Settling into life in Kitasenju

After our great stay in the Izu Peninsula, it felt almost wistful to return to Tokyo. We made it to Kitasenju, where we met our good friend Matsuoka-san, who set us up in what would be our home for the next couple of weeks. Our apartment is truly super-modern (there's an intercom with camera, a bathtub that can be heated and filled remotely from the kitchen, some motion-controlled lighting, to mention but a few of the features available...).

There wasn't much in the way of furniture, but we were able to purchase some second-hand appliances (a washing machine, fridge and micro-wave oven) for the ridiculous price of 80 Euros! Now that's what I call a bargain! The rest we were able to find thanks to our good friend Matsuoka, and those wonderful 100 Yen shops you can find all over Tokyo (basically, they sell all sorts of useful items for the ridiculous price of 100 Yen each, which is basically less than 1 Euro!).

So, we ended up with a furnished flat in just a couple of days of intensive shopping. We also had a little bit of time to explore Kitasenju before our Japanese courses were starting. It's a really great place to live, honestly. Kitasenju is great for several reasons: it feels like a real neighborhood, it's very lively with plenty of bars and restaurants, plus it's cheaper than central Tokyo, since it's not touristy.

And it's a real transportation hub too, with good underground and train connections. It's got a similar feel to the more famous Asakusa, which is quite a touristy part of Tokyo, which evokes a bit of the old-Tokyo atmosphere (as compared to the skyscraper-dominated more modern parts of Tokyo like Shinjuku, Roppongi or Shibuya). We experimented quite a few of those bars and restaurants with our guide Matsuoka-san during the first few days.

Monday, it was time to start our intensive Japanese course at Iidabashi, at Coto language academy. We paid rather a lot of money for those courses, so expectations were high. And they were certainly met. We had 3 hours of courses per day, which is just about perfect (long enough to really learn new things every day, but short enough to no exceed our attention span), and the teachers are great, too. All Japanese, of course. We shall see how much Japanese we'll have learnt at the end of it all!

We're very well located for doing a bit of sports, too. The flat is just 100 meters from the Akagawa river, and there's a great pedestrian road just by the river, just perfect for running and cycling. The plan is to run at least 3 or 4 times a week. Japan is still pretty suffocating and hot, so the only time it's really practical to run is early in the morning (and it's already pretty hot at 8 o'clock). On our first run; on Sunday, there were loads of kids playing baseball by the riverside, which was pretty cool to see. There's a public swimming pool as well, which we are meaning to check out soon.

A last few days at Cafe Be

After coming back from our roadtrip, we still had a couple of days left at Cafe Be, before it was time to head off to Tokyo. It was pretty calm at Cafe Be for those last days, so  we got had the opportunity to check out the surrounding area for a bit more.

On Friday, in the morning, we decided to explore the lovely Jogasaki coast a bit more (the place where we visited the famous suspension bridge several times before already). So we took  Captain's car down to a parking lot, located not far from the coastline - this time we were planning to explore the coast a bit further South.

The first interesting feature of the coast we explored was a so called Oyado-Koyado tidal pools. A steep staircase took us down to a small "cove" nearly at sea-level, where there is a kind of natural pool. I suppose the idea here is that in high tide, the water level is above the pool, and it fills up, whereas the pool becomes accessible at low tide, when the sea is calm. When we were there, there were some pretty impressive waves hitting the coastline, so we didn't dare explore the pools. But the views were amazing.

We then continued walking Southwards along the coastline, and came upon a second suspension bridge, this one called Hashidate suspension bridge. It was a bit less impressive than the one we'd visited three times already, but still the views from up there were rather impressive (and in my case, vertigo-provoking...)

We continued following the coastline until we reached a small fishing port, where we decided to stop our excursion (had to get back for the lunchtime service)! Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by at the Izu Kogen train station to buy our tickets for Tokyo, for the next day. Snif...

