What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.

The view of Tokyo from the top of Tokyo Tower. It just goes on forever.

The Imperial Palace in Ginza, Tokyo.

Tokyo was different from every other place I've visited in Japan. I don't even know how best to describe it, only to say that two days was not enough to explore it.

Senso-ji Temple lit up at night.

My friends and I decided to take the Shinkansen to Tokyo on Friday morning. There was a bus we could have taken that would have been a lot cheaper but would have taken longer. The trip from Hikone to Tokyo would have taken at six hrs by bus or car but only took two and a half hours my Shinkansen. It was basically a plane on the ground. It even kind of look like a plane on the inside.  We stayed at K's House Tokyo Oasis in Asakusa. It was a great, clean, cheap hostel and the staff there was amazing and really helpful. Asakusa has an old feel to it and the hostel was a 5 minute walk from the subway. You can get anywhere you need to through the subway system and for ¥710 we got a day pass to ride most of the lines as often as we needed to.

Friday we went to Ginza and Roppongi. Ginza has a lot of high end retail shops much like Michigan Ave. in Chicago and the the Imperial Palace which you can't go into without reservations made ahead of time but is still worth going to to look around. In Roppongi we took an elevator 250m up to the top of Tokyo Tower. We really lucked out with the weather, it was a beautiful clear day and we could see for miles. It was amazing to see how all buildings are built around each other to pack everything in and yet there is still room for trees.  Later that night we wandered around Asakusa and found Senso-ji Temple. It is all light up and night and is one of the coolest place I've seen in Japan.

Saturday we hit up Shibuya and Harajuku for some shopping. Both places were insanely packed with people, Harajuku more so. I just couldn't get over how packed in everything was and how everyone functioned properly there. My highlight was sitting in the Starbucks looking out over Shibuya Crossing watching hundreds of people make their way across the street in the one minute that the lights are red. That night we ate at an okonomiyaki restaurant, Sometaro, that has been around since 1937.  Overall,  it was a great weekend.

Fun little side note: I always thought America was bad about rushing into Christmas, but here in Japan it started the day after Halloween. Tokyo looked like Father Christmas had vomited on it. There were Christmas trees and light and music EVERYWHERE.