Japan - Tokyo time

As we got off the plane, we were hit by the cold air (10 degrees!) of early spring and were definitely not ready for it as we were still in flip flops and shorts. However, we were both excited about our new adventure in Japan, and in some ways welcomed the cooler air.

The city of lights

We arrived into Tokyo mid afternoon and planned to stay for a few nights before heading to Mt Fuji and looping back via the mountains and Nagano. Immigration was simple (no VISA required yay!!!) and, once we had our bags, we headed to tourist info. We were very impressed! The lady behind the desk spoke good English and had tones of information, leaflets and maps which was great.

Our AirBnB was located in Shinjuku, a busy area of Tokyo home to one of the largest and busiest train stations in the world with around 3.5 million people passing through it every day. We decided to take the slightly slower, but much cheaper train route as we had the time and eventually arrived at just past 6. 

Cool little apartment

The apartment was great and quite stylish with bare concrete walls. It was typically small for Japan, but had everything we needed - a good bed, small seating area, washing machine, and shower. In fact, they had set it up for 6 people, so we decided to pile up all the mattresses making one huge bed!

We woke up to rain - lots of rain - so now it was not only cold but wet too - something we had not had for at least a couple of months. However, we had to brave it as one of the first things we needed to arrange was our Chinese VISA. Also, we had discovered that both our charging units for our cameras were missing and had no idea where they were (we assume they were taken at the airport).

Singing in the rain

So we headed out, umbrella in hand and coats on to find and hopefully get our VISAs, pick up some warm clothes and buy two new chargers.

The Chinese embassy is in one of the most awkward places to get to in Tokyo, and for a city where public transport is everywhere, it sits in a void between lots of stations, but at least a 30 minute walk from each. A big pain when it is raining. When we eventually got there, we discovered that getting a VISA needed some more prep than just a flight out and a vague idea of where we were going. We needed to book all our hotel stays, plus our flight in! Bugger... we had some organising to do.

As we would not be able to get back in time to arrange a VISA in the afternoon, we decided to head to another area of the city called Shibuya and go shopping - to Julia's delight! We had very few clothes for this climate, so thought why not check supposedly one of the best shopping districts in the world. Also, there is large electronics store called BIC Camera which was likely to have camera chargers. After a fair amount of time finding the charger and picking up a few items in H&M, we decided to grab a quick local Ramen (noodle soup dish) in the traditional 'booth' style restaurant, and head back to plan China and book some accommodation and flights. 

Waiting to be seated for tasty Ramen

Day 2 started in a similar way to Day 1, but this time the sun was shining!!! We headed to the embassy and this time had all the documentation needed! As it was now a pure blue sky - things felt  so much better - we caught a train to the palace and decided to wander around the area and up to Ginza before heading to the Sensoji Shrine.

You cannot get into the palace, without applying first, and of course we had not done this. It is a ice area, but you cannot really see the palace from the outside, but it was worth passing by.

The Palace

Ginza is an upmarket shopping district, so many of the shops were out of our range, but we did come across the Hello Kitty store which was fun.

The Sky Tree

Sensoji shine is in the area of Asakusa and is the most important shine in Tokyo. The area around it was traditionally the old town and was famous for its entertainment, but it was heavily bombed during the war and has not really recovered. However, they did build a huge tower called the skytree, which is the world largest free standing tower at 634m - fairly impressive given the amount of earth quakes they have here - not that we felt any.

Sensoji Shrine

The shrine is a top highlight in Tokyo and we enjoyed it immensely. Between the outer gate and the main hall is an old shopping street, lined with small stalls selling food, gifts and trinkets. Each one of the two gates has a large red lantern and demons either side - typical of Japanese shrines. The place was buzzing and had a great atmosphere.

We have learned that when visiting a shrine in Japan, if you are praying, you should wash your hands in one of the water baths at the entrance, cover yourself in smoke from the incense burner, throw a coin in the offering box and then bow and clap your hands. Quite a ritual. The Japanese are also obsessed with good luck, and you can purchase any number of charms, depending on the luck you want - traffic safety, exam success, travel, money etc. You need luck - there is a charm for it!

The Japanese also like to know their fortunes. Again there are multiple ways to do this at a shrine, from buying charms to rattling a box to see what stick falls out. We both had a go. Chris had the best fortune, whilst Julia had the worst. Maybe they counteract each other and end up somewhere in the middle. Anyway Chris was to have great wealth and fortune in future, and Julia had no hope... oh well.

Bad fortune? Let the breeze blow it away

Nearby is the electronics district Akihabara- a place we thought would have luck finding a camera charger as the one from BIC camera was a bit expensive. It is also the area for Anime, Manga and cartoons. The place is crazy, with lots and lots of neon lighting up ten story high images of anime characters lining the streets.

Azihabara

Sadly the electronics area wasn't as good as we had hoped, and we started to think about how we could limit our photos. However, luckily enough we spotted a huge electronics store, similar to BIC Camera and our luck was in. We decided to get a charger for Julia's camera as the larger camera could be used more sparingly and Chris' sister Sarah was flying out from the UK and could bring out a (surprisingly) cheaper one from the UK.

Heading back to Shinjuku, we wanted to try some traditional Katsu and Udon, so after a bit of searching we stumbled across a restaurant and tucked into a big bowl of Udon noodles and a scrummy Katsu curry - it was delicious.

Yummy Udon

Our plan was to only stay 3 nights in Tokyo then head off to Hakone for some onsens and check out Mt Fuji, before coming back again for a few more nights to try and catch the opening of Sakura (cherry blossom), meet up with Sarah and also, meet with Ann from Thailand, who was also coming to Japan. 

There was so much more to see in Tokyo, and we were sad to leave, but with a hostel booked and the prospect of fine weather and hot springs we headed to Hakone. To find out what we did in Tokyo when we returned, check out our second blog.