Day 3

I’m back with update over the last few days and we’ve been pretty busy! Yesterday we started off the morning by travelling out to almost as far east in Tokyo as you can go to see one of the famous immersive art exhibitions, after lots of research we were reassured we didn’t need to pre book which was rubbish as all the tickets were sold out for the day so we will come back another time! Instead we walked near rainbow bridge and along the pier which was a lovely view with the skyscrapers behind, the sun came out and it became a rather beautiful day. I then spotted a rather yummy looking sign of Japanese pancakes and insisted this was breakfast - very nutritious I know! For those who don’t know in Japan they deep fry their pancakes and as a result are incredibly fluffy on the inside with a little crunch on the outside- in short they are delicious and only £4 so ticked all my boxes!! We were actually quite lucky to find this place as we discovered that on Sundays nothing opens till 9am at least and it was about 7.30am when we left - it’s not often that I am awake before the shops are open I can tell you that!

We then walked past a “museum of gas” and we were rather curious so wondered inside as it was free entry, I’m not entirely sure I understood how the exhibition linked to gas nor can I really describe what it was. I think the best way to give you a picture is a wacky slightly off the wall exhibition aimed at kids maximising their creativity through fun activities.

We then took the metro to the Shibuya neighbourhood which is famous for having the busiest crossing in the world with an estimated 2500 people crossing every two minutes which is over 2 million people every day, and I can say it lives up to this fact! Whilst we waited patiently for the green light to cross it seemed as though the whole of Tokyo joined us to cross- Shibuya crossing is made up of several intersections that you can cross which makes it slightly like a mine field as if you cross the wrong one you have to fight to get through the people to get to the right intersection. The only thing I think I could relate the experience to is how I imagine Oxford Street in London on Black Friday, you literally had no space whatsoever to move, Jacob and I linked arms as to not lose each other as I think finding each other again would have been impossible! It’s a very surreal experience as you would think that the Shibuya crossing would just be full of tourists and yes there was obviously more tourists here than we had seen so far but the absolute majority were locals crossing to go shopping or go about their day and didn’t bat an eyelid at the scale of the crossing.

Shibuya is known for being the youth hub of Tokyo with its luxury brands and vintage shopping it is thought that many fashion trends come out of this neighbourhood and spread across the world. As we walked out of the metro station the first shops we saw were Louis Vuitton, gucci and prada all in a line. It wasn’t hard to believe this is the fashion hub as people strolled past in really quirky outfits that I expect will be the next trends in the west with time. We took a long stroll through Shibuya and ended up at Meiji Shrine- with grounds expanding over 170 acres there was a lot to explore! The actual shrine itself was set back in the forest and had a beautiful huge wooden Torii (the gate like feature) which marks the transition from the normal world to the sacred. People were writing their wishes and prayers on little wooden panels and hanging them up, it was a really beautiful shrine and not too busy which was lovely. We then strolled the gardens and enjoyed looking at the ponds and visited a sacred well which dated back to the edo period. By this time I was starving so we found a small very cramped little noodle and ramen bar which had such little English I didn’t really know what I had ordered until it came. I’ll attach a photo so you can all see but it was pork with noodles in a broth. I was starving so eagerly dug in only to be hit with a wall of spice, coughing and spluttering everywhere I quickly realised that I needed to understand how to ask if a dish was spicy or not!! This was seriously spicy and I’m not amazing with spice either so quite a dangerous combination!

After wondering through the narrow streets and taking in the atmosphere we headed to the government building for sunset. Now that might sound a bit strange as most people would probably go to Tokyo tower or the sky tree but firstly the government building observatory deck is free and secondly no one knows about it so it really wasn’t that busy at all! We sat and watched as the sun melted behind the horizon and cast a pinky light over Mr Fuji in the distance and the hustle and bustle of Tokyo below. It was truly beautiful and the contrast between nature and the largest city in the world was extremely picturesque!

Now that night had descended we felt this would be the best time to visit shinjuku which is known for the entertainment district and neon lights of Kabukicho. Now this was the Tokyo that you have seen in the movies and how I imagined. Fun light up buildings and streets lined with colourful signs it felt like we had gone 50 years into the future! As we meandered through the streets we quickly discovered that Kabukicho is also the red light district after several “peak shows” were advertised! The whole area felt like a fever dream and seriously out of this world! By this point I had done 27,000 steps and we were both feeling rather jaded so we headed back to our hostel which was such a good find by the way! It’s 7 floors of which 5 are hostel rooms - 8 people to a room, whilst the ground floor is a coffee shop with a communal area and in the basement there is a bar and restaurant! At night we quite often hear music floating up from the basement and our host said that they may be willing to turn a blind eye to our age (drinking age in Japan is 20) so hopefully we will get to try do Sake at some point!!
P.S to those who aren’t already aware you will see from the photos I’ve decided to grow out my fringe!Read more