In the afternoon, as this was our last day, we decided to head off to a beach. After all, we'd not really had the opportunity to swim much in the ocean at all, which is a pity. So we made our way to a small town just after Izu Kogen, where there was a beach suitable for swimming, apparently. And indeed we eventually found a nice sandy beach. Unfortunately the waves were still pretty scary-looking, so we didn't really do any proper swimming, so we contented ourselves at enjoying the spectacle of nature for a while (well, I admit I did venture out into waves for a little bit...).

The evening dinner was quite emotional, as it was our last meal with our dear new friends (Captain, his wife Mariko-san, Togashi-san and her daughter Aina). We actually had sake for our first time in Japan to honor the occasion! I must say we spend a lovely three works at Cafe Be. Sometimes there was a lot of work, but that was just fine with us, as it was actually quite fun to see how a hotel/restaurant functions. And we were spoilt with great food every evening (and  breakfast and lunch time as well, of course) as well as by the friendliness of our co-workers (or friends, as I would rather call them).

The next day then,  was our last day, as we were catching our train to Tokyo in the afternoon. So still one breakfast and lunch service to be done (I also did a bit of hoovering to finish with the impression of having worked really hard!). There were some emotional moments again as we bade our farewells (and took a great group picture, of course!), and then it was time to head off to the train station. It started raining like crazy just as it was time to leave - perhaps a sign that it was time to leave!?

Domo arigato Gozaimasu to our friends Captain, Mariko-san, Togashi-san, Aina and of course Mr "I love English" (Takero-san)!

Izu Peninsula Road Trip

So finally, our long-awaited leave - we were off for two full days. We decided to take the opportunity to rent a car and head off to explore the Izu Peninsula.

The plan was to make our way down South to Shimoda, one of the more interesting and historic towns on the Izu Peninsula. On the way, we stopped at a small fisherman village, which we spent a bit of time exploring. A bit to my surprise, the place actually felt like a proper fishing village - seems like the fishing industry is indeed alive and well in Japan.

We then arrived in Shimoda, and tried to located Shimoda park, where we planned to start our exploration. We eventually found it, and made our way up to the top of the little hill (which was hard work, given the hot and humid weather) that Shimoda Park dominates. The park itself wasn't particularly spectacular (at least this time of the year, probably a different story when the flowers are in full bloom), but the views from up there over Shimoda and the stunning bay the town occupies are pretty spectacular.

Shimoda Park done, we made our way down to what is possibly the main tourist attraction of Shimoda, Perry Road. Shimoda occupies an important role in Japanese history, as it was (together with Hakodate in Hokkaido) the first town in Japan to be opened up to foreigners after Japan's long isolation (this happened in 1854). Perry Road got its name from Matthew Perry, the American navy commander who negotiated "the opening up of Japan" on the behalf of the Americans. Perry Road follows the route he took from his ship to the Ryosen-Ji temple, where the treaty was signed.

Much of Shimoda features your typical Japanese small town unremarkable architecture, but Perry Road is an exception to this. It's a very picturesque spot, the road following a nice little canal, lined up with historical buildings. We quickly checked out the famous Ryosen-Ji temple (the one were the famous treaty was signed), and then made our way to the Museum of Back Ships - a very interesting museum dedicated to the arrival of the Americans. The place gives what seems to be a quite balanced view of the events leading up to the opening up of Japan to foreigners.

After a delicious Tonkatsu lunch, we headed off to check out the other must-see sight in Shimoda - Mount Nesugata. This being Japan, there was no need to hike up to the top of the hill, there was naturally a rope-way that takes tourists up to the top. The views from up there are, in a word, spectacular. The sun came out too, which shows the gorgeous setting of Shimoda fully to its advantage. There's a nice temple there to check out too...

The must-see touristy bits done, we made our way to check into our Ryokan. Based on a recommendation from Captain, we'd booked a historical Ryokan called Kanaya. After doing the checkin, we decided we had time to head to the beach for a swim, before dinner. We found the perfect little sandy beach not far from Shimoda town center (which as an added bonus was not very crowded at all), where we had a very nice swim indeed.

