SO on Friday morning we boarded the plane for the 6 hour flight from Singapore to Tokyo. The flight was dull as it was all over sea apart from the first 10 minutes and the last 15 minutes. Tokyo Narita airport is actually about 60km from Tokyo itself and looks to be in a pretty rural area. As we flew in, I looked out of the window at the landscape of and thought "oh my god, it's all flooded!" - later I realised they were paddy fields and meant to be like that, haha!
At the airport, we managed to buy tickets for the Narita Express train into Tokyo (possibly the nicest, cleanest, most spacious train I have ever had the pleasure of spending 55 minutes on!) as well as PASMO prepaid electronic swipe cards for the subway, which we then used to get from the main Tokyo station to Asakusa on the subway line.
The Tokyo subway is surprisingly easy to navigate as everything is bilingual, clearly colour coded and mapped, and generally well-signposted. Ticket machines also have english instructions, although it helps if you know the name of the ticket you want to buy as the passes are sold under brand names rather than descriptions. I think the only subway slip-up we had in the entire trip was accidentally boarding an 'express' train with limited stops, not realising it sped right through the station we wanted.
We emerged in Asakusa in darkness, freezing rain. Used the helpful station map to orientate us, we walked the short distance to our hotel and checked in - the hotel room was tiny but very clean, warm and comfortable. After a quick rest we headed out to find some dinner as it was getting late. We walked back into Asakusa and found the central area, a bustling street of little shops and restaurants. Asakusa is a quiet suburb compared to the modern centres of Tokyo so none of the crazy lights and huge crowds yet! We tried one restaurant but they were closing, so worried we were a bit late, we just ducked into the next place we saw that had an english menu, a tiny little place. Turned out to be a good bet and we warmed up with stir-fried eggplant and tofu, miso soup and hot sake. Then to bed.
Saturday was our first full day in Tokyo. After a Japanese buffet breakfast (weird!) at the hotel, we headed back down to the main street of Asakusa again to visit the Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo's oldest and most sacred Buddhist temple. It was founded in AD 628 as a shrine to Kannon, goddess of mercy, after two fishermen fished a tiny statue of the goddess out of the river. The statue is stored in the main hall, but is considered too holy to be on display.
The main entrance to the temple is through the Kaminarimon Gate, in which a HUGE paper lantern hangs.
Once through, you make your way along Nakamise-dori, a street of little shops and food stands, before you make it into the heart of the site.
The temple is obviously a massive attraction for visitors from Japan and the whole world and it was VERY busy.
The Belfry, which stands at the centre of the site.
We had a good explore, including inside the main hall which was incredibly ornate - the main shrine was covered in gold and fantastically detailed paintings on the ceilings. Outside stands the incense burner - wafting the smoke over yourself is meant to keep you healthy. I got a cold so it doesn't work, sorry.
After having a good explore, we wandered through the little gardens and shrines surrounding the temple. There was a pond, full of massive koi, with cherry blossoms hanging over it.
There were also loads of these little Jizo statues:
Jizo is a very popular god and there are statues of him EVERWHERE. He is guardian of children and especially of children who die before their parents. Japanese mythology says that these children are unable to cross into the afterlife as they may not have not had a chance to do enough good deeds and they have made their parents suffer. Jizo can save them, and the red bibs are put there by parents asking him to protect their children. The other clothes are just because it's winter (non-living things have a soul too!) - lots of them had little woolly hats on!
From Senso-ji we walked a couple of kilometres west to Ueno, through quiet suburban streets of local shops. One thing that surprised me was the huge number of people on bicycles, and the lines of bicycles lined up in front of every building. I never realised the Japanese were such big cyclists, it seems at odds with the image of the ultra-modern, neon city-scapes you think of. But really that side of Japan is in such a relatively small area, bikes seem perfectly natural elsewhere.
Ueno is home to Ueno Park, Tokyo's largest public park. Cherry blossom season was underway and we had no idea what to expect, we certainly weren't prepared for the sight that greeted us! The park was heaving! There were people everywhere, and loads of parties were going on under the trees. A lot of preparation seems to go into the viewing parties, and some people had some incredible spreads including low fold-up tables.
There were a number of food stalls set up in the centre of the park, and Mark managed to use the power of mime to procure a dish of delicious fried octopus which we ate with the bento box we'd bought in the station.
See those things on sticks? That's a whole fish on a stick!
We then had a good wander around the park, joining the multitudes of people photographing the blossom and visiting the Tosho-gu Shrine and Gojo Shrine which lie in the park.
Inari fox statue at Gojo Shrine. Inari is a Shinto rice god, and foxes are the messengers of Inari. You see a lot of fox statues around shrines.
Prayers hung outside Tosho-gu Shrine
From Ueno we took the subway a little more north to Yanaka, Tokyo's old town, to do a walk that was in the guide book. Yanaka has a very different atmosphere again to Asakusa and Ueno - it feels far more traditional, and there is a lot to see - a shrine practically every few steps!
These Jizo were just lined up at the side of the road. Yanaka has a little main shopping street called Yanaka Ginza, with lots of traditional tea houses and food stores - we bought a beautiful tea canister and boxes of edemame and sweet potato to snack on. Then as the sun started to drop and with it the temperature, we decided to make our way towards the bright lights of Tokyo's modern centre, Shinjuku!
Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world, and has 60+ exits. It was, as you can imagine, a NIGHTMARE to get out of! We eventually just picked one that sounded about right, deciding to orientate ourselves once on the street instead. We came out under skyscrapers, lights and business to rival London's Oxford Street in the last few days of christmas shopping. It was intense! Freezing cold, we headed into a department store and found a rather posh starbucks, which cheered us up no end. We perused the guidebooks over coffees, deciding on a conveyer belt sushi restaurant in nearby Harajuku for dinner - turned out to be a good choice and we made the journey back to the hotel quite stuffed!
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