ASAKUSA & TOKYO SKY TREE

ASAKUSA

We were lucky enough to have some friends from New Zealand visit us here in Japan. Although we are settling in nicely and the home sickness is fading, seeing familiar faces was such a treat. Not too mention speaking English ‘normally’ for a few days.

When Richard and I first arrived in Japan we stayed in a hostel in Asakusa. We fell in love with this area of Tokyo straight away. The traditional Japanese culture seems to still exist here and is a nice contrast to the bright lights and technology culture other parts of Tokyo have. Here we explored the Sensoji, a very popular Buddhist temple. There are a lot of people at this temple, a mixture of tourists as well as locals praying. Surrounding the temple are many markets and shops. It is definitely a place you can get lost in the hustle and bustle.

The Sensoji also known as the Asakusa Kannon Temple was built in the 7th century, year 645. It is Tokyo’s oldest temple. The legend says that two brothers were fishing in the Sumida River in the year 628, where they fished out a statue of Kannon, the goddess of Mercy. Although they returned the statue to the river it always returned to them. The brothers decided to build the temple for Kannon, the goddess of Mercy. There are many large temples and shrines around the Sensoji which makes it even more spectacular and beautiful. Inside the Sensoji Temple the ceilings have beautiful painted murals, and a large shrine where hundreds of people pray everyday. I believe part of this area got destroyed in WW2 although I am unsure what buildings got damaged or restored.

A young couple dressed in traditional clothing, walking through the temple together.
You can pay 50 yen to lit a candle and put it in the glass cabinet.
Draws where the fortunes are kept.
Richards “The Best Fortune”
No.98 Bad Fortune “it is hard to unravel an entangled thread.”… Diana’s fortune.
These three got their fortune sheets…Richard got good fortune where as C n D got bad fortunes…
The Sky Tree is in the back ground as well as a large….
Can you see the neko?
Being cute at Starbucks….can’t take the American out of them.
Richard being naughty
Chris and Diana being cute
If you look closely the track on the bridge is transporting tiny trucks on it’s large truck hehe cute.
This couple I believe just got married. In traditional Japanese clothing, there was a photographer with them taking photos.
Cute entrance to the train station.
Um black Burger King burgers, anyone keen?
Cute sign to the cat cafe, I have been holding cats wrong this whole time…

TOKYO SKY TREE

Being the tourist that we are, we adventured up the Tokyo Sky Tree. We went up a super fast elevator to 350m. Each elevator is designed as a different season of the year. The first elevator we went in was spring themed and going back down was winter themed. They were very beautiful. It cost 2300 yen to enter, when we went it wasn’t too busy but it was a very cloudy day. I hear that it gets very busy and packed. There are three levels we explored, 350m, 345m and 340m. On the bottom levels there are cafes and restaurants, shops and a glass floor. The views were incredible (even though it was a cloudy day). Surrounding the Sky Tree are shops and malls, restaurants and the Tokyo aquarium. The Tokyo Sky Tree is celebrating it’s 3rd anniversary, so it is still a reasonably new tourist attraction.

It was a long day on our poor feet.
Glass floor
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The winter elevator
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BUILDINGS, GATEWAYS, HOUSES & STREETS

This is just a taster of the interesting collection of buildings, gateways, houses and streets we have come across so far. Everyday I go for a long walk and ‘explore’ the area I live in and everyday I see something new and something more weird/ unusual.

This little collection is of places I find interesting and most are quite cute. I can’t get over the tight spots they put houses and how they use literally every bit of space they can. The Japanese are definitely up there at utilizing what space they have. The streets here aren’t straight and lined up nicely, they are a maze! The blocks appear to be triangles and all sorts of shapes other than square or rectangle, this making for pretty awesome buildings (and getting lost). In this collection you will be able to see a few sharp corner buildings…who knows what it’s like inside these.

I have hundreds of photos of houses and streets so this is just a little sample so you get to see what we do everyday.

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GOTOKUJI TEMPLE

Gotokuji Temple

Today I explored our little area only to find this gem, Gotokuji Temple. It is know as the home of the Maneke Neko or as us foreigners may know it as the “beckoning cat”. It was an easy 10 minute walk from home and because it is out in the suburbs it wasn’t flooded with tourists, in fact I was the only person there. The area of course if beautiful and very green. There were many temples, shrines, as well as statues and a cemetery.

