21st – 24th – Tokyo pt. 1

The first day in Tokyo wasn’t actually spent in Tokyo. I met up with 2 others from the group in the hotel lobby, and before anything else we said goodbye to our guide who was there and greeting all the tour’s participants as they left – even those leaving early at 0530. He was told not to but did it anyway; such a cool guy!

The three of us grabbed a train and travelled north of Tokyo to Nikko, an old town with a lot of history and a large area with old shrines and temples. Add to that a beautiful backdrop of mountains to spice it up. Considering the cultural history of the location there were surprisingly few tourists here compared to other places we had visited along the way, but natural bottlenecks at the temples and shrines did make it feel crowded at times, making me happy that it didn’t seem to be too popular a place to visit. The temples here were with finely carved details – and while that is fairly common among the temples in general, one stood out here, famously so with a trio of monkeys doing the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” which was used as inspiration as the ditto emoticon. The similarities were obvious. Returning to Tokyo we visited an amazing running sushi restaurant near the hotel where the pieces had small amounts of rice and huge chunks of delicious fish. I’m going to miss this place. 

 

Back in Tokyo for your mandatory night shots.

 

An area consisted of hundreds of small bars, only large enough to seat 8-10. 

The following day I once again left the city, this time alone. For the tour had been given rail passes that covered all rail by the JR operator and it would be expiring today. These are quite expensive so I decided to have one last hurrah with mine as to not let it go to waste. And wanting to go somewhere new where we hadn’t visited during the tour, I ended up getting onto a shinkansen going as far north I could get on Honshu (the main island) to a small town called Aomori. 3 hours with the shinkansen from Tokyo to get there and back – that train pass needed to be fully utilized!

Arriving in Aomori I was surprised to see how different it was compared to everywhere else we had been. Located where there is plenty of room there is no premium on space so things are spread out and main streets are open and wide. It felt more like an American or Canadian town with Japanese signs than an actual Japanese town. It was weird. There wasn’t much to do there, but they did have a very large Buddha statue which would be worth a look. I decided to walk there, I figured I’d have time to walk both ways and still catch my train home (I had managed to leave Tokyo a bit later than originally planned so I had only 4,5 hours in Aomori before having to return). Getting to the statue it seemed completely empty – I was surprised I didn’t see tumbleweeds flying across the parking lot. I was worried I had wasted the 8km walk there from the station but it turned out it was open it was just far outside tourist season. A lot of materials and tools were lying around being used for the ongoing restorations of the temples and shrines so it all seemed a bit messy. The highlight was definitely the very tall Buddha statue towering above the rest of the area and buildings. 

 

Open range in Aomori.

Leaving I realized it was perfectly timed with a bus passing by every 1-1½ hours and I quickly climbed onboard. Assuming it just went back to the town center I was surprised to realize that it took all the backroads, really reaching the rural parts of the town. There’s a single worn tori gate, there’s a pile of trash and two banged up fridges, another gate followed by an old empty rusty oil drum. A bit of everything. 45 minutes later I got off in the central part of town where I had a walk around along the coast and enjoying the view of the surrounding mountains and the city skyline from the pier at the cruise terminal. Walking around on the pier it was once again obvious it was outside the tourist season – there was absolutely nothing there. Completely desolate. Most tourists come here to go trekking and discovering the surrounding nature so it makes sense there are no one here at this time of the year. 

 

Aomori Prefecture Tourism Information Center. 

To me it looks more like a supervillain's base.

I ended up getting the local train back to the shinkansen station, grabbed a bit to eat and boarded the shinkansen back to Tokyo.

The following two days were mostly spent moving to my new hotel and walking the streets trying to get a better feel of the city when not using subways and trains. With a checkout from the hotel I left my main bag for storage before heading out and having a short walk to have a look around in a local camera shop (because why not? And it was amazing – so much on display on 5 floors) before heading to Tokyo station and getting tickets for my shinkansen ride to Nagano on Monday.

From here I walked south, passed Hamarikyu Gardens (but didn’t enter as it required a fee to enter – had the weather been better I would likely have entered) before continuing to my new hotel where I checked in. From here I started heading west, effectively circling south of the imperial palace and gardens, passing Shiba Park, passing through Minato before slowly heading north-ish, crossing through Shibuya and arriving at my old hotel. Going through Shibuya was an adventure; lots of people were out and having a great time, and going along the main street I probably passed by every high-end brand store you’d think of. 

At the hotel around 1900 I went back to the government building observation deck. Despite it being overcast it did not affect the visibility over the city. Unfortuntaely there was a lot of interior lighting which made it nearly impossible to get any good shots at all. It was so bad that at times you barely could just look out due to the reflections. Why do they do this?! Not enough observations decks have outdoor balconies. Coming back down I spent a few moments enjoying the end of a lightshow on the entire façade of the building before getting sushi for dinner, picking up my bag at the hotel and returning to my new hotel.

 

So many reflections...

 

Fancy lightshow on the outside when leaving.

The following day I walked north up to Ueno Park. This is definitely a place to go to see the cherry trees blossoming due to the thousands of trees – everything has been set up to be able to handle the massive amounts of people that will be descending in the coming weeks to see the blossoming. Looking at the recent forecasts I’m starting to realize that due to the large amounts of rain and less than expected sun in the past months the blossoming is postponed for a week or more – which is deeply frustrating as that means I will just get to see the meager start and the full blossoming won’t happen until at least a week after I have left. Walking around in the park there were plenty of food stalls so I had a late lunch (meat skewers, okonomiyaki and Taiwanese buns) before heading east to the Sensoji temple and Taitou and from there slowly making my way south along the Sumida River, eventually getting me back to Chuo City and Ginza where dinner was had and an early end to the day around 2030 back at the hotel.

 

 Old among the new

 

May I offer you a cup?

 

The walk up to Sensoji Temple.