Expectations for dinner were very high, given that we were after all dining at a Ryokan (classy Ryokans like this tend to serve Kaiseki cuisine - Japanese haut cuisine, which means it's about as sophisticated as food gets). The food was great, as expected, but maybe not quite up there with the best meals we've had at Ryokans before. Still, we were more than happy with our meal!

Anyway, the reason one comes to this particular Ryokan, I believe, is their splendid Onsen (hot spring). The men's bath at this place are the largest ones made out of wood in Japan, apparently. THe place is supposed to be able to welcome 1000 persons - I do believe the place would get very crowded indeed with that many people crammed in there. Well, there were only about 10 of us there, which was perfect. The onsen was indeed possible the nicest one I've done so far. Another particularity of this onsen is that women are allowed on the men's side - interesting as it's mandatory to bath naked at Onsen. We also sampled the Ryokans private baths.

After a tasty breakfast the next morning, it was time to leave our historical lodgings and carry on exploring the Izu Peninsula. The next stop was Irozaki, basically the Southermost tip of the Izu Peninsula. A short 20 minute walk took us from the parking lot to the tip of the peninsula, from where we were greeted with what can only be described as a gorgeous view of the savage Izu coastline. Honestly, the scenery here can hold up to anything Brittany, the Southern coast of England or California can offer...

The heat was on, as they say, so we decided it was time for a swim again. After consulting the internet, we decided to head to Hirizo beach, which had glowing reviews on the internet. Unfortunately, it seems like we weren't the only one who had that idea - we had to wait for nearly an hour to get into the car park. Also, the beach is not really a beach for sunbathing, it turns out, rather it's a snorkeling spot. Well, no matter, we were there to swim, and a stunning spot for a swim this place is, indeed.

After a brief stop at Matsuzaki (which was a bit disappointing), we made our way to Dogashima, a place famous for its dramatic coastline with its impressive rock formations. We took the semi-mandatory boat tour to check it all out. And the coastline was rather stunning indeed. The highlight of the tour took us into one of the larger caves, where a hole in the ceiling produced a rather interesting blue effect in the cave. The sky was a bit overcast - I suppose direct sunshine would produce an even more dramatic effect.

And then, unfortunately, it was time to head back towards Izu Kogen, as we didn't want to get back too late. We stopped by for a nice dinner (a tempura set meal for Mathilde and Soba noodles for me), and did check out a pretty gorgeous sunset above the coastline before getting back to the hotel.

In case you had any doubt about my opinion about Izu Peninsula, here it is: it is a beautiful place!

Post-tyhpoon exploration of Izu Kogen

This morning, we woke up to some very violent rain indeed. In fact, a typhoon had hit Izu Kogen on its way towards Tokyo (you may even have seen something about it in the news). Exciting times thankfully we were safe inside the cafe, watching the impressive amounts of water fall from the sky. As a result of this, the cafe was shut for the day.

Things calmed down in the afternoon, so we decided to take the opportunity to walk around Izu Kogen for a bit. We started off our visit by walking to a nearby museum we managed to find on the internet - called Ayashii museum. It is, without a doubt, one of the strangest museums I have ever been to. Basically, it looks like a sort of weird nerdy retro private collection, which contains, for example: sexy novellas, movie posters, old video games, a huge collection of toys, a rather impressive collection of toys of all, and I mean ALL, kinds (real-size movie star dolls, barbie dolls, monster dolls, sexy dolls, you name it). Very weird, but rather entertaining also, it must be admitted.

We didn't have much of a plan, but decided to start strolling around aimlessly, rather than heading back to the hotel immediately. This initially aimless wondering took us through some rather pretty residential neighborhoods (where we could observe some of the damage caused by the typhoon - mostly limited to plenty of leaves on the roads, thankfully), and then, as we noticed we weren't far from the sea, we decided to walk all the way down to the seaside. The seaside looked rather splendid, even if the sun wasn't out.