I searched to find out more about this temple but there’s not too much available. What I did find out is quite a sweet story if it is true. So a brief history about Gotokuji Temple, it is believed that it originates from the Edo period, when a daimyo (powerful feudal lord) from Hikone (a city located in present-day Shiga Prefecture) passed by a temple when a cat  beckoned him to enter. The daimyo followed it inside and after entering a thunderstorm started. Thankful to the cat for saving him from the thunderstorm, he raised the money necessary to purchase and rebuild the temple, which eventually became Gotokuji. From that time on, people began to offer Maneki Neko figurines to the temple as a sign of gratitude when their wishes came true. This still happens today and you can purchase a Maneki Neko from a little shop on the temple grounds. 

As the story states people bring in the Maneki Neko when their wish has come true…there are over 1000 Maneki Neko at this temple. They come in all sizes and are placed in all kinds of hidden spots. 

Overall was very enjoyable. Of course it was raining when I went so I look forward to exploring again when the sun is shining. 

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SETAGAYA HACHIMANGU SHRINE

Setagaya Hachimangu Shrine

This pretty area and shrine is a 7 minute walk (if I don’t get lost) from home. I can’t tell you much about it as all the signs are in Japanese and Google has failed me with having zero information about it. So here are some pictures and when I know more I will update. I took these photos today in the rain. Other days we have gone there have been people sitting and reading and playing in the park. Would be a nice place to relax when the weather is fine.

 

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20 DAYS IN JAPAN: PART 4

20 Days in Japan
Part 4:

TOKYO

On the 21st June we arrived back in Tokyo. It was the big day…move in day, YAY! We trained to Setagaya-Ku approx 1 hour from Tokyo and found our teeny tiny apartment. It has one single bed and a futon for the floor…this is going to be cozy. The kitchen consists of a fridge, microwave, large sink, one gas element, and an oven toaster. It had precisely two of everything in the cupboards. Pretty clear there are no guests allowed to stay here…not that another person would fit. Having such a tiny place means we have to keep it tidy and it’s not hard doing a whole house clean in 15 mins. It defiantly has brought Richards cleaning/ organising OCD out. We are loving our little neighborhood. It is away from the crazy Tokyo city chaos. We live in a little suburb with families and schools. The area is lovely. I believe it is newer than most suburbs in Tokyo and our block was built in the last 40 years. Saying that we do live in the worst house down the nicest street kind of thing. We are about 8 minutes walk to Kamimachi train station, there is a super market there also. My favorite place to visit around our area in Sangenjaya. It is about a 40 minute walk from our house but 9 minute train trip. It has heaps of shops and restaurants, cafes, bars and has the busy city atmosphere. Here we have gone up the Carrot Tower. The Carrot Tower is 26 floors and has incredible views of Tokyo. You can purchase food and drinks up there too. It is free to go up and you can spend as long as you like up there. When we went it wasn’t too busy. Most of our days have been walking the streets and exploring our area. There’s not a hell of a lot going on in Setagaya but there are hidden shrines and temples and cute little restaurants and houses to look at.

30th June we went to the happiest place on earth DISNEYLAND! Technically called Tokyo Disneyland Resort. It was amazing!! I am a 5 year old at heart so I was in my element. We had to take 4 trains to get there and took 1.5 hours. We left home at 7am and was in line waiting eagerly by 8.30am. Totally worth it. It costs 6900 yen each to enter. Unlike Universal Studios I was prepared. I had figured out my top rides I had to do and where they were in the park. This was serious business. The first ride was space mountain…only to find it was shut for maintenance, next Peter Pans Flying adventure…shut due to maintenance. I was a little disappointed. But there were plenty of other rides to keep me entertained. We are not ones for waiting in lines so we would go to the rides with shortest waiting times, was brilliant. Then we discovered Fast Pass, this allowed us to get a ticket and it would have a time on it. We would come back at that time and get to by pass all the queues. We thought the park closed at 6 pm but we were wrong it closed at 10 pm!!!! We got an extra 4 hours, this totally made my day. We had pretty much done all the rides by 6 pm so we got to look around the shops and watch the incredible light parade. At 9 pm there was a light show on at Cinderellas castle. This was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. They projected lights and clips from movies with music on the castle and there were fire works and fire the whole shebang. It was so magical. We were exhausted by the end of the night. I was kind of glad we didn’t get a two day pass in the end. There is still Tokyo Disney Sea for us to do hopefully in the near future. I just have to persuade Richard…

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Richard started work the next day, the 1st July in Wakabayashi, which is a 30 minute walk or a 5 minute train ride from home. He seems to be enjoying himself and his colleagues are very lovely. He has already gone to see the Pokemon movie with work and future travels are being planned for him by his work.

