It was a bitter sweet moment to leave Fiji, I had some amazing times there but the humidity and amount of bugs was becoming irritable and the next country on our trip was Japan, so I was very excited for that. Unfortunately to get there meant we would end up travelling for around 30 hours, starting with a 5am wake up. First we had a flight to Hong Kong, and as it was the morning I didn’t feel like sleeping much so we just watched some shows on the plane for the majority of it. We then had a 12 hour stopover in Hong Kong, so we left our baggage at the airport and had a brief trip into the city, where we had some food and saw a light show. Then the flight to Tokyo at local time 2am, landing at 7am (local time).
We then hauled our bags onto the subway and made our way to the hotel we were staying at – Bespoke Hotel. We were quite early to check in, but we were able to leave our bags at the hotel. We were staying in Shinjuku, which I’ve found to be the busiest part of Tokyo. We spent most of the day walking around the area to get our bearings, whilst fuelling up on coffee frequently. For lunch we had our first taste of authentic sushi, which tasted amazing, and then for dinner was our first Ramen. This would be the start of our daily routine – sushi for lunch, ramen for dinner.
The next day we went up the Government Building, which gave some amazing 360 views of Tokyo, and all for free! Then we went to Yoyogi Park and saw the Meiji Jingu shrine which was nice but it was very cold. Afterwards we had sushi at a concert or belt restaurant, where they come round on a belt with different coloured plates indicating the prices off each. Next we went over to the famous Shibuya Crossing, where several pedestrian crossings in multiple directions all go to green at once; then suddenly a swarm of people cross at once. It was definitely a cool experience to see the mixture of scrambling business men, tourists, and local Japanese people searching for the perfect Instagram photo. There is also a Starbucks which overlooks the crossing, great for people watching. Or if that isn’t enough you can even go on top to the roof of shopping centre, where there is a lookout point all for free. We then decided to make the short walk down to Takeshita street. I would kind of relate this to Japan’s version of Camden market, there are tonnes of places selling clothes, souvenirs, and lots of sweet treats. After sharing a crepe with surely more whipped cream than anyone would want, we headed back to our hostel to pick up our bags, and then had to get on the subway to Ueno.
We were staying at Hostel Oriental, and I have to say it was great value for money; it was clean, you had a nice private bed with a curtain, and there was even a public sauna for males. That evening we met what would turn out to be our Japanese love, the ramen chain known as Ichiran. It is an experience in itself, as you simply just pay and get a ticket, and then sit down in an individual booth, where you then circle different options such as how hard you would like your noodles, and how spicy you would like it. It seemed like the whole thing is suppose to be done with as little interaction as possible, and the ramen was so good we ended up going quite a few more times later in the trip. The next morning we went to a shopping mall to see the Pokemon mega store, it was huge and it was funny to see how much Japanese people love Pokemon. Afterwards, we decided to visit one of the main temples in Tokyo, called Senso-ji It was particularly busy with a market right next to it, selling all different types of food. Once we had seen most of the market we headed back to our hostel to get ready to do the Maricar we booked. This is widely known as Mario Kart, where you dress up and drive modified go karts on the roads of Tokyo right next to the cars. You used to be able to dress up as Super Mario characters but unfortunately they had some trouble with Nintendo so this isn’t possible anymore. However, we dressed up as Donald and Daisy Duck and it was great fun. We reached up to speeds of around 70 kilometres per hour, and got to see loads of landmarks along the way such as the Tokyo Sky Tree. As we did it at nighttime, it was a great way to see a lot of landmarks quickly and had the added bonus of seeing them all lit up. At almost every traffic light we stopped at Japanese people would be laughing and taking pictures, making us feel like celebrities! We even saw our first cherry blossom when we stopped at the Skytree,, which really was the “cherry on top” of the experience (ha).
The next day rained a lot, however we decided to spend the day looking around Ginza. Ginza is the home to many high end shops and cafes, so obviously we didn’t buy much but we did visit the “NISSAN CROSSING”, where we saw futuristic cars, did a virtual reality experience and got a coffee with our faces printed on.
For our final morning in Tokyo we woke up early to visit a food market selling various types of fresh food, we went for a whole crab which they cut into pieces for us. I usually like crab, but it was quite an unpleasant experience, I think it was because the Japanese women was telling us that the insides and the eggs are particularly delicious (they weren’t). Afterwards we went back to Shibuya and walked around the shops a bit more before getting some lunch at a sushi place. This particular one was a cool experience because you ordered the sushi on a mini iPad, and it would eventually whiz round on a conveyor belt and stop at your seat. Later that day we went back to Shinjuku to see all the buildings lit up at night. We then went for a walk and went to the Golden Gai. Golden Gai is a set of streets with bars and eatery’s that are all a few metres wide and would only fit about 15 people inside. It was a nice experience but the drinks are a bit pricey and if there is someone smoking inside that quickly fills the room up. I think if you had a small group of you it would be really fun to stay for a while. That was the end of our time in Tokyo, I really enjoyed the hectic atmosphere and the mixture of things to do. There are many tranquil places to visit such as parks and shrines, many tourist excursions you could do and not to mention some of the best food I’ve ever ate. It really feels like we only scratched the surface of Tokyo and I can’t wait to come back.
Lee Teivans Travel Blog 