We ended up finding a small fishing port at Futo, where I took my time taking plenty of pictures. It's quite interesting that there stills seems to be a rather significant flotilla of small fishermen's boats in Japan - unlike the Mediterranean for example where small-scale fishing has largely disappeared (at least on the Cote d'Azur!). Again, the views were rather fantastic.

Consulting a map, we realized we weren't far from Kadowaizaki suspension bridge (which we've already visited twice) - so we decided to take the foot path all the way there. A pretty short, but extremely scenic hike. A good thing it was short, too, as it was getting pretty late, and we still had to walk all the way back to the hotel. So after checking out the suspension bridge, again, and the light house (which was actually closed), we started the walk uphill back towards the hotel.

We were actually greeted by a pretty amazing evening sky (with the omni-present Mount Omuro seen as a silhouette) on the way back to the hotel, as night fell finally fell. Apparently the skies tend to clear up after a typhoon, so not sure whether the beautiful evening sky was a result of that, or if we just got lucky.

We had a "convini dinner" back at the hotel. Actually, a very good value for money to eat in Japan is to buy ready meals at small convini shops (Seven Eleven, Family Mart, and the like) - the food is still pretty tasty (after all, one cannot really eat badly in Japan!)

Evening visit to Ito

Today was a great day - no guests at the hotel for the first time in 10 days. So we could  finish work at 3 o'clock and do some RnR! We decided to take the opportunity to do a bit of tourist, and drive down to nearby Ito in Captain's car (which I was rather familiar with by now, thanks to having done some chauffeuring with it).

Ito is one of the biggest towns (the biggest?) on the Izu peninsula. Izu peninsula is very famous for its Onsen (natural hot springs), which are very popular in Japan. Based on a sign we saw in town, Ito is supposed to be one of the three top towns in Japan for Onsen. The main tourist attraction in Ito is a historic Ryokan (Japanese Inn) called Tokaikan, which has been opened to the public.

So it was natural that our exploration of Ito should begin there. Entrance was free, but we were initially a bit put off by the fact that explanations were in Japanese only (unfortunately quite common in Japan). So, we didn't undestand much about the exhibits displayed around the Ryokan. But that didn't detract from our enjoyment, as the building itself is very impressive, with absolutely beautiful traditional Japanese guest rooms, all very neat and tidy. We've spent a few times at Ryokans, but never a place that feels as "venerable" as this.

There was also a nice view to be had from the top of the Ryokan over Ito. The location of the Ryokan is perfect, by a river crossing the town center.

There isn't all that much to see in Ito apart from the Ryokan, actually, at least not in the town center. Ito is your average mid-sized modern Japanese town (which means it's not particularly beautiful architecturally speaking). Anyway, it was time to eat, so we started looking out for a restaurant. Ito was surprisingly quiet, but we eventually found a nice-seeming restaurant (where they even had English language menus), where we decided to take our chances. Good choice, too. I had a bonito set meal which was excellent (particularly the soup stage of the meal where the waitress poured in soup broth into my rice & bonito bowl). Mathilde had Aji (horse mackerel). Oishikatta desu!

And then, it was time to head back to the hotel - after a rather nice evening trip!

Working at a Japanese hotel

What followed where about 10 days of hard work, but also 10 very rewarding days. Basically, we were entering the busy holiday season in Japan, which meant Cafe Be was fully booked every day, basically.