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20 DAYS IN JAPAN: PART 3

20 Days in Japan
Part 3:

OSAKA
18th June we headed to Osaka on an 1 hour train ride from Kyoto. Osaka was completely different from the other cities we have been in. It was loud, huge buildings, cars, litter, a tad smelly and dirty. We didn’t quite feel so great about Osaka, I don’t think the big city life style is for us two. We did have a great time but just wasn’t ready for the Osaka chaos.
We stayed at Hotel Sun White (I love the broken English here). It was ok. The first night we got treated to a smokers room…was the worse night of my life. I’m pretty sure we lost a month of our lives that night and smoked a pack of cigarettes. For some reason it was like they were filtering in smoke from the other rooms. Was disgusting. The next morning being me I refused to stay in that room again, we were even prepared to find another hotel. Luckily the hotel was nice enough to move us to a smoke free room. Man did my lungs appreciate that. But hey lesson learnt.
The first day we took a walk around where we were staying and found the Osaka Castle. It was pretty amazing, the architecture was impressive. It was very touristy and a lot of school groups. And being in Osaka the volume was cranked to the maximum by everyone. The gardens were very beautiful and I could see this being a very relaxing and enjoyable place once the crowds had settled down. We entered the Osaka Castle at 600 yen each. We were expecting a traditional, authentic looking castle inside but that was not the case. Apparently Osaka Castle has been re-furbished a few times in it’s life time…resulting the inside to be less than over whelming. Inside was a museum, it was all in Japanese so we didn’t really get to appreciate that too much. On the top level was the viewing floor. Here was amazing. Views of Osaka for miles. Again it was very busy so we had a quick squiz around and then left. We meet a very interesting chap (we got cornered and stuck listening to an old guy), he was very much an extremest. He hated the Japanese government and the Japanese culture. He refused to speak Japanese (he was Japanese), he spoke only English, he would not bow down and he spoke his opinion. It was quite interesting hearing him talk like this. It is very hard to come by a Japanese person to speak their mind and have a opinion so far from the norm. He would talk about human rights and how Japan didn’t have any and the corruption in the police. He referred to the Japanese people as being ‘chickens’, doing what they are told. It got us thinking about human rights (once we escaped). I wonder if he meant Japanese didn’t have the freedom of speech like we do in New Zealand, because Japanese have the right to travel and move, to what food they eat, what they drink, they have access to water, houses, medical care, education etc. Maybe if you get arrested then your human rights are removed, but this I have no idea about. Although he freaked us out a bit and we really didn’t want to talk to him, he did enlighten us to think a little deeper. Funny enough though the other day we had an older Japanese woman corner us and talk to us about the corrupted government…we have decided to try not to talk to old people now.

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The 19th June we went to Universal Studios. YAY! It was pretty fantastic. The best part being HARRY POTTER WORLD!! It was so fun, we managed 90% of the rides and our feet were killing us by the end of the day. The best rides were Space Fantasy, Spider man and both the Harry Potter rides. Of course I bought a wand, a chocolate frog and a butter beer. I can’t wait to go back and do it all again.

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20th June we went to the sea side to explore the Osaka aquarium. I’m not too fond of aquariums, it makes me sad to think these giant fish and animals are in small tanks and swim in circles all day. Nevertheless I went and I did enjoy it. Again, it was very noisy and a lot of people/ children. It costs 2600 yen to enter and if you are into aquariums I highly recommend this one. It is GIANT! Apparently one of the largest aquariums. There was a lot to see and for kids there were some extra activities too. My favorites were the mamma dolphin with it’s baby dolphin (cute) and the jelly fish.

