Rental boats at the Ueno park duck pond

I managed to wrangle a day off, and met The Penpal at Tokyo station. Recently we have always been meeting in either Numazu or Kawasaki, so this was a nice change.

Our first stop of the day was Ueno Park. We walked around the park and rented a swan shaped paddle boat in the duck pond. Yes, it’s cheesy, but it was still fun. After Ueno, we moved on to Shibuya to explore the area.In the evening, we went to the Shiodome building in Shimbashi to look for restaurants. We ate dinner in a sensibly priced restaurant, and then decided to check out how expensive the restaurants on the 46th floor are.

In big buildings in Tokyo, you can usually find restaurants in both the basement and the upper floors. The restaurants in the lower levels are more likely to be moderately priced. The restaurants on the upper levels are likely to be expensive, especially in skyscrapers. Shiodome was no exception – one of the restaurants near the top offered a multi-course meal for a fixed price of 10,500 yen (not including drinks).

The best part of the evening was the glass elevator from the basement to the 46th floor. We got an amazing view of nighttime Tokyo as it fell away from us. Highly recommended.