Touring Tokyo

After Harbin we spent about 3 days in Tianjin preparing (by that I mean ordering pizza and watching old Black Mirror episodes) then we set out to Japan. It turned out to be cheapest to fly to Japan via Xi’an so we spent a night sleeping on the floor of Xi’an airport eating whatever was left in the vending machines as everything (even McDonalds!) was shut. The flight there was largely uneventful, we did get on the wrong train to our hostel but in the end we arrived in Tokyo safe and ready for adventure!

Japan might be my favourite place we went to on our travels, with its polite culture and bright lights I felt very safe. As we soon discovered, for such a large city Tokyo is beautiful and extremely clean. One of the first things we noticed was that there was a lack of noise, smog and litter. The people are quiet and reserved which is a strange contrast compared to their loud and chatty Chinese neighbours.

On our first day in Tokyo we went to Shibuya Crossing (one of the busiest crossings in the world) and explored the surrounding area. We saw loads of strange themed cafes and restaurants, most of them seemed overpriced and some even a bit too weird. One was a little sister café which is like a typical Japanese maid café except the maids are more like little sisters and call you ‘big brother’, another was horror themed but the prices were out of budget and I’d read the food wasn’t worth the price. We eventually opted for a sushi restaurant called Genki Sushi and it ended up being one of the best choices food wise I’d ever made. The sushi was ordered on a little touch screen TV at each seat and the food was delivered along a track to each customer. The sushi was some of the best sushi I’ve ever tasted, they even had burger sushi for those who don’t enjoy real sushi too much!

Another day we ventured to Harajuku. A colourful and young area were most of the cities young people go and where a lot of Japanese fashion originates from. The street was full of colourfully dressed people and chock-a-block with fashion stores with styles you wouldn’t find anywhere else.

We had a voucher for a café called ‘Kawaii Monster Café’ which at the time we didn’t expect to be much but when we arrived the entire place seemed like something out of a child’s dreamland! The waitresses were dressed in a kind of cyber-goth way and the entire café was themed, even the food and drinks looked a bit crazy!

In Harajuku we also found a rooftop Starbucks. They had a rooftop garden that played French 50’s music and was filled with glittery fairy lights.

Another weird and wonderful place we ate at was a table tennis bar. Robin was in his element! The pizzas were amazing and the place was themed around table tennis with a table tennis table in the middle of the room and another at the entrance that measured your speed and tracked the ball.

Akiharaba was another place we explored. Akiharaba was were the electronics industry took off in Japan and has massive arcades and electronics stores. We spent quite a lot of time (and money) playing in the arcades.

Another day we decided to explore the Meiji Shrine and later on that day we went up the Tokyo Skytree. The shrine was beautiful and still very traditional. You could donate money and write a wish on a piece of paper to give good luck and if you were feeling particularly flush you could buy a wooden plaque to write your wish on and to display.

The Skytree was really cool and you could see the entire city from it. I can still remember the unanimous ‘woaahhh’ everyone made as we stepped out of the lift. The coolest part of the Skytree was the glass floor where you can stand on the floor and look down at the city below.

I think our most interesting Japan day was when we attempted a trip to Mount Fuji. We set out in the morning excited and well rested but as the journey to Fuji drew to a close we realised the fog was not letting up. Slightly disheartened we got off the bus hoping Fuji would be in sight behind the town of Kawaguchiko if we made it to the lake. We got to the lake and we still couldn’t see Fuji. We felt defeated but we thought if we continued around the lake we would eventually see the mountain.

In the end we never got to see Mount Fuji so instead we went to the nearby Aokigahara Forest also known as the Suicide Forest and is said to be haunted by ghosts of those who have died there. We had a trek through the eerily quiet forest but thankfully encountered no ghosts.

Afterwards we continued on our journey with our next stop being South Korea...