Day 3 - Asakusa

More sunny weather is perfect for a train ride to Asakusa, but not before stopping by the JR Ticket office and buying our train tickets to Nagano, Kanazawa and Kyoto next week.  We're going on the high speed Shinkansen so wanted to reserve our seats in advance.  We ended up with tickets at a discount price.  With that out of the way, back to the Tokyo Metro subway and off to Asakusa.

Kaminarimon Gate is the famous entrance to the processional road leading to the Senso-ji Temple and was originally erected in 942.  Today the processional road today is lined with shops.

The Buddhist Temple is made up of several historic structures.

Tokyo Skytree in the distance.

Just a little hectic between the Gate and the Temple!  Someone "may" have purchased a kimono at this store . . . .



We visited the Sumida Aquarium which was exceptional and included these little eels.

A reflection:


Tokyo Skytree is 634 m high and is the tallest freestanding broadcasting tower in the world.

Day 2 - Ghibli Museum, Harajuku

Sunny weather today but with strong winds while we travelled to Mitaka to visit the Ghibli Museum.  Studio Ghibli is famous for creating incredible animated movies.  The museum is very popular and you have to buy your tickets in advance.  We purchased ours in January and by February it was sold out until July.  The walk to the museum included along beautiful tree lined streets.

No photos could be taken inside the museum but we took this one on the roof with a robot made famous in one of the movies.  The museum was excellent and showed how the movies are made with many original drawings and drafts behind the movies.

Being "Golden Week" in Japan today was the first of many public holidays.  We walk back to the train station a different way through a large park with a lake.  An ancient Buddhist temple called Inokashira Ike Isekigun.


New vending machine finds today include delicious choc covered ice creams and orange flavoured Coca Cola.  You could hire swan-shaped paddle boats on the lake for JPY700 an hour (around $9)













Next train is to Harajuku (just south of Shinjuku where we're staying) which is meant to be a meeting place for those who like to cosplay (where young people dress up in costumes from their favourite anime).  Unfortunately there were none there but we enjoyed exploring this busy (affluent) area.  We found this busy alleyway on the back to the station.


Given the great weather we headed back to Western side of Shinjuku which is where all the skyscapers are, including the Tokyo Government building which has two towers, each with an observation deck on the 45th floor.  We headed up there hoping to be able to see Mt Fuji in the distance.

However, distant cloud obscured Mt Fuji with only a feint outline visible.  But what a vista of this immense city of Tokyo.











Tonight dinner at a restaurant where you pay at a machine just inside the front door and then take the little ticket to the chef who cooks it for you.  Yummy!
  That's it for today, 230 photos taken but just shared a few.  Tomorrow we go kimono shopping at Asakusa.

Day 1 - Shinjuku, Akihabara

We landed at Haneda airport this morning around 5:20am local time (6:20am Sydney time).  Caught the train to Shinjuku by transferring at Shinagawa.  These pictures at the Haneda Airport station show the excellent English signage.  We found most electronic signage and often announcements are in Japanese followed by English.

Amazing to see very young Japanese children in school uniform (with beret!) catching the train without adult supervision.

Once at Shinjuku station we followed pictorial directions provided by our Airbnb host to find our apartment.

The extraordinarily large volume of people darting everywhere very purposefully in this very large train stations (it is actually several underground stations run by two different train companies) is difficult to put into words when you don't have a clue where the "East exit" is.  We eventually found it by going down one level, walking along the platform and finding the stairs to go down another level.  Having our large suitcases in tow was fun, too.

But we did find our apartment.  Once we dropped off our bags we headed to Akihabara, a large anime and electronics district.

As our Tokyo Metro train arrived at the platform, the young lady in uniform bows to the approaching train driver, then stands on a wooden box and announces the arrival of the train and destinations into the microphone.

Some pictures from Akihabara:

The sheer volume of shops and items here are almost overwhelming!

We actually began running out of steam so had some lunch and headed back to our apartment for a rest.

This evening we walked up the road into Shinjuku.  The alleyways around our apartment are full of eateries like this.

Waiting to Depart Sydney

We're about to board QF25 to Tokyo Haneda airport.  My first international flight on Qantas.

Welcome to our Adventure

This Blog will be the journal of our trip to Japan from 27 April to 19 May 2016.

Our adventure begins in the metropolis of Tokyo where we're staying in Shinjuku, location of the busiest train station in the world with over 3 million people using it each day.

Then we visit the snow monkeys in the mountains near Nagano, staying in the onsen town of Shibu Onsen at a traditional ryokan called Senshinkan Matsuya.

A bullet train to the coastal town of Kanazawa is followed by around a week in the traditional capital of Kyoto.

The adventure concludes with a few days in Osaka.

We will post photos and thoughts on this blog as often as time permits!