Japan take 2

[sartoric]

It was May 2024 when we took our second trip to Japan.
 

Note, I had a break from the EG community due to slow internet and low patience at our previous house. We’ve moved, I’m back.
The trip was 18 months ago, so my memory may be hazy, chime in and correct me if you know better.

 

The occasion was our 30 year anniversary and I made the decision to go about 3 weeks prior to the date. Because of this I engaged a travel agent friend to organise the trip, giving her broad parameters and a budget. She spent a lot of the budget on high end hotels which I wouldn’t normally choose, and a 5 day JR pass for our various Shinkansen rides. 
 

The trip started in Tokyo, then to Hakone for a stay in a traditional ryokan (the anniversary), then on to Kyoto and a night in Hiroshima.
All in it was 11 days and we saw two new places and revisited two, being Tokyo and Kyoto. 
 

We stayed in luxury in Tokyo, the Keiko Plaza Hotel. It is close to the ginormous Shinjuku Station, wherein we got lost numerous times, and directly opposite the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This building has a nightly light show and we had prime viewing from our spacious 27th floor room. It also has a free observation deck with views over Tokyo all the way to Mt Fuji. 
 

We had a daytime flight from the east coast of Australia, arriving at Narita late afternoon. There’s only a 2 hour time difference, so we hit the ground running and went out to snack our way around the area. It was a bustling and packed with dining choices. 
 

This is basically step out of the hotel and here you are.

 

I can’t remember what this is. Guesses welcome.

 

This looks to me like a stir fry of some kind. 

[weinoo]

A large chicken meatball maybe?

[sartoric]

1 hour ago, weinoo said:

A large chicken meatball maybe?

Quite possibly, or was it potato salad ?

[sartoric]

We availed of one of the free Japan guides via the tourist agency and visited Meiji Jingu Shrine with her as well as Shibuya crossing. There’s about 70 ha of garden surrounding the shrine and later we would see the garden from the 45th floor observation deck of TMGB. She also helped us to navigate Shinjuku Station which worked well the one time we were with her. Later, not so much. Shinjuku Station is the busiest in Japan with a daily passenger throughput of 2.7M it was also undergoing renovations when we were there. 
 

Guide lady left us at Shibuya where we had a yummy lunch at a hole in the wall. 
There was a wedding ceremony soon to happen at Meiji Shingu, yes ordinary people can apply to hold their matrimonials there. 
 

 

These sake barrels are donated to make merit I think.

 

 

These were the first of many gyoza.

 

This looks like more chicken stir fry. There was a short queue to get into this place, so we didn’t feel we could linger.

[sartoric]

That evening we took a “pay what you feel is fair” group walking tour, also via the government tourist agency. It was a different part of Shinjuku than our hotel, we had to take the dreaded train, but got there in time to meet up with about 30 other tourists. It was a really fun tour passing many of the landmark Shinjuku attractions, including the “red light” district, and golden-gai. 
 

The animatronic cat was mesmerising, I could have watched for hours.  He or she changes outfits and poses regularly.

 

The famous Godzilla is also animated, and even breathes fire. Fun !

 

It’s very much a night time hot spot.

 

The Golden-Gai district is full of tiny alleys, filled with even tinier bars, some of which have a set membership and no one else gets in. Others can charge a cover fee, we didn’t avail as the tour marched on.

 

The boy/girl companion industry is huge. Some of the more popular teens make 7 figure salaries !! One effectively pays a certain amount to spend time with one’s crush. Strictly companionship, there’s no hanky panky. These adds below are for the popular ones.

 

Here’s where the hanky panky happens….this is a “love hotel” where you can choose to pay an hourly rate. Many young Japanese people still live with their parents and therefore use these hotels for getting to know someone better 😉  We were told that often tourists will book the hotels because they are relatively cheap, unusually large rooms and often have jacuzzi’s. Note no windows.

[sartoric]

Outside our hotel every night, the baked sweet potato man turned up. We were usually coming home after dinner and didn’t get to try one.

He had a wood fired oven on the back of that truck. 

 

This is our hotel from the TMGB

 

Here’s a view of Fujisan from the observation deck. Not a bad view given it’s 100 kms away. Tokyo stretches on forever.

 

There are huge speakers up high on the building, we think they are earthquake warning systems.

 

One cool thing we did in Tokyo is take a class in kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending something with gold to make it beautiful. The principal of wabi sabi is appreciation of beauty that is imperfect is at play here.

Also, fun fact, I chose this pattern which is one of the classic Japanese styles. It was originally made to represent the waves on the Sea of Japan, but is now more famously known as the wifi symbol. 
 

Every time we passed this tiny sashimi restaurant, there was a queue. One day we joined the line and had delicious sashimi in this 7 seat restaurant with two chefs.