14/04/18 Today I move to another hostel, which has the same as the previous one so I thought they were part of the same group. I expected the same type of service and comfort, but they don’t have much in common. I am allowed to stay in the bedroom any time, the checkout is at 11am, and there is a fridge! On the bad side, the beds are built on a wooden panel base which cracks and makes noise anytime you breathe so a bit annoying, but I can live with it. No towel for free here so I will use my own.
15/04/18 Another rainy day, so I decided to check Joypolis, an indoor theme park. It is build on 3 levels, and there is something for everyone: catch machines, 4D experiences, rollercoaster where you play during the ride, puzzle games, fortune telling, VR shooting, etc. A few attractions are in Japanese only but you can still enjoy more than half of the attractions. It was fun! Well not the waiting part, but at least I was not under the rain.
17/04/18 I had to go out for food and stopped by the Senso-ji temple, surrounded by souvenirs shops, nice walk in the city.
18/04/18 I took the bus to a taiko studio, where Takuro, a 68 years old man is teaching the art of taiko, the Japanese drums. As I arrived a bit early, Takuro was proud to share his news articles and photographs from his golden years (he has been playing taiko for over 40 years), his students and performances. He used to be a performer, dancer, musician, he performed in front of big audiences, travelled to the Netherlands and Los Angeles thanks to his talent. In 2005 he even trained the Black Eyed Peas. My session was done in turns, group A, made of his students, then a few basic moves with me, the only person in group B. Thanks to a few djembe lessons before (the African drums), I did my best to follow the rhythm. Although it is different from djembe, where you use your hands and palms while seated with the djembe between your legs, you use sticks for taiko, and you stand on the side with a 90 degree angle. I had a really good time for an hour and a half, and listening to the group gave me goose bumps, even though they are still learning, when they play in harmony it sounds really cool. They offered me some sweets during the break and the teacher recorded my final shot at the drum piece I learnt. Great Japanese experience! And no I probably won’t publish the video ?.
19/04/18 Today I am going to say hi to the snow monkeys of Nagano, in a park called Jigokudani Yaen Koen. I packed some lunch and catch a highway bus from Higashi-Ikebukuro to Nagano, a 3,5h trip. To get there, 1 subway, 2 buses, 1 train then 40min climb walk in the forest. The snow monkeys park is not very big, but there is a big concentration of macaques on the site, around the hot spring baths. It must be beautiful during winter with the snow. When I arrived at the destination train station, I realised I will not be able to make it in time for the bus I booked to get back to Tokyo, so I book another one, a bit more expensive but 1/2h later, which allows me to stay 45min in the park. I really had to rush but it all worked out just on time. I lost ¥1800 for the missed bus but without that the day would have been lost, so I guess it was worth it. The monkeys welcome you on the pathway to the official entrance, even before you buy a ticket. They lay on the walking path, play and chase each other. I read that the monkeys are not always visible in the park, as they are in the wild and depending on the season or the weather, they come and go. The staff takes care of them and feed them so they are attracted along the pathway, you can see that they are not afraid of visitors, even though they don’t like getting too close. But today there were a lot of them so I was lucky to take some shots on this 1 long day trip. I made it just in time to catch the bus back to Tokyo. A lot of transports means a lot of money spent today, so I will have to stay in the city for a few days to balance the budget, as I have also booked my go-kart activity tomorrow morning ;).
20/04/18 Today is the Mario-kart inspired tour in Tokyo city (Xa you would have loved it). I took my luggage to the karting shop where I could lock some of them during the activity. I paid for the gopro support set so I was able to use my camera during the tour. I grabbed a Luigi costume and joined a group of 4 people, 2 couples, 1 from London the other from Malaysia, all in Mario themed costumes ?. The tour guide explained the safety measures and how to drive the kart – a few more features than the karts I am used to, as they are equiped for the road: horn, turning lights, seatbelt and front light. Then we were ready to go. The guide was a French guy, Selim, who lived in Australia for 2 years. He told me that the worst groups are usually Australian drivers, as they don’t follow the rules and want to play on the road, how funny. I was quite embarrassed to show my international license, based on an ozzie license ?. We left around 10.15 and came back around 12.30, we stopped once for a group pic close to the Sky Tree tower, famous Tokyo symbol. There was not too much traffic but an accident about half way during the tour made us use a slightly different route than usual to avoid being stuck for too long, we drove through the main streets of Tokyo. At every traffic light, pedestrians took pictures of us or waved at us, we felt a bit like celebrities :). The guide also took a few pics of us too during the tour and sent them to us afterwards. Of course we didn’t race on the road, but it was still quite fun to drive among the cars of Tokyo.
