13-19.10.24

Our flight from Shanghai was a serious throw-back to air travel in the 80s and 90s. Although we were in regular economy class (shock) it had amazing seats, leg room and even a plane meal… which wasn’t so nice. There was a tv that I didn’t use as I kipped most of the way, given our early start. All of this for a 3 hour economy flight! Incredible.

We arrived about midday and I must say I felt refreshed. We got some cash, bought our train passes and made our way to the hotel. All easier than I thought it was going to be, and although very busy, not as stressful as I was expecting.

After an awkward check-in where we were given a hundred bits of paper, keycards, sweets, random freebies and a go on an iPad game to win prizes (Alex got chestnuts, I got a teeth whitening kit) we went to our room. Small, neat and comfy.

Now it just so happened that our friend, Richard, was in Tokyo for work, which was most fortuitous. So we met up for an early ish dinner, a wander around laughing at blatant adverts for “ladies personal massage devices” and some drinks in an “English style” pub with a very questionable snacks menu including haribo, Gorgonzola and “Rason butter”. We also crossed the famous crossing and was almost knocked over by another tourist who deemed it a) acceptable and b) safe to walk backwards on the world’s busiest crossing, so she could film her group of people. Idiot.

The following day we had a busy day of wandering and honestly I could have done with a month of just wandering around Tokyo. I really, really like this city! Yes it’s insanely busy and chaotic, and the soundscape of jingles and tunes and crossings that sound like birds tweeting, but there is an order to it all and it feels clean and safe. The metro system works well and isn’t too confusing; there’s English everywhere.

We went to Lawsons for a snacky breakfast and I began my love affair with Onigiri. Lovely little triangular bites of relatively healthy deliciousness.

We then went to a stationery shop and spent almost an hour there getting excited about notebooks and pens. As we plan on visiting lots of temples, we bought special books in which you can get the temple stamps. Afterwards we went up a big tower and saw lots of views of Tokyo then to our first temple for our first stamp.

Afterwards, feeling peckish, we went to a place called Omoide Yokocho, also called “Piss Alley” though it was far from what I’d call a piss alley. Delicious soba noodles with tempura veg for lunch at a tiny bar followed by a bottle of the dubiously named “Pocari Sweat”. It’s basically like lucozade sport.

This particular bottle of Pocari Sweat was obtained on our way to our second temple, a much bigger and more famous one that was through a magical woodland walk. It instantly felt like you had left the city, even though you were still in the middle of it.

A busy day indeed! We finished off with beers, curry and sake in a food hall area under a big shopping centre. NB: the following images only include some of the Sake we tried.

The following day was very much a chill/lazy day, having potentially overdone it slightly the day before… both in regards to activity and sake. Honestly we didn’t do much, but did go out for ramen in the evening were I made a huge mistake when ordering… I thought I was ordering a veg ramen and that you had to order the toppings as a separate thing, this was not the case. The ramen was the regular-sized ramen with pork and the toppings of seaweed, bamboo shoots etc, then mind was topped with a, quite frankly ridiculous, quantity of stir fry veg. The two guys working there proceeded to then watch me attempt to eat it until some more customers came in. The proprietor was very sweet though, explaining that their portion sizes were huge when I failed to finish more than half of the thing. Unsurprisingly I had a stomach ache after that.

The next day, we went first to the Imperial Palace but only the outside as we didn’t fancy queuing for 4 hours to see the inside, followed by an accidental photo exhibition which detailed Japanese Immigrants in South America, which felt very fitting.

We then travelled to a borough out in the sticks (but still Tokyo) to fulfil Alex’s dream of going to a Capybara cafe. Certainly an interesting experience! There was a big old girl who was the mum, named Ms Potato, and two boys called Leo-Boy and Ron-Boy Jr, the original Ron-boy having recently died. Apparently they were sad because their sister, Miss Haru, had also died recently. Nonetheless, they were personable little creatures and it was an interesting hour spent in their company.

On our walk back to a station, I became aware of the insanely large spiders that draped themselves in the most improbable locations. Honestly their webs were a feat of engineering. I shall refrain from putting any photos of them in this post but be warned, spiders will feature in the future (don’t worry, I’ll put a disclaimer at the beginning).

Dinner was sushi, with a fun little train that brought you your food rather than a conveyor belt and it was delicious! Apart from the sea urchin which was a bit “meh”. Don’t get the hype but willing to try it again.

We finished off in a cocktail bar that was tiny, moodily lit and full of Japanese salarymen smoking. Honestly it was a very cool atmosphere overall!

The following day was our last full day in Tokyo! We started off with the Yayoi Kusama museum… it was smaller than I expected and you couldn’t take many photos (fair enough) but it was interesting nonetheless and reminded me a) how long her career has been and b) how wonderfully nuts she is.

Our next stop was to be the Edo Open Air museum. I had heard that it was a good place to go if you hadn’t managed to get tickets to the Ghibli museum (which we hadn’t) as many of the buildings inspired scenes from “Spirited Away”. Anyway on our way we stopped for lunch at a Katsu Curry chain which was very nice, got our first bus which was fairly easy (a 6 year old was on his way home by himself, a very common sight in Japan), and walked through a nice park.

The Edo Open Air Museum was a highlight for me. If you were at primary school with me and came on the year 6 trip (or conversely, did teacher training with me 15 years later and came on the same trip) it was kind of like Blist’s Hill, but bigger and covering a wider time period. We went in loads of houses and shops that had been moved from other places and rebuilt and enjoyed the atmospheric moody weather that there was that day.

We didn’t leave until chucking out time! On the train back to central, I had fun working out the sounds for the Hiragana alphabet using the train station names and announcements. Passed the time nicely.

Before heading back to our hotel, we went to the tech district and into two absolutely enormous tech shops. Now I am, admittedly, rather useless when it comes to tech. But I do like its shininess. It was great fun and the vast array available was truly mind-boggling. As we were in need of a travel speaker, I treated myself to an absolutely tiny and really rather adorable one for about £20. Finally we went to an Izakaya near the hotel for dinner. Generally they serve drinks and an array of dishes, not necessarily specific to one genre of food.

Back to the hotel, and time to pack!

The following morning we had planned on going to a Print Press museum on our way to the car rental but sadly there wasn’t quite enough time without it being a stressful rush. So we opted for a leisurely breakfast of Lawson’s finest onigiri and sandwiches. We also tried out the fresh orange juice machine right outside our hotel. Having seen absolutely no one, not a single soul, use it in the 5 days we had stayed there, the second we went to use it a queue of 3 separate groups of people formed behind us. Trend setting once again! Didn’t take a picture of it so here is one from Google that probably contravenes copyright laws.

The juice was delicious. Well worth the £1.50 it cost. Finally it was time to go and pick up a car, and make our way out of Tokyo. But that’s a story for another time. Ciao for now!