Exploring Shimbashi, Kagurazaka and Shibuya

Our stay in Tokyo continued, as we settled into life in the Japanese capital. We were rather happy with our school schedule, as the fact that we had classes in the afternoon allowed us to do sports (it's still very hot in Japan, so running in the afternoon does not seem like such a good idea) and prepare our homework in the morning, before class, and it still leaves the evening for exploring Tokyo (of course, nothing prevents us from exploring Tokyo in the morning either!)

On Monday evening, the plan was to have a night out with Matsuoka, who was organizing for us to meet a fellow Finn (who used to work for Nokia Tokyo) in Shimbashi. Shimbashi is a part of Tokyo we're not very familiar with. It's more of a salaryman district with plenty of companies and accompanying bars and restaurants (to feed and quench the thirst of all those hard-working salarymen), not such a touristy part of Tokyo. However, it is quite an attractive place, with all those bars and restaurants. We also checked out Shiodome, an attractive and modern district of impressive skyscrapers. There are a couple of interesting museums here, as well as (of course) plenty of restaurants and bars. There is also an interesting historic site - a replica of Tokyo's first train station is located here (it contains a museum these days).

Our quick tour of the area done, we met up with Matsuoka and headed down to the restaurant, an Izakaya (of course, what else?) owned by a friend of Matsuoka's apparently. What followed was a typically interesting night out in Tokyo, that is to say, plenty of good food accompanied by quite a few drinks. Great to meet a fellow Finn as well, Timo has spent nearly 15 years in Japan now so had plenty of funny stories and hints about Gaijin life in Japan to share...

On Tuesday, we had nothing in particular planned, so we decided to explore the Kagurazaka district, located just on the other side of Iidabashi train station from our school. Kagurazaka is one of the few remaining geisha districts of Tokyo (geisha are very much a vanishing phenomenon in Japan). These days, it's more a busy shopping street than a geisha district, but there are some nice small streets tucked away off the main drag, with traditional Japanese houses, where it's not hard to imagine geisha performances taking place. Actually, we did see quite a few very elegant ladies dressed in traditional kimonos - perhaps some geisha...?

On Wednesday, we were planning to meet up for dinner at Shibuya. Shibuya, of course, is one of the most famous neighborhoods of Tokyo, famous for THE pedestrian crossing featured in the sublime film Lost in Translation. Shibuya is also home of the famous Hatchiko statue (Hatchiko was a loyal dog - the story very much resembles that of Greyfriar Bobby's of Edinburgh) - these days one of the most famous meeting points in Shibuya. 

Before dinner, we took a bit of time to walk around Shibuya and check out the shops. After all, Shibuya is one of THE major shopping districts in Tokyo (which I suppose is to say it's shopping heaven for some...). For dinner, we were meeting up with Hiromi, a friend whom I met in London a loooong time ago (something like 14 years ago). Long time no see, to say in the least! Hiromi's friend Wang joined us as well, a nice Chinese lady who's lived in Japan for 15 years or so. She was able to give me some good advice for my upcoming trip to China.

Excursion to Ibaraki prefecture

Our good friend Matsuoka-san was taking his family on a tour all the way to Kasama, located in Ibaraki prefecture, about 100 kilometers North of Tokyo. He was kind enough to ask us to join, and we were very happy indeed to accept his invitation.

Our first stop was Izumo shrine, apparently one of the most important religious institutions in Kasama. The most remarkable feature of the shrine is the thick rope that decorates the main building (apparently it forms a bond between the humans and the spirits that dwell in the shrine). The shrine itself is quite new, so not that remarkable (there is an old shrine behind the new building, but it was closed so we couldn't visit).

The shrine is located on a hilltop, so there are quite nice views over the surrounding countryside. The monks even have electric buggies to take them up and down the hill. The touristy stuff out of the way, we headed off to have lunch at a soba place (seems to me that they often have soba shops near temples and shrines in Japan, not sure why?) It was rather delicious, as expected.

Our next stop was another temple - this one we visited since Matsuoka-san's wife's cousin is the head monk there. Or, as it turns out, used to be, apparently he'd changed temples recently. However, his successor was kind enough to let us take a look at the temple in spite of it being closed. I really loved this temple - not sure if it's because we had the privilege of having the main monk explain the history of the place (in Japanese of course, so we were rather heavily depending on Matsuoka-san's explanations here...).

