What to do in Tokyo part 2
This is part 2 of our Tokyo trip, experiencing the weird and the wonderful of what this city of the future has to offer. Surprisingly didn’t see as many robots as i thought.
To catch up on what we did during the first couple of days click here.
Day 3
The plan was to spend the day in Shibuya, which is towards the north west of the city. First we ate some steak at Ikinari Steak which we passed a few times walking back to our hotel. We were given bids and tea and the steak was served on a sizzling hot plate with a side of rice and sweetcorn. They also have their famous steak sauce at the bar aswell so you can pour over the steak. Was great and affordable.
Yoyogi Park
Yoyogi Park is the main park in Shibuya City and was on site of the 1964 Olympic village. We got off at Harajuku Station and made our way towards the park, at the entrance we saw a group of Japanese dancers, some food carts and alot of people with pets – like ferrets, rabbits and dogs. It was a good day for us to wear trainers because we did a fair bit of walking through the park, getting to different water features and the rose garden and there was this really lovely smelling tree with orange flowers and I had no idea what this tree was called. Smelt like peaches.
Harajuku
After the park we headed over the Tokyu Plaza, mainly focusing on the elevator entrance – it looks like there are hundreds and thousands of different fragments of a mirror placed inside of the tunnel so we took a few pictures here and then walked along the main road.
We visited LINE store and checked out all the new BT21 merchandise. I would have loved to have bought the entire store, everything was so cute but at the time I didn’t see the practicality of anything there but now looking back I could have bough something small as a memory.
Takeshita Street
This is the place to go to in Harajuku, alot of different stores and we bought some snacks here, some cute ice cream and grabbed some fast food at lotteria. I shopping around different stores whilst my boyfriend patiently sat on the side.
Shibuya Crossing
We bought a drink at Starbucks and sat at the window facing the crossing and took a few videos of people passing through the crossing. It was the say Japan lost at the Rugby world cup but we saw supportive Japanese fans jumping and celebrating on the street when people were allowed to cross.
Genki Sushi
When hunger called we made our way to Genki Sushi. I found out about this place from YouTube and discovered this is sushi chain where robot trains deliver sushi to your table. I loved it, it was cheap and affordable and we could order what ever we want and whenever we wanted.
On other days, we took day trips to different locations and when we returned in the evening we visited a few different locations in Tokyo when we had the chance.
Tokyo Imperial Palace
The Tokyo Imperial Palace is very close by to Tokyo Station, on the way to the Palace we walked a lot of sky buildings and not too long we arrived at the Palace and the gardens. If I were to describe the Tokyo Imperial Palace in one word I’d say Grand, the grounds around the palace were extremely spacious and extremely well maintained. We didn’t have time for the tour but would definitely have took the opportunity if we did.
St Ignatius Church
One one of our final day with walked from central Tokyo to Sophia University, this took quite a bit of time so one the way we grabbed a few chicken skewers from Lawsons and sat on the side of the streets. This Catholic church is based at a university and took us a while to find, this is definitely a hidden treasure. We entered whilst it was empty and sat in peace and enjoyed the beautiful flower ceiling.
Sensō-ji
We visited Sensō-ji at night after rain, this created a beautiful haze and was great for taking night photos. Another bonus was that for such an major tourist attraction this place was pretty much empty. We arrived at the shrine and there were instructions on “How to draw Omikuji” which is a written fortune. So we dropped 100 yen whilst praying for a wish and shook the box of sticks a few times. We pulled a stick out which was assigned a number and that number corresponded to a drawer. This drawer contained a piece of paper which contained our fortune, if it was good we could keep it and if it was bad we could tie it on the hanger. Fortunately for us we both took our fortunes home. 🙂
