*Day 3 is marked in bold
- Shrines: Nezu Shrine (Nezu), Hanazono Shrine (Shinjuku), Gotokuji Temple (Gotokuji), Sensoji Temple (Asakusa), Togo Shrine (Harajuku), and Meijijingu Shrine (Harajuku)
- Shopping: Harajuku's Takeshita Street, Shibuya's 109, Asakusa Area, Tokyo JR Underground Shopping Street, and Mitsui Outlet Park Tama-Minami Osawa Branch
- Sight Seeing: Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Sky Tree Tower (from Asakusa)
- Targeted food items: Japanese curry, Sashimi, Yakitori, Ikayaki, Tonkatsu, any kind of Don (Rice bowls) and Green Tea/Red Bean desserts.
- Special Agenda: Owl Cafe
St
Marc café has Nutella croissants. Shut up and take my money.
I slept in today because yesterday was
absolutely exhausting with lots on the agenda. I didn’t arrive at Sensoji
Temple until around 10:30am and it was already crawling with tourists. The
walkway (Nakamise-dori) between after entering Kaminarimon (雷門, “Thunder Gate”) up to the actual temple are stalls on either
sides selling traditional souvenirs ranging from kimonos, to lucky cats, fans,
handkerchiefs, coin pouches, toys, cellphone charms, food, and anything you can
imagine. I decided to make my way straight to the temple and do the shopping
later.
Sensoji, built in year 628 is one of the oldest temples in Japan.
Walking into the main temple area, you can
hear people shaking away on the Omikuji buckets to get their lucky number. There
were students, businessmen, tourists, families, and people of all kinds. At the
very center was where the incense were placed. It is seen as good luck to fan
some smoke onto your body. I went for a lucky draw and got a 吉 “blessing” which is quite good. For souvenirs, I bought a few
lucky cats as well as a handkerchief. In Japan all public toilets do not offer
paper towels to dry off your hands to be environmentally friendly. They only
have hand drying machines, but I much prefer drying my hand on a towel of some
sort. From one of the side streets off the right side (facing the temple), you
can see Sky Tree Tower perfectly in the distance.
Tokyo Eki – Ichibangai 東京駅一番街
This is the
underground shopping area located directly beneath the JR Tokyo Station. You
can find food, souvenirs, and specialty store for many famous cartoon
characters such as Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Totoro, Miffy, Mr. Capybara, and Rilakkuma.
I was mainly there for lunch, and found this place that served Okinawa cuisine
- Ryutan 龍潭 (Dragon Lake) it was
called, pretty sick name. I ordered a Pork Rice Bowl. I’ve never had anything
like it; the meat was so tender and sweet, rich with soy sauce, garlic, onions
and spring onion flavors. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. ¥950 for the rice
bowl, miso soup, and a salad.
In the afternoon, I went back to Harajuku
again to visit Tōgō Shrine. I saw an advertisement on TV about it and did not
know it existed. It was actually right next to the busy Takeshita Street. The
main shrine was really pretty, it had designs that reminded me of a Japanese
Samurai’s helmet. Since it’s a temple built more in the modern years, and also
being right in Harajuku, they had really interesting types of Omikuji. Instead
of the standard white paper inked with calligraphy in black, they had Omikuji
wrapped in a flower shaped card, and also colorful cartoon looking ones.
St
Marc Café - Green tea ice cream and red bean dessert
I
know, this sounds weird. But trust me, green tea and red bean go really well together.
And this form of dessert is extremely popular in Japan. This dessert
break was perfect because my feel were killing me again. After that I attempted
to withdraw some cash from the ATM because I had been paying everything
including meals with cash up to this point and was running out. Good thing is,
because Chinese tourists are so common now, all ATMs will accept China Union
Pay! Most Hong Kong credit cards use that so hooray, cash successfully
obtained. This might be one of the rare occasions where I’m thankful that Hong
Kong has anything to do with China.
Sunset started at 5:30pm, and I got to Tokyo
Tower at around 6.
I
don’t really remember what Tokyo looked like in 2009. I know that Skytree Tower
is built and all that, but the height of Skytree Tower is too tall and doesn’t
allow you to see the details of certain buildings. And the price is also pretty
outrageous (¥3,090 yen on the day of and ¥3,600 for advance
tickets to skip the long waiting line). I will always be loyal to
Tokyo Tower. It was ¥1,600 yen for both the Main Observatory (145m) and
Special Observatory (250m). And wow the view was breathtaking. The elevators up
both observatories had clear windows, but once you stepped to the actual
observatory, there is a symphony of sparkling lights right before your eyes. It’s
absolutely stunning. Tokyo is a very beautiful city. And although it doesn’t
have any distinctive skyline, since last time I was here the entire business
district’s buildings have changed to a more modern style with all glass
windows. Both the Main and Special Observatory had really good views of the
city. There’s also a Jazz bar on the second floor of the Main Observatory which
made the atmosphere extra classy and romantic.
And then I saw Morohoshi San’s (Japanese Gangster) Silver Reflective LED Lamborghini.
It was
light straight out of Fast and Furious. I’ve seen enough of Lamborghinis and
Ferraris in Hong Kong, it’s no special scene, but wow, this Silver LED
Lamborghini was off the rails. I am so glad I caught it on camera. I don’t know
how to describe the feeling.. it was kind of like this:
(What is
that noise?)
(Dude,
that’s way too loud for Japan...)
(Wait..
that’s way too bright…)
(Woahhhhhh
the colors)
hahahaha
(Yes I caught it on camera.. who the heck drives that? I wonder if it’s a
really young or really old guy.)
West of
Tokyo tower was the Roppongi district, last time traveling was with family so
we didn’t really explore this area. I was planning to grab dinner here this
time round. I was walking around for a while looking for an Izakaya with a good
menu but couldn’t seem to find one. Roppongi is really different from the rest
of Tokyo. Let me be blunt here, there were a lot of black guys, Indian guys,
and very ratchet looking white girls in skimpy dresses. And then there’s the
expat guy and Japanese girl combo where the Japanese girl could barely speak
English and the expat was definitely not the best looking but managed to woo the
girl with his poor Japanese. Such a cliché. (Shivers)
“Hi my name is xxx, you look really pretty, can we be friends? (In Japanese)” – Random street guy #63, Shibuya.
The one good Izakaya I
found wasn’t free till 8:45pm and I was starving, so I head back to the place I
went to on day one in Shibuya instead. I didn’t realize that it’s end of the
month closing day so all the sales businessmen are out drinking and eating at
Izakaya’s. Luckily I still had my own booth. By the time I finished, it wasn’t
10pm yet, and there were drunk people everywhere on the streets; two guys
holding up their friend in the middle, another young girl sitting on the side
walk in front of a bar refusing to stand up to leave with her friends and just
laid down and started sleeping.
There was this German family on the subway
train when I was heading back to the hotel. There were 3 kids in the family,
all around the ages of maybe 7-10? These 2 Japanese women beside me were
whispering in Japanese loud enough for me to hear. The conversation kind of
went like this:
“Look at those kids, aren’t they adorable?”
“Yea, the blonde hair makes them extra cute!”
“I know, and don’t forget about the blue eyes
too, makes them look like dolls!”
#Asians.
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Tokyo Day 4’s agenda includes: Owl Café, Akihabara, Ueno, and a Tonkatsu place.
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