Dave & Jen Visit Japan! Day 8

Back to Dave and Jen's trip! We drove from Disney to Tokyo which is only about 30 minutes when the traffic gods are with you (they were NOT with on the way back home from Tokyo). We checked in to the New Sanno military hotel which is fantastic. We were pretty beat from our long day at Disney so we didn't do anything crazy exciting. Mostly, we watched the Olympics til we fell asleep - exciting I know.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Odaiba which I visited with Laura last August. The main purpose of our visit was to see Sasuke, a recreation of the course on an American-shown Japanese game show. Dave and Jen watch the show so they wanted to check it out. It was located in Muscle Park which Laura and I also walked through. Muscle Park is pretty much an upscale carnival park except the "games" cost $5-$10 to play EACH! What?! So we mostly watched people waste their money which was equally as entertaining as trying ourselves.

 

The Sasuke course consisted of an arm bike, this 1" ledge you had to cross holding on by pretty much your finger tips, this bar that you had to raise up floor ledge (while your feet can't touch the ground) and these rings you had to hang from and slide across a series of pipes. I'll save you the attempt of figuring out what I just wrote and tell you that it was impossible. Oh yeah and you only have 3 minutes and once you fall, you are finished. The only winners of the actual TV show are two guys who recreated the obstacles in their backyard and practiced like crazy. That's Japanese dedication for you. The 3 guys we watched only made it past the arm bike. They attempted the rest, but never came close.

After watching others fail, Dave and Jen attempted one game. They had to build a tower of 30 blocks without derailing the train that was going around. Seems easy enough- it wasn't though! That train goes fast!

We checked out the rest of the shopping area around Muscle Park and discovered a "nickle" arcade. That's more our price! Jen also fell in love with this guy. I'm sure if he wasn't $3,000 and in Japan he would have gone home with her! Yes, that is correct: three thousand dollars. BTW, not the most expensive dog at the dog. That would be a teacup chihuahua for almost $4500.

After Odaiba, we headed to Asakusa where we checked out some shopping, some temples, more weird J food and the Asahi brewery.

I think it looks like a golden turd, apparently the building is suppose to represent a glass of beer with some foam on top. Ok...

We headed back to our hotel room after a stop at a convenience store for some beverages and a walk through Shinjuku (where our hotel this night was located- thank you again Hilton Honors points!). I love Japan at night when it is all lit up and abuzz.

It's kinda beautiful in it's own way...