Tokyo: Let the Travels Continue!

Even though we no longer live in London, so the blog name is kind of invalid, I have decided to continue the blogs! It's a great way to remember some of the amazing things we have done because it's pretty easy to forget the names of all the places we have visited. 

This blog = Tokyo, Japan.

Day one in Tokyo also happened to be my 30th birthday - what a great place to spend a birthday!

We were staying in a neighborhood called Shinjuku (famous for bright lights and total madness). We started with breakfast at a cute little bakery in Korea Town, which is a area in Shinjuku and where our hotel was. 

This is also known as 'honey toast' and pretty much made me full for the rest of the day!

One of the first things we noticed when walking along the streets of Tokyo was the vending machines - they were everywhere!

Another few things that we noticed and loved:

1. The pedestrian lights count down so you know how long you have to cross.

2. There are signs telling people not to play loud music or talk on their phone on the train.

3. There are designated 'queues' for the train and people actually line up. 

4. 7/11 is actually awesome!

Ok, time for some actual travel news!

Our first stop was Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden.

As you can see from the photos, it was a bit of a rainy day (a tradition on my birthday) but the park was very beautiful and green - in spite it being in the centre of a bustling city it was very peaceful. 

Below: there was also a greenhouse with lots of different plants. 

After spending a bit of time wandering around the gardens, we moved on to the Meiji Jingu Shrine.

This shrine is supposed to be the most famous in Tokyo and is named after Emperor Meiji and his wife (although apparently they are not actually buried here). As Japanese people would enter and exit through this gate they would bow in acknowledgement.

Inside of the shrine there was a central plaza, with big temple either side. Many people were paying their respects (a combination of clapping and bowing) and some were offering donations. 

Again, although we were in the centre of Tokyo this was a really peaceful space. 

From here, we ventured to the district of Shibuya.

A big ticket item that I wanted to tick off was the Shibuya crossing, also known as the Shibuya scramble, famous for being the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world.

See my video here: https://youtu.be/pggWGRSYsvE

We spent much of the afternoon wandering around the streets of Shibuya and I managed to score a birthday gin before we made our way back to Shinjuku.

For dinner, we decided to visit Omoide Yokocho, also known as Memory Lane or Piss Alley (no need to explain why...), which is a narrow lane way filled with small bars and yakitori grills. 

We spent some time wandering through the lane way before deciding on a place to eat. Some places don't welcome foreigners and deliberately don't speak English, while others are very much open to serving tourists. 

Just exploring this area is so much fun, there are so many people and so much going on. You can see the chefs cooking on grills and the smells are amazing! We eventually settled on a small (they are all small) yakitori grill that seated about 10 people in total. 

I discovered plum wine (above) - IT IS AMAZING and I will definitely be bringing some home!

We had a dinner of yakitori (meats and vegetables that are grilled over a charcoal fire) and I even got a little adventurous and tried some weird bits of pork (I think it was pork) - and it all tasted delicious!

I also took a video us walking through the area: https://youtu.be/ebJQn3q4jZ0

One final shot of 'Piss Alley'.

We then spent the evening wandering around Shinjuku - this area is also know as the 'red light district' of Tokyo. There certainly was no attempt to disguise the ladies on offer but at no time did I feel uncomfortable or unsafe. 

I absolutely loved all the bright lights and crowds - overall, it was a good way to spend my birthday! We also managed to clock up over 33,000 steps, which is a new step record for me! haha!

The following day we woke up to more grey skies and rain - summer in Japan is so lovely!

We managed to get out and explore a little but the rain did limit us somewhat.

We started by heading to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, which has a free observation deck. 

Unfortunately it was such a gloomy day that we couldn't really see much, on a clear day apparently you can see all the way to Mt Fuji!

Next up was the highly anticipate Sushi Train, or Kaiten-zushi (which literally translates to sushi-merry-go-round). 

It definitely lived up to all expectations - the sushi was so fresh absolutely delicious! You can either order off the menu (which we did) or take plates straight off the conveyor belt, with amazing pieces of sushi starting at approx $1.25 AUD. You also get unlimited green tea, which I took full advantage of. 

Since we had spent most of our time on the west side of Tokyo, it was time to venture east, so we jumped on the subway and headed for a suburb called Ueno.

We started in Ueno Onshi Park - I do like a nice park!

While walking around the park, we also managed to stumble across a nice little temple (which I later Googled and found out that it's a Buddhist temple called Shinobazunoike Batendo Temple). 

We then walked along a pathway that divided the lake, on the left hand side the lake was filled with Lotus flowers, while on the right side there was a pond (with lots of tourists peddling around in little swan / flamingo boats). 

The lotus flower pond was really beautiful and unique - in the background you can see the Buddhist temple that I mentioned earlier too. 

There were also lots of cute turtles in this pond, who are clearly used to being fed as they started making their way over as soon as I showed them some attention. 

