Ohio!

Last September two of my very best friends decided to leave Chicago to teach abroad in South Korea.  As sad as it was to say goodbye, I was excited to plan a trip to visit them.  After some back and forth on our meeting destination we finally decided on Tokyo.  It was my first trip to Asia and I wasn’t sure what to expect but upon arrival, I immediately fell in love!

We stayed in an airbnb in a trendy neighborhood called Shibuya.  Bright signs line the streets and gave us all a little bit of sensory overload.  You never knew where to look next…Shops and restaurants and ads galore!

Fun Fact: Shibuya is home to the worlds largest crosswalk! I took a time lapse of the crossing, check it out below!

After wandering the streets and gathering our bearings we decided it was time to eat… and the obvious choice was sushi.  We picked out a random restaurant and the food was amazing! (and don’t worry, they had an english menu, too).

The next few days were spent wandering through the city.  One of our first stops Tsukiji Fish market… The fish heads were HUGE!

We also made it to a few different shrines and temples.  This made all of my art history dreams come true! I can’t even tell you how many times we got lost trying to find these places… Playing charades with the locals trying to get to our destination became a (hilarious) routine!

Other adventures led us to find these beautiful handmade bowls that Anthropologie would be jealous of.

And of course we had to stop to get these awesome, and equally delicious, ice cream cones.

One of our final adventures was to Harajuku.  We had to ask to take a picture with one of the Harajuku girls…singing the Gwen Stafani song in our heads the whole time.

Tokyo is huge and we barely even brushed the surface of all there is to see.  The city completely exceeded my expectations: the amazing people, the food, the culture… it was hard to say Sayanara!

 
Writers Note:  BREAKING NEWS Niko and….. Lala is expanding to Tokyo!!!

Kidding, but I saw this sign while there and it made me smile 🙂