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. 

Oh Deer! It's bloody cold

Today was an early start as we had a great deal to explore including a trip over in Nara. So we set out for the station around 8:30 to firstly get a JR train to Kyoto's most visited shrine, Fushimi Inari. This is a must even if you're not a massive fan of temples and shrines as it's unique and FREE!!!! On top of that it is also very beautiful especially on a nice day.

We knew immediately that this was going to be busy even at 9am and the flood of people also getting off our train confirmed that. At the entrance of the shrine was the very large bright orange torii in front of the Romon gate and a short walk leads you to the shrine itself. In my opinion the shrine itself isn't particularly spectacular especially if you've seen others in Kyoto already but just behind it is torii gate hiking trail.

There are two dense, parallel rows of gates called Senbon Torii ("thousands of torii gates") one marked for the way up and one for the way back. There were lots of tourists around the early section even at this time in the morning, we struggled to take pictures without someone else getting in shot BUT.... we'd spotted that the way down was really empty it was only a 5 minute walk up so we went back down and got ALL THE BEST PICTURES before going back up to continue the trail.

The torii from this point on weren't as densely packed and varied in size, we latter found out that companies donated the gates and have their name and date inscribed on them, nothing like a bit of advertising to remind us of our world today.

The walk led up to the mountain summit providing plenty of opportunies to turn back, making it accessible for most. When you reach about halfway there is a viewpoint giving spectacular views over Kyoto (I'd assume most people reach here and turn back). There is a further circular path to ascend to the summit which takes around 30 minutes which you really don't need to do as you've probably seen enough torii by now but if you fancy the walk through the woods and a little hike up then go for it!

On the way back you can skip out some of the sections that we covered earlier meaning we didn't get swarmed by the crowd too much (as it was MUCH BUSIER). It didn't take us long from summit back down as we weren't trying to find the perfect picture to put on Instagram..... The route took us about 2 hours but it could have easily taken longer with more people around. 

Back on the train bound for Nara we were filled with anticipation as we'd heard from a couple of friends that it was one of the highlights of their trip, we were not disappointed.

After a quick stop at the supermarket, grabbing food for a picnic. We headed about 1km to Nara Park, home to the hundreds of bowing deer. They've learnt this neat trick from the visitors feeding them over the years... And it definitely works.

At the entrance to Nara Park there is a temple Kōfuku-ji which is free to roam around and admire the pagoda but this wasn't the main reason we visited so after stopping a few times to watch others feed, pet and take pictures of the deer. A local Japanese gentleman gave us some acorns to finally feed the deer!! They seemed to go "nuts" for these and found a special affinity for Laura's coat which they seemed to think was yet more food.

We decided to look after numero uno before we continued to feed the deer and spend time admiring the very tame deer and headed right (south section of the park) behind the Nara National Musuem. It might have looked like a warm day but it certainly wasn't and it was bloody freezing, a pinic now didn't seem to be a sensible move! We found some shelter and shivered through lunch. We explored the south section of the park, we found it to be a pleasant section with a lake and pavilion with plenty of deer chilling.

As we had a fair bit of time of our hands as we weren't going to make it back to Kyoto to visit another temple. We decided to explore the grounds of Kasuga Taisha Shrine whose approach is lined with hundreds of stone lanterns (with a couple of deer popping up here or there). The shrine is famous of the decorative bronze lanterns hung all around the interior which can be seen at a distance for free, to see them up close there is a paid inner section, I don't believe it's necessary to pay as it's latterns could be admired from outside.

Next up was a 20 min walk to the North of Nara Park to Tōdai-ji home to the largest bronze Buddha in not only Japan but the world and consequently the world's large wooden building!!! As we approached Tōdai-ji we passed Nigatsu-do a pretty temple on the hill where we were able to overlook the enormous wooden structure.

Entrance to the grounds are free but to see the main attraction it cost 1000 yen (£7) but was well worth the money to see something very unique to not only Japan but the world. The Budda is 15m high and is really a sight to behold, even the smaller Buddha seated to the left and right are impressive but this statue dwarfs them both.

On our leisurely walk out of the park we finally used the deer crackers purchased earlier in the day and see if yet again we could make the deer bow it was still very cute. Although once those deer see that you have food.... Many more come over and all try to get in on the action... Again Laura's cost took the brunt of the encounter.

I would highly recommend a least half a day over here to see and do everything and enjoy the time with the deer, and given it only takes about 1 hour from Kyoto station, it's well worth the visit.

That evening we met up with a couple of friends (Jill & Dave) who happened to be in Japan at the same time as us but doing a slightly different route, close to their hotel. We had some great food, drink and catch-up about our experiences so far at a little place called Hot & Spicy.