The every day routines started at 7:30 on most mornings, when we prepared for the breakfast service (which runs from 8:00 to 10:00). My admittedly simple tasks include: saying "Ohayo Gozaimasu!" (good morning) to customers, followed by "Otamago o erande kudasai! Sukuramberu eggo desu ka, omeretto desu ka." (how would you like to have your eggs? Scrambled? Omelet?). In addition to this I was in charge of drinks (making sure there was coffee, ice coffee, juices available to customers). And clearing tables, doing the dishes, that sort of thing. Mathilde was pretty much doing the same as me plus delivering the omelets and scrambled eggs to customers (Captain was, probably rightly so, worried I might drop the deliveries on the customers)

Things then calmed down until the lunch, which starts pretty early in Japan - around 11:30. Here my tasks were similar, I was allowed to greet customers with a cheerful "Irasshaimase!", bring them the menu, and ask them whether they were having lunch. If the answer was yes, I was to then tell them that they could have coffee and ice coffee for free. And, as during the breakfast service, I had to keep the drink supply secured, as well as clearing tables, doing the dishes, and so forth... Lunch kind of dragged on until 15:30 or 16:00, the peak being from around 12:00 to 14:00. The hotel has a nice swimming pool that customers can use, which means they tend to hang around for longer.

Dinner starts around 18:00 and carries on until 21:00. There are less guests than for lunch, since basically mostly hotel guests have dinner, but the full board options include multi-course menus so things drag on...

After a couple of days, Captain also entrusted me to chauffeur customers from and to the train station. Probably my favorite job at Cafe Be ;-) I even took a couple of customers to visit the Kadowakizaki suspension bridge (that we'd visited at the beginning of our stay). And then, there were other odd jobs here and there like cleaning the swimming pool, cleaning rooms after customer checkout, that sort of thing.

All in all, it was pretty interesting to see how much work it really takes to run a hotel / restaurant. I Was impressed by how Captain and his crew (basically only his wife and one extra person apart from me and Mathilde and a young lad) kept the show running, and without anybody once raising their voice or showing any kind of stress (that's the Japanese working ethic for you!).

Of course, we had a lot of fun, too! My favorite bit was probably the dinners we had at the end of the meals. Never has a beer tasted as good as the one after the dinner service finished. And we were treated to some amazing food. Interestingly, Cafe Be serves international cuisine (steaks, pizza and pasta), whereas Captain and the others eat very traditional Japanese cuisine. Which was of course perfect for us. We were treated to all sorts of great stuff: tempura, sukiyaki, natto (fermented soya beans), sashimi and so forth, and so forth. Basically, every dinner was a treat!

Apart from the meals, there's other fun stuff going on as well. There's Naga-somen, where you basically drop somen noodles and bits of mandarin (mandarins are apparently a speciality of the Izu peninsula) down a bamboo gutter (with water flowing in it!), and people lined up around the gutter are supposed to catch the noodles and bits of mandarin with their chop sticks. I got the honor of managing the activity. And of course, this being Japan, there was a karaoke night too! And a BBQ night as well.

I suppose our Japanese improved as well - I certainly hope so. It's just that we've not yet reached a level where we can actually communicate properly in Japanese. I mean sure, we get our points across and usually understand what's asked of us,by a mixture of Japanese/English and sign language ;). And we are starting to get all those polite expressions pronounced quite naturally (there are a lot of expressions like that, used in quite specific situations - obviously we are only scratching the surface...)

So anyways, I guess that's an attempt at summarizing 10 rather hectic, but very rewarding, days at Cafe Be!

Mount Omuro

All our Japanese friends had left the hotel now (well, except for our new friends, of course). We were also told that the busy season was starting on Thursday. Thankfully, this did leave us Tuesday and Wednesday to get into the routine of things, under the watchful eye of our boss, Captain.

Anyway, we did have time to do a little bit of tourism also, as Captain kindly suggested to us to check out nearby Mount Omuro. Mount Omuro is a bit of a local landmark on the Izu peninsula. It's an extinct volcano, "only" about 580 meters high (the Japanese say it's shaped like an inverted rice bowl), but it can be seen from most places in the Izu Kogen area, where we are located. 

Rather than walk up, we decided on the lazy option and take the ski lift up. The weather is pretty scorching and super-humid in Japan this time of the year, but the main reason was of course (I mean, surely you can't imagine a bit of heat putting us off a bit of hiking?) that we were a bit short on time (had to get back before the lunch service started).