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Next door was Lego World Discovery Centre…we were so excited to go but got denied as for children only…we were sad. SO we walked a little further and went on a giant Ferris wheel instead. It was about 800 yen to ride and we were so excited until we entered the capsule and it started moving. Poor Richard decided he no longer wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, unfortunately for him he still had a 360 degree ride to go. So while Richard was quietly freaking out I was enjoying the incredible views of Osaka, It was buildings forever. I very much enjoyed the ride. On the 21st we took an early bullet train back to Tokyo to finally move in to our apartment.

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20 DAYS IN JAPAN: PART 2

20 Days In Japan
Part 2:

KYOTO
14th June we took the Shinkansen train AKA bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. It was fast, apparently 320 km/hr fast. We got to Kyoto in 2 hours which I thought was impressive. It was great seeing the country side and the bits of Japan we would have never been able to see otherwise. There were a lot of rice field blocks. In every nook and cranny there was rice growing.
When we arrived in Kyoto we found our accommodation Kyomachiya Ryokan Sakura. Ryokan is a traditional Japanese style of hotel, it originated back in the Edo period (1603-1868). It was such a beautiful place and the staff were very welcoming, they also spoke very good English as well. Ryokans are used mostly by tourist these days as they can be quite pricy. We stayed here for 4 nights and we felt very at home, we didn’t want to leave. For 3 days we hired a bike each so we could ticky tour around Kyoto much easier. It was bike crazy! We got lost about 78 times and after about the third time of getting lost we got over it pretty fast. The temperature in Kyoto was between 25-31 degrees Celsius and very humid. We kept waking up at 5 am every morning, maybe due to jet lag but also the sun rises early here. We would adventure around early morning (yes it was still very hot at 5 am) but Japan doesn’t really get started until 10 am. Shops wouldn’t be open till 10 am or later, saying this though they are open late. We loved just exploring the streets and finding cute and interesting buildings and houses. We enjoyed the shopping area which we called ‘Broadway’ because it had so many lights. We were very well controlled and didn’t buy much (mostly because we didn’t want to lug it around for the next 2 weeks). On the first night we found a delicious restaurant where Richard befriended three Japanese girls. They were incredibly sweet and Richard got to practice his Japanese. They were kind enough to meet us again a couple of days later for dinner. They took us to an all you can eat and drink restaurant. It was so good. I think it was around 2700 yen for 2.5 hours and all you can eat/drink. It was a chicken restaurant so they kept bringing out different dishes with chicken…including neck, cartilage and skin…overall I liked 90% of what came out.
Kyoto is a very traditional city. We looked at a few different temples and shrines while on our bike adventures.

One afternoon/ evening we went on a tour out to the country side of Kyoto called Kiehoku. We traveled about 40 mins from the city and went to the Konzanji Temple. Here we got to experience a tea ceremony. The Konzanji Temple is not free and the tea ceremony does come at an extra cost. After sight seeing at the temple, we ventured into the bush where we walked to a beautiful waterfall called Takimata Waterfall. The tour guide was a bit unique. Not your usual Japanese person. He was much more free spirited, broke the rules a bit and obviously liked a good adventure. He took us back to his farm (he has a hostel out in the country side) here we learnt how to make a traditional Japanese meal. After dinner was the last part of the tour, fire flies!! It was so special to be able to see these little guys. It was like fairy lights on the Christmas tree. Fire flies are quite rear and only come out when it’s wet. Most of the time there are only 2 or 3 flying around. That night there were hundreds. Our cheeky tour guide drove us to the fire flies out in the forest. When we got out the car he kindly told us to watch out for the poisonous snakes. Yes we were terrified. On the way home we saw wild deer roaming the roads. Apparently it’s a big issue with wild deer and cars hitting them. We also saw a wild fox run off the road.

Kyoto was the place where we experienced our first sento. What is a sento? It is a traditional public bath house. Due to small housing many are not privileged to have a bath in their house, sentos allows for a spacious large bath for these people. We paid 450 yen to enter and you strip of and take a bath with mostly old naked Japanese men and women ( Men and women did have separate baths). I thought I would feel very uncomfortable but it wasn’t too bad. The baths were HOT. There was one that would give you electric shocks, this one I passed on. Afterwards you do feel great. Your skin is soft and you do feel rejuvenated. I do find the concept of going with your friends to get naked and have a bath together quite unusual. And for a conservative country I’m quite surprised that this is part of their way of life. I do believe the bath houses are not so popular these days due to baths more accessible within houses.

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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.

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