Abbey Road

One item on our bucket list was Hanayashiki Amusement Park which was built in 1853! Do you know how crazy that seems when you compare it with the events going on in the world at that time? That was the year Matthew C. Perry sailed into Edo Bay in what the Japanese called the 'Black ship' for they couldn't see the Susquehanna's cherry red underbelly beneath the surface of the water. This opened Japan up for Western trade and influence. Also, it is the same year that here in America, Solomon Northrup, author of 'Twelve years a Slave' is freed from illegal slavery while Japan creates one of the worlds first amusement parks. Luckily, the roller coaster we went on was built in 1953, so we had that going for us. And, you know what?! It was so fun! We held our hands up when the coaster dropped, we rode the carousel, and, we drove around on a giant motorized panda which was slower than molasses in January! We were like two little girls freed from the confines of being adults all the time. Just sugar and spice, and everything nice.

After that we went to Asakusa where we visited Sensō-ji, an ancient Buddhist temple. We both put in our offerings amongst so many others, and followed the directions to obtain your fortune, and poor Lynzie's was so traumatizing, I thought she might cry. But, she tied it along the metal lines with all of the other bad fortunes, basically a play on the word matsu, or pine which are also used to tie off bad fortunes. The belief is that the bad fortune will attach itself to 'the tree' rather than the bearer. Thank heavens for that!

We finally ate a steaming hot bowl of Ramen and decided to hurry and catch the train to Roppongi where we could get to the Abbey Road club. This is the place where the Japanese band called 'The Parrots' sing and play phenomenal renditions of Beatle's music. So great are they, that Paul McCartney himself has come to play with them. Our friend Masashi joined Lynzie and I, and we all danced and clapped and soaked up every note they hit. If you saw how happy the guy at the table was next to us while jamming out to 'Back in the USSR' or the whole crowd singing 'You Say it's Your Birthday' to everyone celebrating, or them bringing our entire table champagne and spotlighting us as we waved and smiled like we just won Miss Universe, because Utah was the furthest anyone has come to see them, you can imagine the electricity that was in that room. That's what you get in the Land of the Rising Sun...sun...sun...here it comes.

And with that, we went to bed in our tatami room, sleepy, yet amused.