The views from up there were pretty nice - Izu Kogen sprawls between Mount Omuro and the coastline, whereas the view is a bit more "non-urban" towards the West. Apparently, one can see Mount Fuji on a clear day - unfortunately the sky wasn't particularly clear the day we were up there. Still, we had a nice walk around the crater (took us about 15 minutes in all), then we took the ski lift back down to the car.

A nice enough way to spend a summer morning!

Arriving at the Izu Peninsula

The next leg of our Asian adventure took us South-East of Tokyo, to the Izu Peninsula. It's a rather popular holiday/weekend break destination for Japanese people, in particular for people from Tokyo. The plan was for us to stay at a hotel in Izu Kogen for three weeks. The place is owned by a friend of Matsuoka-san's.

We started our journey by taking the Shinkansen from the Tokyo main station to Atami - a seaside town and a kind of "gateway" to the Izu peninsula. The original plan had been to leave our suitcases in a locker at the train station and walk around for a couple of hours before catching the local train to Izu Kogen. Unfortunately, we didn't find a locker big enough for our big suitcase. So we ended up just heading down to the beach, dragging the big suitcase along, and then hike back up to the train station. From what we saw, Atami seemed like a nice enough place, if a bit like a tourist trap.

We arrived in Izu Kogen, to find our good friend Matsuoka waiting for us. He took us to our "new home", called Cafe Be (as in the Beatles song "Let it Be", as we found out later). We met our new boss called simply "Captain" and the rest of the crew. Captain explained the setup - we were to get free lodging and food in exchange for helping out at the hotel. Sounds more than fair to me - should be a great way to improve our Japanese as well!

The first night, there was a BBQ planned, which was a great way for us to get into the rhythm of things. I mostly manned the grill with Matsuoka, as we prepared the food. It was all great fun. The food was great, the beer flowed, and everybody (staff and other guests) was great fun. What a fantastic welcome! We crawled into bed with a slightly sore head, but very happy with how things were turning out.

The next day, we were ordered by Captain to take his car and go and check out the nearby Jogasaki coast. It's one of the top tourist spots at the Izu peninsula, and for very good reason. The rocky coastline is absolutely stunning, reminiscent of Bretagne, Cornwall or the Californian coastline... We climbed up to the top of a lighthouse, from where the view was pretty amazing.

Just next to the lighthouse, one can also check out the famous Kadowakizaki suspension bridge. It's famous, I suppose, because it's an impressive piece of engineering. But sadly it's also a common place where people commit suicide. A lot of movies and TV series are shot here, apparently.

Around lunch time, we had a surprise visitor from the UK, Chie, paying us a visit! She just happened to be in Japan the same time as us, visiting her family in Kyoto. So she was kind enough to catch the train to come and see us, which was really cool. We had a very nice dinner indeed with her and Matusoka-san and his family, during which we got to try some of the famous Cafe Be pizzas (and plenty of other very tasty stuff as well). We finished the night rather late (or rather, early in the morning), after downing quite a few sakes and beers.

The next day, it was time to see off our dear friend Chie. But before that, we took her on a bit of a touristy trip - where else than Jogasaki Coast !? It's not like we know any other places (yet) where to take her or anything... ;-) The scenery was just as stunning as the day before! We then took Chie to the train station, from where she got on the train back home. Great to see Chie again - and in Japan of all places ;)

After lunch it was time to say good by to Matsuoka-san as well, as he was heading back to Tokyo. So now, the real work starts ;-)

Matsuri time in Tokyo

The next day, we had no particular administrative duties to carry out, so we decided to dedicate the day to tourism. We started off by checking out Kameido park, which had pretty good reviews on Tripadvisor, and was within walking distance of our hotel. We had a bit of trouble finding the place (navigating in Tokyo is no easy feat, even with a map, due to the somewhat complex addressing scheme), but got there eventually. And for sure, it was a nice little park, with a kind of small Japanese garden type spot, and a nice riverside pathway.

