Tokyo vs Ice-cream

We walked from our hotel to Harijuku, around 1km, which in my opinion had a very European look and feel to it. We stumbled across a unique store that had a Marvel Avengers special exhibition, it was a marvel fans wet dream! It contained life size replicas of all the avengers, small scale models at obscene prices (pretty cool though and if I could justify spending a month's wages on one I would), and various more affordable accessories including bags and purses in Groot style.

We pressed on exploring the East Side of Harijuku with it's many second hand clothes shops and quirky cafes, one thing we just couldn't understand was why the Japanese spend so much time in queues for bubble tea!?!

We crossed the road and hit the super crazy busy Takeshita-dori Street. This famous street is about 400 metres in length and there are hundreds of youngsters and tourists exploring the many crepe, candy and yet more second hand clothes shops.... This street I'd say eptimised the atmosphere of the Shibuya area which is very on trend with the teenaged crowd in Tokyo.

We managed to find an absolute diamond of a Mexican restaurant round the back of Takeshita-dori called Chillis, I believe a family run restaurant and I had one of the nicest burritos I've had since visiting Mexico a couple of years earlier... Not what I expected to find but we were glad as we were running on empty after the night before.

Once we recharged our batteries we headed into the Meiji shrine although templed and shrined out from Kyoto and the North we were over that way and decided to make a brief stop. Meiji shrine is famous for the first Torii gate and is a reasonably nice shrine to walk around and more importantly free.

We spotted what looked to be the ultimate ice cream and shake cafe, Cookie Time (apparently its big in NZ) the other evening when walking back and given its proximity to the park and my sweet tooth we headed back toward Harijuku. I was not disappointed after a short wait there was so much choice, I ended up with a freak shake (if I'd lost any weight on holiday it was now certainly back on again... but so worth it). Laura had a cookie dough ice-cream but I feel like won on the greed front.

Before our sugar coma kicked in we head to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to get a FREE view over Tokyo City although only the South Observatory was open as the North was closed for renovations. We were there late afternoon and it took around a 30 minutes to get to the lift to take you to the 45th floor, once at the top you got great views over the city not quite 360 as the North Tower blocked... the North view surprisingly...

As we detoured for an ice-cream and a milkshake earlier we'd skipped Yoyogi Park so decided to walk it from the Government Building which felt like an eternity, probably because we'd walked a fair bit already and our sugar coma had kicked in! The park itself wasn't the prettiest but there were quite a few people there enjoying the Tokyo sun and it had a couple of nice water features... You could easily skip it though but it also provided an alternative route back to Shibuya where we also experienced the craziness of the crossing once again although I think it wasn't as crazy as normal given that it was Golden Week.

That evening we decided to go back to explore the bright lights of Shibuya and Shinjuku to try some DECENT famous Japanese BBQ Kobe beef. We'd found a restaurant earlier called Han No Daidokoro and as it was late we decided to just go for it.... So unlike us as we often spend half the evening wondering round until starving trying to find the right restaurant before going back to the first one we saw! We each had a set menu of 5 varieties including back and rump, salad, rice, pickled cucumber and roast beef, dried seaweed and a drink. The beef was high quality and the price reasonable (£40 per person) for Japan but you just want more of it.

Next we decided to have a better look around the Shinjuku area as we rushed to get food and go to the Robot Restaurant so spent time wandering the streets before grabbing a beer in a bar on Golden Gai. 

Key-o-toe

Morning! Today was our first full day in Kyoto and as we found a free waking tour the night before we headed the 2km over to the Statue of Izumo-no-Okuni to met our guide for the morning, Dominic.

It was interesting learning about the Kabuki and the importance of Okuni to the classic Japanese dance/drama performance which eventually led to women being banned (even to this day!!!) in performing it in official theatres.

The walk led us through the Higashiyama area of the city which famous for its Geisha district, here we got to learn a little more about the Geisha and Maiko, their education and strict lifestyle.

We saw the theatre where the Maiko normally perform and their school, Kyoto itself has around 300 Geisha and it was staggering to learn how much money they can make for a an evening in a tea house. It's not for everyone though as it's a very tough profession taking 5 years of true dedication to pay back all debts owed for costumes, hair, board and lodging. Seems like way too much effort if you ask me.... The cost to see them perform privately in a teahouse for 2-3 hours would cost over the £1000 mark.

Next was a quick stop in the grounds of Kennin-ji where Dominic explained about the tea ceremony (which we were lucky enough to experience earlier in Kanazawa). The walking tour continued to a little temple, Yasaka Koshindo Temple (full name is Daikoku-san Kongo-ji Koshin-do). It is now famous for its fabric monkeys that are hung around, giving it a colourful, intragram-esc, appeal. Apparently if you give up one of your bad habits, tie it up in the monkey your wish will come true...  I don't think they have enough monkeys for me!

On our approach to the monkey temple we saw Hōkanji Temple (Yasaka-no-Tou) which is a 46 metre high pagoda (tower) which looks overlooks the Higashiyama District and is so close to all the traditional houses.

Our final stop on the walking tour took us to Yasaka-jinja Shrine when the gods must have been angry at us as the heavens opened so we temporarily found shelter before rejoining the group to see how the Buddhists perform a purification ritual. 

NEED FOOD!! After consulting Dominic we walked a few hundred metres from the Shrine to one of his favourite Ramen restaurants. It was our first taste of Ramen and certainly wouldn't be our last as it was delicious and relatively inexpensive.

Having recharged our batteries we planned to visit a few temples which we'd researched as Kyoto has over 1600 temples so you got to be a little picky with limited time.

-  Shōren-in Monzeki Temple

This temple is a rarely visited retreat on the main Southern Higashiyama tourist route and has a superb garden giving very picturesque shots from the temple itself.

- Heian Shrine

This temple was a little walk away from Shōren-in. It is a colourful shrine with vast gardens (although we didn't go in the gardens as you have to pay and we didn't have time)

- Nanzenji Temple

We now had to walk back on ourselves a little to reach this temple but it has it all: expansive grounds, a fine kare-sansui (dry landscape) garden, intimate subtemples and soaring halls. Its also the start/end of the Philosophers Walk.

- Jisho-ji (commonly known as Ginkaku-ji - Temple of the Silver Pavillion) 

We took the Philosophers Walk from Nanzenji on this trail of about 2km following a small stream and stopped of at a couple of smaller temples on route, Reisen-dori and Hōnen-in Temple. Unfortunately though we didn't make the Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the silver pavilion) as it closed at 5pm like most temples. Again... To ambitious to get to every temple and do a walking tour in one day! Our feet were a little tired so we caught the bus back to our apartment it would have been another 6km and we didn't fancy it!

In the evening we tried a restaurant that served okonomiyaki a popular dish in there area which is a type of Japanese pancake / omelette which was heated on the hot plate on our table. It was definitely different and topped with Worcestershire sauce (but I'm not the biggest fan of eggs).

After eating like a local we decided to drink like one and proceeded to a sake bar(JAM + SAKE) and both tried three different samples which were all subtlety different, the blossom flavoured one was a little too floral for our palettes.