Day 6 and 7 - Tokyo

Day 6 - Thursday 3rd October 2019

Day 7 - Friday 4th October 2019

On Thursday we got a bit of a lie in because our train wasn't until 9.30. We had a pie for breakfast, then got our nice comfy seats for our 2 and a half hour journey to Tokyo. We saw the enormous foothills of mount Fuji on the journey, but the top was covered in cloud. It's very big! We arrived in Tokyo at midday, but unfortunately that was when my body decided that 5 days of heavy sightseeing was too much and I had a focal seizure. It's not a full on seizure, just a zoned out weird feeling that sets me really off balance and is only fixed by a long sleep. Luckily it didn't take too long to get to the hotel, and I slept for several hours on a very uncomfortable bed that sloped towards the middle. We went to a nice restaurant later for a mixture of local food including, mackerel, pork okonomiyaki, pickled cucumber, sushimi, squid and Matt had a glass of saki. It was very tasty, but I was a bit out of it, so I went to bed straight after, while the others found a pub to watch the rugby in.

Today, I was feeling much better and was up for exploring, despite a very uncomfortable nights sleep on that awful bed, and a sore back. We found a bakery for breakfast and then planned our route. We stayed in our district, but there was still a 30 minute walk between every place. Tokyo is enormous. Shanghai is the biggest city in the world in terms of people, but Tokyo is the biggest in terms of area. And it's a crazy, wonderful city. I love it. It has so much personality and isn't afraid to be itself. Anything goes here.

Our first stop was the metropolitan government building, which has two towers you can go up for free. We went up the south tower and again, we couldn't see my Fuji due to clouds, but otherwise it was a great view of the sprawling city, with its mountains in the distance. The building had a little area displaying the Olympic flag and mascots too, as the summer Olympics 2020 will be here in Tokyo.

Next, we went to the Meiji Jingu shrine, which is in the middle of a lovely leafy park. There was a traditional wedding procession going on, which was interesting. There were huge barrels of saki and wine being brewed too. The saki was in elegantly decorated straw barrels.

We then headed to the Shibuya crossing, which is supposedly the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. At the busiest times, 1000+ people cross at once, in every direction. Its amazing  no one bumps into anyone. They have the diagonal crossings as well as the straight ones here, so it really is in every direction.

Next, we went to an awesome area full of what I call 'Instagram food', basically food that looks stunning so you just want to take photos of it. This is really what I was expecting of Tokyo and I wasn't disappointed. First, we had a grilled cheese sandwich at Le Shiner, a rainbow food truck that had 6 different colours of rainbow cheese in the middle! Then we had a hot chocolate with a 3D foam Pikachu (Pokémon character from our childhood). Margaret got a 'hello kitty' hot chocolate. They were tiny works of art!

We wandered along to the 2020 Olympic park, which is still under construction. The main stadium is enormous and covered in trees, which is nice. They had on display the 3 couldrons for the Olympic flame from the various summer and winter Olympics in Japan. Very cool. We hopped on a train back to our hotel and walked via the Kabukicho area, which is essentially the red light district. Its very neon and gaudy and will be spectacular at night when we go back...

It certainly was spectacular. Like Soho on steroids. An assault on the senses. Neon, flashing lights, adverts blaring, hosts trying to becon you in to restaurants, cafes, bars, the smell of food cooking.

We had a drink in a pub then began what turned into an hour long faff finding a restaurant. We ended up in a delicious Korean BBQ, where you grill your own food. Wagu beef is Japanese beef and it's so tasty. We ate quite a lot of it!