Also on the eastern/central side of Tokyo is Tokyo Central Train Station, which is actually a pretty nice looking building (behind Michael). 

Everything in Japan is sooo clean - there is no rubbish anywhere!

Next door to the station was a department store, which actually had a roof top garden that you could enter for free, so we went up to check out the view. It wasn't bad (it was free so no complaints). You could see over the train station and the square in front and you could also watch some of the high speed bullet trains coming and going from Tokyo Station.

This side of Tokyo was so different from the bright, overflowing Shinjuku, it was very clean and modern (everyone was wearing business wear and I felt very under dressed). 

We stopped by the Imperial Palace, the home of of the current Emperor. Actually, it wasn't very exciting (although there were lots of excited tourists), there is a huge moat around the whole palace, so its essentially an island. In the above photo, I am standing near the edge of the moat and the Imperial Palace is the white building on the right far (in the distance). 

We wandered around the grounds of the Imperial Palace for a while but, in comparison to some of the nice parks we had already visited, it wasn't too exciting. 

Our final stop on this side of Tokyo was Senso-ji and Asakusa Shrine, the latter of which the oldest shrine in Tokyo and the whole of Japan (the red shrine in the above photo).

Unfortunately, I don't really know too much about either of these shrines, except that they are Buddhist, as everything was written in Japanese. 

This was a huge space and there were lots of pretty red and gold temples. There was also a band playing at the time, they were signing in Japanese but it created a really nice atmosphere. 

To be honest, there were so many shrines and temples in this area that I have mixed them all up and am not entirely sure of the names of each of them!

After visiting the temples, we walked back through Nakamise shopping street, which is lined with lots of small shops selling touristy gifts, food and lots of kiminos (to rent or buy!) - I was actually surprised at the amount of people who rented kimonos just to wear around touristy areas!

We stopped off at some of the little stalls and bought some Japanese desserts. I have absolutely no idea what the name of either of these were because it was written in Japanese but they both tasted good!

Mine was some kind of tempura sweet and Michael got some kind of plum filled (?) sweet dumpling - I think!?

Soon, we were back in Shinjuku and ready for vending machine ramen. 

Yes, in Tokyo (and lots of other places in Japan) you can order you mean via vending machine - I love it! There are also lots of pictures so there is minimal language barrier issues! It's actually really fun pressing buttons to order food!

Of course, the ramen was incredible!

I don't think there is such a thing as a bad meal in Japan!

The following day, July 3rd, was Michael's birthday!

He told me that all he wanted was to relax and eat gyoza - which was pretty easy to organise!

I managed to find what is supposedly the best gyoza in Tokyo, and it happened (conveniently) to only be a ten minute walk from our hotel room in Shunjuku. 

It was a really fun place, you ordered everything from a ipad and it was delivered to your table. We ordered pretty much every gyoza on the menu and there were very tasty!

Michael also got a Japanese whisky (don't ask me which kind...) and I got some more delicious plum wine!

Confession: it was rainy so we decided to 'relax' (as per Michael's birthday request) and go and see a movie (yep, they screen English movies in Tokyo). We saw Aladdin and it was really good - I would recommend it!

We also managed to stumble across this cute little temple on our way home - they are everywhere!

We decided to end our final day in Tokyo with another sushi train - yep, I really like them!

 

This was another place where you could order via ipad, even cooler, your personal sushi train would arrive at your table with your order on it. You didn't have to interact with people at all - haha!

Our very final stop in Tokyo was probably the craziest: Robot Restaurant. 

Online, this is described as: 

Theme restaurant/bar featuring a raucous pop-culture show with robotic monsters, dancers & lasers.

As it turns out, this description is somewhat accurate! We had also been told by friends who had visited that it was super weird but very entertaining, so we adopted a 'when in Tokyo' attitude and bought tickets. 

Even the entrance was pretty crazy!

I don't even know how to describe this show! I guess I will start by saying that it was totally insane, weird, laughable and bright! There were two rows of audience members, facing each other, with a 'row' down the middle, in which the dancers, and robots, performed their show.

The first section of the show was semi-traditional (?) and involved lots of dancing and drums (interspersed with robots - this really is hard to describe). There was a second segment which followed a 'saving the world from robots' type situation. 

The third segment of the show began with lots of Michael Jackson 'we are the world' style dancing and transitioned (somehow...) into 'fish fight' (so they called it) and this strange under the sea dance (with robots of course). 

My description is fairly awful so some video might help:

Video 1: https://youtu.be/RPulgprxmlI

Video 2: https://youtu.be/JBWhpTM63V4

Video 3: https://youtu.be/Ox7LC3OPYog

One final panorama of rainy Tokyo before we left. 

 

Oddly enough, the last thing we ate in Tokyo before leaving was actually Korean street food. Our hotel was in Korea town and we kept seeing all these tourists eating these weird sticks of fried cheese - eventually we couldn't resist and had to get one. 

Well, that's it for Tokyo - what an incredibly, albeit somewhat mad, city!