Today was a brief respite from the workshops as we were taken on a tour in Tokyo by our hosts. To begin, we visited the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida – this famous museum was not only an enlightening lens into the history of Tokyo, but also entertaining with it’s various interactive exhibits, dioramas as well as a life-sized replica of the Nihonbashi (lit. Japan Bridge).
Diorama exhibit in the Tokyo-Edo museum
Afterwards, we visited the famous Sensoji temple along with it’s corresponding (and equally famous) Nakamise Street. This renowned tourist hot-spot not only functions as a place of worship, but the street itself is lined with shops selling anything from Japanese matcha soft serve ice-cream to tapestries of The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Nakamise Street and Sensoji Temple in the distance
Thereafter, we proceeded to a well-known Okonomiyaki (Japanese Pancake) restaurant. It was truly a unique experience as we had to mix the ingredients and cook the pancake via a hotplate on out own!
Okonomiyaki
With that complete, we then went off on a river cruise down the Sumida river to Hama-Rikyu Gardens.
River cruise down Sumida river
Depite the tour having officially ended then, our gracious Japanese hosts decided to take us to watch fireworks near Rainbow Bridge in Odaiba. Many friendships were forged tonight under the stellar backdrop of the fireworks and amidst the takeaway food hastily bought for our picnic.
Fireworks at Odaiba
All in all it has been a wonderful day and I’m glad that we could catch a breather after 5 days of competition preparations. We’ll be back tomorrow with a new update after our day off in Tokyo!