21/04/18 Thanks to a reminder I put on my phone, I went to Tokyo station to buy a rail pass for the last 2 weeks. This pass will allow me to go to Sapporo in a few days, and to the airport at the end of my trip in addition to a few day trips on the East Japan Rail network. The pass alone is ¥27000 so I will have to use it as much as possible to visit places for free, to stay within my budget, I will eat groceries only for the last 2 weeks, if I can resist all the pastries and restaurants on my way every day.
22/04/18 As I can use the pass 6 days out of the 14 days allowed, and because the weather forecasts 28 degrees today, I am using the rail pass to get to the beach in Kazusa-Okitsu, in Chiba prefecture. The first 2h were nice as there was not too much wind but later it started to be very windy and cold so I decided to leave, enough sand blown to my face every 5 min. I took the train 2 stops away to Katsuura as the view on the sea from the train was really nice, and I was hoping to take a picture of a torii gate built in the sea. Unfortunately the site around it is owned by fishing companies so I could not get close enough to the water, but it was interesting to see the workers moving big racks of frozen fish and loading trucks, it made me think that in the industrial era, some of our food still comes from nature and before it hits the grocery stores or your plate, a fish still needs to be caught :).
24/04/18 I went to Akihabara, the geeks’ zone where they play all sorts of video games. On my way back, I used the rail pass for just 1 stop, but I forgot this would count as 1 day-use, so I lost 1 day in Hokkaido prefecture later in the month. I could have easily walked that trip or pay for it separately but totally forgot about the pass limit.
25/04/18 Bad weather today made me stay at the hostel. I remembered that Casa De Papel (second season) was released on Netflix so I watched a few episodes. The only thing worth mentioning about today is that a girl came out of the shower and even though I don’t know what soap or shampoo she was using, the smell that came out of the room brought me back memories about a basketball training week I did 20 years ago. The brain is full of surprises!
26/04/18 I took a community bus to Yanaka, the old cat city. I wandered along the streets and shops. Stopped to get a cat tail doughnut, local specialty treat. It was nice, for those who know it tastes a bit like a boudoir. The one I chose was filled with a banana flavoured cream. I didn’t meet any cat that day, despite the suburb’s reputation. But I read that they aren’t that many anymore. Then I took the train to Togoshi Ginza, where I explored the longest shopping district in tokyo. They have their own mascot, a yellow little fox that is represented along the street on posters or as sculptures.
27/04/18 After googling for some tips, I went to Omote Sando to buy a few souvenirs: tabi socks, famous Japanese socks that separates toes in 2 sections, and a wall scroll with some nice prints from the Sousou store, found on a blog. Sousou is a modern Japanese shop where they use their own unique patterns and prints, everything there is proudly made in Japan. Worth it if you ever go to Tokyo.
28/04/18 These are my last days in Tokyo, and I wanted to go to the famous Shibuya crossing, as it is close to a few department stores I wanted to check before leaving. I went to the Starbucks café, from where I had a good view on the crossing, checked a few floors of Tokyu, which is just a massive store where you can find all famous brands, and finished with Shibuya 109, popular shop among the young Japanese fashionistas. I was hoping the find a piece of clothes as a souvenir, but I was overestimating the choice of Japanese sizes! It is true I don’t really have the small and skinny Japanese standards after all, so I treated myself with a pair or earnings instead. Well the good thing is that I didn’t break the bank on stuff that I could not fit in my suitcase anyway.
29/04/18 I checked a local festival organised during the Golden Week, in Ryogoku, the suburb famous for being the place where sumos fight on a ring, as it is walking distance from the hostel. Outside, various groups of dancers and acrobats perform. Food stalls and street animation can be found all around the site. It is also close to the Edo museum, which has temporary and permanent exhibitions. Then it was time to start packing for Hokkaido, in the north of Japan.