The temple gardens were great, and there was a cemetery as well, with a big bell that one could pay 100 Yens to ring. As you might have guessed, I had to do it to satisfy the urges of my inner child (??). All in all, a very interesting experience!

The real reason for us to come to Katama was actually pottery - Katama is very famous for its pottery, apparently. There are plenty of local producers, apparently, but there is also a kind of pottery center that houses plenty of shops. And next to the shop collection, located on a hilltop, there is the Ibarakai pottery museum, which we ended up visiting. It's a pretty interesting place, there's a kind of observation platform from where you can see the experts working their craft.

Of course, there is a rather big gift shop as well, where they sell the pottery. It was actually quite reasonably priced, considering it's all hand made.

Sadly enough, people seemed to be more keen on playing Pokemon Go than checking out the pottery. Even adults! I can confirm that Pokemon Go has hit Japan in a big way indeed - not very surprising, I suppose...

Our next stop on our little road trip was in Ushiki, which is famous as being the home of the largest Daibutsu (Big Buddha!) in Japan. It stands an impressive 120 meters in height, making it the 3rd highest Buddha statue in the world. However, apparently the statue is a bit controversial, as it's not a religious statue, rather it was constructed (in 1993)  by a Japanese company organizing funerals... Anyway, be that as it may, we were unfortunately not able to visit the Buddha as we arrived too late... So we had to content with observing it over a fence from the car park. Oh well...

Then, it was time to head back to Tokyo. But to finish off a splendid day, Matsuoka took us to a fantastic restaurant located in Adachi, near their house. The food, mainly fish, was predictably delicious.

So, a great day out in the countryside, then. A big thanks to Matsuoka for taking us out on a tour with his family!

Daytrip to Yokohama

Yokohama is one heck of a big city (in fact, the second biggest in Japan, which makes it very big indeed), located just next to Tokyo. So we figured the evening visit we paid it on our first trip to Japan wasn't quite enough to do it justice. So we decided to jump on the train today and check it out again.

After arriving at the huge (as expected) train station, we made our way to one of the main draws of Yokohama, the futuristic business district known as Minato Mirai 21 (at least the name sounds like something out of a Science Fiction movie!). Well, at least it was futuristic when they laid out the initial plans in the 1980 - but it does look pretty impressive to this day. I think places like Singapore must have taken some inspiration from this place. 

We started off by checking out the Nissan headquarters building, which is just across a canal from the train station (very handy, I'm sure, for all those salarymen and customers who must frequently visit). There's a big showroom to visit, which I found pretty cool (I'm less sure about Mathilde...) - I particularly liked the Nissan Skyline from 1985 (I used to "drive" a Nissan Skyline a lot on Grand Turismo 3, on my dusty old Playstation 2...). I learnt a lot about the history of the automobile in Japan as well - one very interesting fact was that the first cars manufactured in Japan after World War 2 were electric! (apparently this was due to the fact that the American occupation force heavily rationed petrol, so it wasn't available for private drivers). What goes around comes around, it would seem, with Nissan being at the forefront of electric vehicle development (with their Nissan Leaf).

We then continued to explore Minato Mirai 21, heading towards the museum district, where we decided to visit the Yokohama museum of Art - there was an exhibition about Mary Cassatt on (one of the few female impressionists - quite appropriately I suppose, I particularly liked her works inspired by Japanese art). We then wandered onwards, stopping to gape in amazement at the Landmark tower (when it was built in 1993, it was the highest skyscraper in Japan, today it ranks as the 3rd highest one). 

We then split up, Mathilde heading off for a bit of shopping, while I headed over to explore the Nippon Maru, a historic sail ship, moored just next to the Landmark Tower. It's a beautiful sailing ship, built back in 1930 as a training ship for cadets for the Japanese merchant marine. It remained in service all the way until 1984, when it became a museum. A very interesting one, at that, with rather good explanations in English (not a given in Japan...). The ticket also allowed me to visit the Yokohama port museum, which was very interesting indeed. Yokohama's growth to the 2nd biggest city in Japan is mostly down to its port. This museum traces the history of the port (starting with when Yokohama was the 3rd port to be opened to foreigners after the arrival of Perry and his "black ships"), throughout the devastation first by the great Kanto earthquake in 1923 and then of course World War 2°.

We then continued our exploration of Yokohama by checking out some historic red brick warehouse buildings, located at the Yokohama port also. These buildings, which used to be custom buildings, are some of few buildings in downtown Yokohama that predate WW2. These days they contain trendy shops (as red-brick buildings seem to do all over the world these days?).

