Why don't we do it in the road?

When we last left our intrepid explorers, they were celebrating a free dog with walks to beaches and caves and things. The next thing to conquer was first joint sightseeing trip to Tokyo and explore the neighborhood of Shibuya!

We had been to Tokyo to attend the temple and I had gone to Harajuku with girlfriends, but that was it until December 17th. This was also our celebration of four years of marriage!

Our first stop was the Old Asakura Family House, built in 1919 by a local businessman, which survived both the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and World War II, and is now designated an Important Cultural Property. I love house museums and visiting a traditional Japanese home from almost 100 years ago was no exception.

Would I mind if this were a room in my house? I would not.

The most well known attraction in Shibuya is the crazy scramble crossing, rumored to be one of the busiest in the world, which, of course, we visited. We watched it a couple of times and then did it ourselves! So many people! So fun!  You can watch a live webcam here.

We paid our respects to Hachiko.

And then we did some wandering. I had heard of a farmers market nearby that also had a Christmas market adjacent. We arrived just before most of the shops closed up for the evening, but we did manage to snag some delicious blackberry jam. We saved it until the next time we made homemade bread and it is definitely quite tasty.

Around this time, we were getting a bit peckish, plus I needed to find a toilet. Luckily, where there is a Golden Arches, there is also likely a restroom. Once we took care of business and looked at the local McDonald's options that you can't get anywhere else, we decided that Blake would be able to get away with taking me to McD's for our anniversary dinner just this once. My fried mac-n-cheese sandwich and his cheeseburger with a fried egg amused us (sorry the photo of these has vanished!) and fed us for the night.

That is, until we found Pie Face and each got a hand pie for dessert.

We did a bit more wandering, something I fully intend to do more of this neighborhood. We checked out the Disney store and a Winter Illumination that also happened to be Disney themed.

Tangled

Sleeping Beauty and a random stranger

They don't really call them Christmas lights, but Winter Illuminations are popular thing here. Some of them can even be visited into February and March.

After one more crossing at Shibuya, we called it a night and headed home.

It was definitely an anniversary date to remember!