Tokyo - Leg 2/4 - 2nd Jan - 6th Jan
Travel Information:
Airline - HK Expess - This was an experience! Think of it as a super efficient Ryanair.. people were not even allowed to drink unless they had bought it on the flight! That's a new one for me, each to there own, I personally had no problem with the flight. On time, on and off quickly and was super easy to get to Tokyo as there were so many times to chose from!
Hotel - Hotel Villa Fontaine Grand Tokyo - Shiodome, Booking.com - Claireztravles rating 9/10 - VERY good breakfast, comfy and very polite staff.
2nd Jan
We are in Japan! This is a dream come true for me, I had wanted to visit ever since I can remember so Matthew agreed to add it to the list and it did not disappoint! We landed late evening and the airport was a breeze! Easily found a bus to our hotel and after a bit of pointing due to a bit of miscommunication :') got on a shared bus to the hotel which took about 2 hours.. which we slept the whole way!
Not going to lie, we spent ages trying to find the entrance to the hotel.. it was situated on the inside of a shopping complex, this turned out to be the perfect location for us, close to the subway and the trains. It was a lovely hotel, very grand and a decent size room. My favorite thing had to be the buttons on the toilet, for all your toilet needs you didn't know you needed!
We were pretty hungry by this point and found a pizza place next to the hotel. It was lovely!
Jan 3rd
I love a good view, it was a beautiful day too so we decided today was the day we were going to go up the Skytree. This was very easy to get to on the subway, although I have read accounts of the train system being confusing, I actually found it fine! There are lots of helpful people around though if you do get stuck. It was SO busy, we expected it to be busy but this was another level. I feel a bit strange writing this during a time where this would now be unheard of! I am not a massive fan of crowds but I'd give anything to be back in one! TIP: there is a queue for for international visitors which means you don't have to queue for as long. We found this on the way out :'). We actually got there pretty early and the queue wasn't too bad.. luckily, another story when we came back down mind.
After a quick elevator up, you step into a huge space, compared to some of the other towers we've been up anyway!
The views were incredible, you could see the whole city, expanding over to Mt. Fuji, the sky was super blue too and we could have stayed up there all day taking pictures!
Next up was Sensō-ji, a short walk from the Skytree which was lovely in the sun. The temple had lots of little stalls around which you could have a mooch around, you could get your fortune or Omikuji, which we picked from a random drawer. They also have an English translation which is very helpful! Unless it said Hello over and over again I would be pretty stuck.
So we thought the Skytree was busy, Sensō-ji took it to a whole new level! You can actually look in the temple, well part of it anyway.. just depends if you fancy waiting in the biggest queue I have ever seen! It must have been like a mile long and 20-30 people wide, I don't even think that's exaggerating.. The pictures don't really do it justice to how packed it was!
Walking back we found some stalls along the side of the road, these sold anything you could think of! I picked up some beautiful bits of jewelry and some nun-chuck and ninja earrings, how cool?!
Back to the hotel to re-charge and back out again later on.. so we got s beautiful view in the day so we wanted to see what the city looked like at night too! Off to the Tokyo City View Observation Deck we go. A short subway from the hotel which brought us out a short walk to the deck, past a big countdown to the Tokyo Olympics! Here's hoping they get to go ahead next year :).
The views from the top were amazing! We saw the sun set behind Mt. Fuji and the city lights were memorizing. Unlike most other observation decks we've been to this one was outside! It was surprisingly not too cold and you didn't have a window to deal with when taking pictures!
Finishing the night at Tony Romas.. decent food and price!
Jan 4th
I had one thing on my mind for today, I'll give you a clue, it begins with P and ends in Mon. Pokemon of course! I couldn't visit Tokyo without going to a Pokemon Centre. Again, using the subway, it was a short walk from the nearest stop. We went pretty much as soon as it opened so it wasn't too busy and didn't need to wait in a queue. I was like a kid in a candy shop. SO MANY PLUSHIES! I limited myself to a few..
We then headed over to Kōkyo Higashi-gyoen, Beauitful garden grounds with some really cool buildings on it, we spent a while here as the grounds themselves were pretty big! Couldn't get enough of how beautiful it was!
We then headed over to Akihabara, or electronics city. I was so memorized by everything going on around me that I only took one picture! Worth a visit, so much going on from anime to arcades and a really good vibe. Also full of different foods to try as your are walking around. Some very bizarre things like a huge fattened paper octopus?! or some vegetable gyoza which were divine..
Later on we decided to check out Shibuya Crossing, the worlds widest crossing! (according to Google) We got off the subway a bit before the place itself so we could walk through some of the sights on the way there, really good call! Walking through Meiji Jingu gardens, they were vast and full of people, a really good vibe for the time of night too!
The lights of the streets before the crossing were incredible too! Not to mention the crossing itself, it's as big and busy as they say it is! I recommend going in the Starbucks near it if you love people watching, we actually did this on our last day but included the picture for information :)
Last but not least it was time to eat! Matthew isn't the most adventurous eater in the world but I manged to persuade him to get some ramen with me! I thought it was really good! super tasty.. Matthew not so much, he also wasn't too keen with his chopsticks...
I couldn't tell you where we ate, I was just so excited to eat but it was in the mall next to the crossing, so many places to eat in there!
So our last full day in Japan was so busy so I think it deserves it's own blog :) .. until next time.
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