Tuesday in Tokyo dawned with a fine mist of rain and
gradually, throughout the day, morphed into a very steady and very wet
evening. In fact tomorrow, we’re
expecting a typhoon off the coast, so much so that our planned trip to Mt. Fuji
has been cancelled. Still, we’ve not
been idle in the rain, as Tokyo-ites seem to ignore it and just get on with
it. We finished up buying umbrellas
today in the 100 yen shop – actually they were 210 yen, or about $2.30,
each. Today we enjoyed the company of
our volunteer guide, Sumiko, who Jules found on the www. Just Google – free guides
in Tokyo. We started today with a visit
to the local shrine – Sojo-ji temple – which is a quite spectacular garden and
building. From there we trained to
Meguro and wandered the residential area and to the beautiful temple with
spectacular gardens. An early lunch in a
quiet back-street basement was a highlight of the day – fine slices of pork,
with rice and noodles, miso soup and a jelly-like dessert with tea for 800yen
each – amazing value.
In the afternoon, we travelled by JR rail to Shibuya, which
is famous as the busiest 4-way pedestrian crossing in the world – when the
lights change, all traffic stops and the intersection is engulfed by a huge
tide of pedestrians. From there we
walked to the Meiji Shrine – an incredibly calm and peaceful green oasis in the
middle of Tokyo and a spectacular wooden shrine, dating back to 1920 and
re-built after WW2. A visit to the 40th
floor of the World Trade Centre gave us a hazy view of Tokyo as it was raining
quite persistently by this time – it would be incredible on a clear day. After this we crossed to Shibuya – the hub of
Japan’s youth culture, where all those pretty young things buy all the bling,
weird clothes and shoes they wear here.
Amazing!
When we arrived on Sunday night, we dropped our bags off at
the hotel, Shiba Park, and set off to find somewhere to eat and get a
beer. Not far away, at Daimon, we found
an izakaya (bar) on the corner and stopped in for a beer and stayed for an hour
with noodles, yakitori (skewers) and a noisy time with the locals. Monday morning we set off for an organised
tour (1/2 day) to give us an overview of the city and its main sights. A glorious day, temp around 24 deg and a
visit to Tokyo tower gave us spectacular views over the city. We also visited the Imperial Palace where we
were fortunate enough to glimpse the Emperor and Empress leaving the grounds
for an appointment. The day was a public
holiday for Sports Day commemorating the opening day of the 1964 Tokyo
Olympics. Our guide indicated that we
were very lucky because she’d only seen the Royal couple twice in 8 years of
guiding. We then went to Asakusa, an old
area whose main attraction is the temple Senso-ji, a spectacular temple with a
traditional shopping street leading to it.
Very crowded but very colourful.
In the afternoon we managed to navigate the metro and JR
(above-ground) rail and we lunched in Kitchen Street, in the basement of the main Tokyo Railway
station. The basement has been converted
into a food mall, where almost every type of local food is available. A visit to Shinjuku, a major shopping area, and Odieba – a man-made island in Tokyo Bay
followed, once we navigated the transition from the Metro to the Tokyo Monorail
which takes you to the island. Odieba
has bizarre architecture, huge shopping malls, children’s entertainment and a petite
replica Statue of Liberty. Given that
this was a holiday long weekend, it was very crowded (& quite crass in many
ways). We finished up in the Ginza which
had been converted to a pedestrian mall for the holiday and watched as the sun
set and the light came on – quite spectacular.
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