From there, we headed off to the Fukugawa Edo museum (getting there took us a bit longer than expected due to some hassle with the sometimes complicated Tokyo railway network). After all, (at least) I am a big fan of Japanese history, and I really loved the Tokyo Edo museum I visited last year. This museum basically houses a small reconstructed Edo-era village, all confined within a big hall. It's a pretty cool concept, at least in theory. But somehow the museum was a bit of a disappointment. I mean, this kind of museum should really be outdoors, not indoors (think Seurasaari in Helsinki). On top of that, all the explanations where only in Japanese, so all the information needed to put it all into a historical context was missing. (our Japanese just isn't up to scratch yet, I guess!).

We then had a bit of a rest at the hotel - jet lag was catching up on us, I suppose. For the evening, the  plan was to check out a proper Matsuri. What's great about Japan in the summer is all the Matsuris that take place - Matsuris are basically ceremonies/traditional festivals which are often quite spectacular. What's great about them too, is that Japanese people take out their kimonos and dress up for the occasion. After consulting some flyers and online resources, we ended up going to one  taking place at the Honganji temple, just next to the famous Tsukiji fish market.

The event on tonight was a Bon Odori event - or  Bon dance. The Bon Odori is basically a Buddhist custom to honour the spirits of the dead. It basically involves people (usually dressed in Yukatan) dancing around a big scaffold structure, where the music is played. Apparently the music depends on the region - in our case it was drum music. The idea is basically that the dancing will bring forth the spirits of the dead. Be that as it may - to us it was basically a colorful and rather atmospheric event. We decided against eating at the Matsuri as it was very crowded, and instead decided to dine in a nice sushi place in nearby Tsukiji (our Japan experience has come full circle - the first meal we had in Japan was here!)

The next day was "a day off" as well. We did have our Japanese language check scheduled or 15;00 though, but we had a bit of time to kill before then. During which we actually basically did nothing - other than have a quick walk around our neighborhood (there's a nice bicycle path which we walked along - checking out some of the floats people were preparing for a matsuri.

The language check went OK-ish (we were both a bit rusty as we'd not practiced our Japanese for a few months). We were placed in the 2nd term of the beginner's course (a bit sobering - one would imagine being at least upper beginner after 3 years of classes!)

The language course sorted out, we had a bit of spare time, so we decided to head over and check out another Matsuri. This one was located in a temple not far from Omotesando. Compared to what we'd seen the night before, it was all a bit disappointing. There were just some stands selling food (of course!) and a lady hosting some sort of funny-seeming show we couldn't really understand. Well, there were still people dressed in kimonos, so all kind of good fun.

We didn't stay very long and decided to head to Omotesando - which could, I suppose, be described as the Champs Elysees of Tokyo - so basically it's THE place to do your luxury shopping. We checheked out Harajuku, which is an off-beat part of Tokyo - this is the place to find all sorts of weird and unusual stuff, you know, the sort of stuff you only find in Japan. We ended up in Yoyogi park, one of the most famous parks in Tokyo (where the Meiji Shrine is located). We were there to try to find some people in Cosplay uniform (the place is famous for that). Alas, we only found Pokemon Go players and some street artists.

For dinner, we decided (kind of randomly) to go to Shinjuku. After getting lost (as always) in the gigantic Shinjuku train station, we eventually found our bearings and actually managed to find the tempura restaurant we'd decided to go to (based on consulting our good friend Tripadvisor). It was a good choice - it's been a while since the last time we had tempura. We had some entertaining neighbors sat as we were at the bar (an elderly gentleman who got quite chatty, probably due to having had a bit too much sake!) The place was just slightly touristy, but the food was excellent. Haven't tried tempura ice cream before, interesting!

That brought an end to this initial Tokyo visit - as we were catching the train to Izu-Kogen the next day.