During our free weekend several members of the group decided to head to Tokyo. Saturday was our only full day in Tokyo so we made sure to live it up. We fortunately were able to get two rooms for a very good cost. One of the rooms was "Japanese style," which simply meant that five of us stayed on the floor in one medium sized room.
On Saturday, the majority of the group headed out to the Asakusa district in Tokyo to see the Senso-ji Buddhist temple. We were sad to learn that just the day before there was a major festival held at this temple. In the Askusa district around the temple was a great little strip of various vendors. I was able to get a couple of good gifts for people back home in the States. One great thing about Japan is that almost everything (minus a few meals we've had) is tax free. So the price you see listed is the price you pay.
After spending some time at the temple, the group headed out to Yokohoma district and saw Shibuya - the busiest intersection in the world. After getting off of the train, we were elevated enough to see above the intersection. It seriously looks like a whole bunch of ants going every which way. After watching from a distance we went down and became a part of the masses. Being in the midst of the intersection was fun but it was literally a wall of people. We went through it a couple of times and a few of those times it was difficult to make it to the other side. We spent most of the afternoon looking in various stores and doing a lot of window shopping. Now that I look back on the weekend, we really didn't do many "big" things, but we really just took time to walk around the city and take it all in.
Earlier that morning we ate a late breakfast/early lunch, so we got hungry around 5ish. We got back on the train and headed to get something to eat. After eating, half of the group that was with us decided to go do some karaoke, which is a really big deal here. Their karaoke is nice and I've seen several of them in Tokyo, Otsu, and Kyoto. The rest of us that didn't go to karaoke decided to head towards the Roppongi district of Tokyo which where a lot of foreigners (which in Japan is us) go. Surprisingly it was actually kind-of small and didn't have a lot to see. We ended up staying there for the rest of the evening and then headed back to get some good sleep in our Japanese style room.