20 DAYS IN JAPAN: PART 1

20 Days In Japan
Part 1:

It’s crazy to think that we have been here for 20 days already. It has been an incredible culture rich adventure. We have done so much in these 20 days but we haven’t even covered the tip of the ice burg.

After scrolling through the HUNDREDs of photos I was thinking where I should start…I guess the beginning sounds good.

10th June 2015
We managed to arrive at Wellington airport 4 hours early. There was nothing that was going to stop us from getting on that plane. We had an over night stay in Auckland, then a 17 hour haul to Tokyo, Japan. I was not so thrilled about 17 hours of flying, whereas Richard could not wait. Neither of us had done a trip like this before. It was a feeling of excitement, anxiety and adventure.

On the 11th June we left New Zealand. We had a 5 hour stop over in Singapore airport. It was awesome. Best airport EVER. There were shops, restaurants, bars, a butterfly garden, fish, hotels, trains, swimming pool, massage chairs…
We boarded our plane to Tokyo at 11pm, by the time we reached Tokyo at 8.30am on the 12th June we had been awake for over 24 hours and we were both getting on the grouchy side.

12th June 2015
TOKYO!!! We had made it. Our first adventure was getting to our hostel. We took two trains to get to Asakusa, an hour from the airport. Then a taxi from the train station to our hostel. We were tired, excited and bloody hot! We stayed at a very cute and clean hostel Khaosan Tokyo Origami. The staff were so welcoming. We were pleasantly surprised by how awesome our room was. It was a traditional styled Japanese floor (the one where you take your shoes off) and a cute bunk set up. Unfortunately we could only stay one night. The next hostel was not so pleasant, Asakusa Smile. It was clean but didn’t really have much going for it. At least, again, that was for only one night.

ASAKUSA:
Asakusa is a city or what they call a ‘ward’ within Tokyo prefecture. It is defiantly our favorite place so far. It was such a nice surprise walking out of our hostel, cross the road and BAM! there’s an amazing HUGE temple, Senosji Temple (This was the first temple we have ever seen so therefore is going to be epic-ally amazing!). We spent a bit of time there over the two days. It was a busy place with tourists, Japanese praying and dogs. There were corridors of markets. The hustle and bustle was something else (like what you see in the movies). Here you can buy survivors, food, nic naks, art, slippers, jewellery, pretty much everything. At night the markets closed but the lanterns turn on and the temple is lit up. Just incredible to see. We took the chance to read our ‘good luck fortune’. You pay 100 yen and shake a metal container full of wooden rods. The aim is to get one rod out of a small hole in the container. Once it has come out, it will have a number or Japanese characters written down it. You match this with the draws in front of you. In the draw is a piece of paper with your ‘fortune’. Lucky for us it was in Japanese and English. Once you have read it, you fold it onto the railing. By the end of the day, there were hundreds of these good fortunes folded on the railings through the temple site.
We explored part of Tokyo and went to the Imperial Palace which marks the centre of Tokyo. It is a lovely large area and free to enter. There are areas to picnic, ruins from the old castles, museums, survivor shops, gardens and cafes. For us, our feet were so incredibly sore from two days of walking that we didn’t enjoy it as much as we would have with happy feet. This is an area we will defiantly come back to and enjoy it’s full potential.