2014/2015 Travel Blog: More Tokyo Tales!

Since our last post we have been continuing our Japanese escapades around the busy capital of Tokyo! It has been a more chill and less expensive couple of days as we have both completed our shopping lists now which we are happy about!

Yesterday we headed back to Harajuku to finish off what we had missed out the day before. Firstly we took a quick walk down Takeshita St* where we got some famous Harajuku crepes (which were Le Dank)!

We aimed to find a cat cafe (a cafe filled with cats that live there, as the name suggests) however after a long and confusing walk we couldn't really seem to find it lol. Instead we stopped for lunch at a burger place and got some good hearty, greasy, cheesy burgers; as you can tell it was a very healthy day for us both. After lunch we headed up to Yoyogi Park which is home to the famous Meiji Shrine. A shrine dedicated to a deceased empreror and ancient shogun, which is nestled picturesquely in the middle of the Yoyogi forest.

It was pretty cool but as far as temples go, we've seen a lot. We followed two Asian men around because they seemed to be bowing a lot so we thought we should copy them incase we did something disrespectful. They washed their hands and mouths in this holy water fountain, so we did too! We didn't really understand what was going on but it amused us both so we carried on!

After this we headed to Shinjuku which is a large shopping district characterised by sky scrapers and wide walking streets closed off to cars, with little Japanese ladies shouting sale offers through megaphones at the side of the street.

It wasn't that good. We didn't know where we were going and we were knackered!

By this time our feet were killing so we got back on the tube back to our station and came back home for a little nap.

Let me just take this time to tell you how unbelievably confusing the trains are in Tokyo...

Here's a map of the trains. There are 3 mains companies who have train lines, meaning you can't just buy an all day ticket, you have sort out tickets from each line... On top of that, each company has atleast ten lines which all interconnect with eachother but at different depths underground. There is the JR line, Metro and Toei Subway. Thankfully I'm a directions genius so I manage to get us round alright!

Sleepy man on the train sleeping on the random guy next to him!

After our nap we got up to go for a little stroll around our area (Suidobashi), to get some food and explore... It's pretty cold here so we had to wrap up quite warm! It's about 14 degrees which I suppose is quite warm compared to England at the moment!

We went to a little traditional Japanese restaurant by our hotel and order beef bowls because we love them. It cost £2.66 each, so cheap and so good!

After our food we did a little bit of exploring...

This morning we got up pretty early (for us), 9am; we had a day of parks, markets and sushi. Firstly we got on the train to Rikugien Gardens in Komagome.

The gardens were really beautiful and it was so weird being in a little garden inside a giant concrete jungle.

In the lake there were HUGE carp. There is one that I manage to take a photo of that is atleast 1 metre long, it was massive.

There were also some beautiful blossom trees there; the famous blossom tree, the weeping cheery blossom was not in full bloom unfortunately... But there a few other little ones.

After our little stroll we went over to Ueno Park which was another train ride away, but was definitely worth it! The cherry blossom (Sakura) was much better there!

There was a little lake in the park so we decide to hire a little peddleboat and see how long we could last without drowning.

Thankfully we didn't drown but we did find a man selling noodles so we grabbed a little bowl and sat down in the park to eat!

After our snack we headed towards Asakusa to visit the walking market at Sensoji. Courtney had a lovely time looking at all the trinkets and I was almost tempted to buy myself some ninja stars and throwing knives, however I managed to resist!

After Asakusa we had a quick stop off at Ginza to have some waffles at Manneken (a Belgian waffle shop) which are delish.

We then headed to Hibiya so that I could buy some Japanese tea to take home with me. While in Hibiya we went to a little lunch burger shop and both had a dank burger for the second day in a row lol.

With lunch over and done with we were pretty tired by this point so we headed back and had a sit down on the massage chairs; I'm not quite sure where the line is between a massage and a painful machine prodding you in the back but it kind of felt good on our backs... Sort of.

Following our massage Courtney had a nap and I did a trial pack of my bag to assess how much space I have left in my bag... The answer is 0, but atleast now my bag is packed! Courtney still has hers to pack and she has twice the amount if stuff that i do, so that should be fun!

This evening we went to this amazing sushi restraurant in shibuya. It was so cool! You order on an iPad infront of you, each person has their own. Then the sushi comes flying along a conveyor belt and stops infront of you, you take off the plate and off it shoots again back into the kitchen! The sushi was so good and it was so fun ordering all the food in the iPad! We loved it!