Sakura and Shopping in Tokyo

We went to Tokyo for the Qing Ming break.  It was both of our first times in Japan and it was outstanding. 

We landed late on April 4th and used the monorail and metro to get to the Mercure Tokyo Hibiya.

While it may have been late neither of us got dinner so we took a short walk to Yakiniku Toraji.  For those who don't know Yakiniku is fresh served raw meat that you cook yourself once it arrives at the table.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel before checking out and leaving our bags at the front desk while we walked around town.

First we went to Hibiya Park and then we took a long walk around the old Imperial Palace and Edo Period Castle Ruins in Chiyoda City Park.

The Sakura (cherry blossom) flowers were beautiful.  There were lots of other flowers in bloom as well.  I found a lot of wild Brassica oleracea which is essentially the plant from which broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, gai lan, and collard greens was selectively bred.  It is edible so I picked as we walked and nibbled on quite a lot.  Faye found this pretty amusing and mildly disturbing despite my explanation that it was, in fact, not only edible but delicious.  

A couple asked me to take their picture and they took ours in return.  They did not however tell me that my zipper was down

After our walk around the park we went to a confectionary shop in Ginza which was called Ginza Akebono.  We ordered some delicious mochi and then got some ramen at Kyushu Jangara Ginza.

The ramen was amazing.  Once we had finished eating we went shopping at GU-Ginza, which is a cheaper version of Uniqlo.  I bought a tank top, two pairs of shorts, a few pairs of underwear, a hat, a backpack, and a shoulder bag.  It only cost me like $90US and it was tax free.  Faye got two pairs of pants and a pair of shoes which she needed for work.  We were both impressed by how low the prices were. 

We then proceeded back to the hotel to collect our luggage before proceeding via the metro to our next accommodation, The Tokyo Dome Hotel.

Someone had told me I needed to try pizza while I was in Tokyo.  So we found a pizza shop and took a taxi there.  We took the cab to Arrangiarssi but were disappointed to find out they were not accepting more patrons because they were fully booked for the night. Fortunately, there was an alternative nearby so we took a short walk to Pizzeria Carrozze where we got an anchovy pizza and a salad with some drinks.  The pizza was in the Napoli style so it had a soft crust and was best consumed with a knife and fork.  It was good but I don't think I will seek out pizza again the next time I am in Japan considering all the other great local options. 

On Saturday April 6th we first ate breakfast at the hotel and then checked out before leaving our baggage with the front desk. 

Faye was pretty insistent on going to the Ohi Weekend Flea Market.  I am really glad we went.  I bought a hat, a backpackers back pack, a standard hiking backpack, a Nagoya harp AKA Taishokoto (musical instrument) and all that only cost me about $80US.  Faye got a few things of her own.  She bought a hat, two pairs of sunglasses, and a bag. Since it was a flea market the prices were really reasonable. 

Some enormous used sex toys.  Neither of us bought any of these lol. 

This is the Taishokoto (Nagoya harp) which only cost me 1000 Japanese Yen (6.7USD). It even has an amplifier pickup and it works (as long as I use a headphone jack adapter)!

I wanted very much to visit a cat café so after our trip to the flea market we visited a little place tucked away on a side street called the Cat's Tail.  It turns out it wasn't a cat cafe, but it was a cat themed cafe, so there were no cats. At least the food and tea was good. Faye got a matcha and I got a jasmine tea.  We got a beef curry to share. 

 

We enjoyed the light meal and some tea before walking to the nearest major intersection to catch a taxi to Jimbocho Book Street.  On the way we walked past and took some photos of a Shinto shrine.  

Jimbocho book town was pretty neat but they did not have many English books.  There were a lot of old books though and that gave off a really interesting vibe. 

Since I really wanted to go to a cat café we took the metro again to Akihabara area and stopped at Cat Café Moff.  The cats, like most cats, were pretty indifferent to the presence of people but they did seem happy and well cared for.  We were able to buy them little snacks and pet a few of them.

We got some Japanese pork curry over rice at Hakuyotei Curry which was right around the block.

We returned to Tokyo Dome Hotel, collected our bags, and proceeded via taxi to our final hotel for our trip. 

For our last night of the trip we needed to stay closer to the Narita airport so we stayed at International Garden Hotel Narita.  

Once we arrived Faye and I got into a little bit of an argument about getting a good night of sleep.  Throughout the trip we had consistently gone to bed late and I felt we were missing out on getting full days of activity because we were too tired to wake up early.  

The next morning I woke up before Faye and had breakfast by myself.  Then I went back to the room and finished getting ready while she was finishing her packing.  We spoke little that morning.  Although most of the morning was wasted we did manage to get one more activity in before our flight.  We took a short walk to the nearby Yoshikura Inari Shrine.  Compared to the rush of Tokyo this walk was peaceful and relaxing.  Frogs and birds were chirping and the experience in nature, even though it was short, had a calming effect. 

On the flight back to Shenzhen we looked out the window and got to see the peak of Mount Fuji jutting above the clouds.  We had originally planned to stay near the mountain for a night but decided against it when we realized it would take a lot of time just to get there and we would not likely be able to see the mountain because of the cloudy weather.  At least we got to see it from the plane.  We committed to returning to Japan to hike Fuji as well as the Kumano Kodo trail in the future.