Arriving in Tokyo: Shibuya

I’m going to include yesterday in this blog post as we didn’t really do a huge amount, and I’m pretty shattered (a common theme in Japan because we’ve packed so much in). Before taking the train over to Tokyo at lunch time we managed to fit in the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine and Tofukuji temple. We arrived early, at about 8, at Fushimi Inari as we’d been told by several sources that it gets very busy. Which couldn’t be more correct, it was very busy. The main shrine buildings are set at the base of a hill after a series of very large Torii gates. These gates reduce in size, but significantly increase in number as the path winds up the hill. They essentially create a tunnel through which you climb a shallow staircase, off which are numerous smaller shrines, until you reach the mid point of the hill/mountain where there’s a pretty great view over Kyoto. We’d been told the walk up to the top of the hill wasn’t worth it so we headed back down from here. Very beautiful and very different from the other shrines we’ve seen so far. Which can’t be said for Tofukuji. It’s again very impressive, the buildings are all pretty massive, but you can’t get into any of them or particularly explore much. So we pretty quickly turned tail and jumped back on the subway train to Kyoto to pick up our bags and head on to Tokyo. 

We both picked up lunch at the station, me a sushi bento box (very fishy smelling, although Amelia didn’t complain on the train fortunately), and I can’t actually remember what Amelia got, something unimaginative I imagine. The Shinkansen ride was again seamless, again explicitly punctual, I had a sleep (considering I’d had no coffee this morning this was required). We arrived in Tokyo at 2ish and tramped the 20 minute walk over to our hotel in the pouring rain. We’re staying at another capsule hotel as it was so much fun last time, and it’s pretty much exactly the same as last time. We braved the cold and rain (hopefully this changes) to have a look around the Imperial Palace East garden, which definitely wasn’t worth it as most of it’s closed and we were out of it half an hour after we entered. We carried on walking for a bit, then took shelter in a Starbucks for a hot chocolate and a muffin before we were kicked out when they closed at 5pm. Dinner was at a little cafe where I had a delightful cheesy grilled curry (sounds weird but so good), and Amelia had some tempura chicken and rice. Both very satisfied we returned to our pods for a well deserved rest. 

Today was all about Shibuya. This was a 40 minute or so subway ride from Tokyo station (everything’s a bit further apart here in Tokyo, it’s absolutely massive), so we set off at 9 this morning, eventually arriving at the The Happy Pancake cafe at 10 past 10 hangry for some food. These weren’t just normal pancakes we were having though, these are massive, fluffy, slow cooked pancakes which resemble cheesecakes rather than the humble crepe. We had the original which came with a sauce and a honey whipped butter. Absolutely delicious, although Amelia said she wouldn’t get them again (ridiculous woman, they were amazing). 

Happily filled up we proceeded onwards down the road to the Shibuya crossing. This is a crossroads where, at peak times, the number of pedestrians crossing the road exceeds 3,000. I’ll just let that sink in. 3,000 people. It’s crazy. Although this morning there definitely wasn’t 3,000 people there it was still by far the busiest set of traffic lights I’ve walked across. We cross crossed here a few times to get the perfect photo before going over to the Hachiko memorial statue, which commemorates a dog who always came to meet his owner when he got out of the station, and carried on running there even after his owner had died. It’s now a popular meeting spot for groups of locals heading into the Shibuya area to go shopping.  

We again crossed the road (for the 47th time) to have a look in Shibuya 109, which is an 8 storey fashion shopping mall. Pretty cool, but not on the highlights reel. After being slightly intimidated by the very out there Japanese fashions we got back on the subway for a 1 stop journey North to Harajuku. Here there’s a street called Takeshita which is packed with food and edgy clothes shops. It’s also packed with people. Probably exacerbated by it being a Sunday, the street was rammed with everyone doing a penguin walk in strict order down the street, which was very cool with loads of very weird stuff on sale. The predominant food product sold here are crepes in the shape of an ice cream cone stuffed with a lot of cream and a variety of different items. You can even get savoury ones with egg and bacon in. We gustily partook in one of these each for lunch, fully topping up the amount of sugar we had ate for breakfast (far too much). After frequenting a few secondhand shops, and Amelia making another excellent purchase (flowery dress), we headed over to the other side of the train tracks to the Meiji shrine.

This is set in a large, forested parkland, and was very very busy as well. Luckily the avenues were very wide so it wasn’t quite as packed as Takeshita and we got to the very large and pretty shrine where there was hundreds of people queueing up to make an offering and a prayer. We wandered around the whole park, for a bit of a break from the crowds more than anything, before going back to the subway station, then realising we could walk back to the crossing so set off in that direction.  

We’d seen the crossing this morning but I wanted to take some photos of it in the dark as well. We’d been given a tip that the Starbucks next to the crossing has a seating area with a great view across it to the station entrance so we decided to make camp there until the sun set. Amelia successfully got the best seats and we nursed our hot chocolates for over an hour as the sun went down and the lights came on. This is the busiest Starbucks in the world so we did very well to hold firm and remain in our seats as people came and went and leaned over us to take photos out of the window. Very happy with my collection of far too many long-exposure photos we departed to the Tokyu (not a spelling error) food hall, in the basement of the building we’d been staring at for the past hour. Craving savoury food after the ton of sugar we’d both eaten during the day I got sushi and Amelia got a plate of half carbonara, half Japanese omelette. An odd mix that would have been far better warm (there was microwaves available but we didn’t realise until we’d finished) but still apparently enjoyable. We got back to the hotel at half 8ish and I’m very much looking forward to sleeping as I am, once again, shattered.