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.