ridiculous outfit which was only just held together with velcro at the back! I had to make sure I didn't get too excited in a song (impossible if you imagine me singing Don't Stop Me Now) or it would bust open. Not made in gaijin sizes.

So having felt educated in the way of cosplay and karaoke, I was ready to head home, but not before being immersed in the intense neon lights of Shinjuku crossing.

Thanks for reading! 

さら　(Sarah)