After checking out the views across Tokyo Bay, checking out the impressive 860 meters log Yokohama Bay Bridge, we carried on our exploration by following the edge of Tokyo Bay towards Yamashita park, a nice bit of greenery stretching along the bayside. There is another impressive historic ship to check out there, the Hikawa Maru, as well as the statue of a water goddess (which seems to be a rather popular selfie subject). We were also treated to the nice spectacle of a double rainbow whilst we were there!

We then made our way to another major draw of Yokohama, Chinatown. Yokohama has Japan's biggest Chinese population - this is due to the fact that Yokohama, as a major port city, attracted a lot of foreigners after Yokohama was opened up to the outside world in 1859. Yokohama's Chinatown isn't actually all that big, but it does have a definitely Chinese feel to it. We started our exploration by checking out the somewhat surprising Artrick museum, located in a 8-story souvenir shop. Basically the place is dedicated to trick photography and optical illusions. The picture I put here gives you the basic idea, I guess ;) All good fun!

Unfortunately, it started raining, so we didn't really have the time to properly explore Chinatown. I did quickly check out one of the two temples located in Chinatown (rather atmospheric after it gets dark as all the lanterns in the temple get lit up). We naturally had Chinese food for dinner - I have to admit our meal was a bit disappointing (and quite expensive as well). Next time, we must consult our authority on restaurants in Japan, Matsuoka-san.

We then jumped on an underground train, which actually took us back all the way to Shibuya station in Tokyo. I'll never seize to be amazed by the impressive public transport network Japan boasts. 

Skyscrapers, neon lights, temples, more skyscrapers, and other things typically Tokyo

Our rythm while living in Tokyo is such, that we have quite a bit of time to explore Tokyo in spite of our intensive language classes. The classes are from 14:00 to 17:00, which means we can do things both before and after class. Typically we spend our mornings doing "useful stuff" like homework, sports, that sort of thing.

On Wednesday evening, we decided to check out Shinjuku. Shinjuku is one of the most famous neighborhoods in Tokyo - a lot of the Tokyo clichees can be found here. There are huge skyscrapers, huge masses of people, drunked salarymen stumbling about, a fair few massage parlors, X-rated cinemas and patchinko places Of course, there are also a huge number of good restaurants.

Anyway, before heading for dinner, I had an objective in mind - to photograph the sun setting over Tokyo from the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. The main reason people (like me) come here in particular is that the observation floor is great. Located 202 meters up in the air, on the 45th floor, the views are magnificent. I could see surrounding Tokyo, and in particular the impressive skyscrapers of Shinjuku. And, believe it or not, the tip of Mount Fuji was visible just above the clouds.

The touristy stuff done and out of the way, we wandered about amongst the drunken salaryman mob for a bit, trying to find a decent restaurant (there is just too much choice in this city!) - before finally deciding upon a nice, atmospheric little place not far from the legendary Golden Gai (the Shinjuku drinking area, know for its tiny bars). Fish and seafood was the name of the game (as is often the case in Japan, of course), and we walked away rather satisfied. 

On Thursday, after our language course, we decided to sort of randomly wander off from Iidabashi, towards the Imperial palace park (slam bang in the middle of Tokyo). There is a pretty big and impressive park around the imperial palace, which is open to the public and free. The only way to visit the palace itself is through a guided tour (and only during daytime), but the impressive moats and outer walls (as well as the Nijubashi bridge, which leads to the palace) can still be seen from the outside. We ended up having a decidedly uninspiring (and rather expensive) dinner in a Chinese restaurant.

On Friday, we decided to explore Adachi city a bit, before our lessons. We decided to check out Nishiarai Daishi temple, an apparently famous temple that one of our teachers recommended us to visit. Getting there turned out to be a bit more complicated than expected, but we got there in the end. The temple dates back to the 19th century, and is famous for its peony garden. There is also a salt-covered Buddha statue, known to cure warts, apparently! We rather enjoyed the temple, especially the peaceful gardens next to the main building. 

We found an excellent eel restaurant next to the temple, where we had a seriously delicious lunch! A bit pricy compared to your average Ramen shop, that's for sure, but more than worth every penny. 

We were in a bit of a hurry getting back to Iidabashi in time for class, but just made it in time!

In the evening, we kind of randomly decided to visit Ikebukuro - another famous Tokyo neighborhood, one that we haven't been to so far! The area is a bit like a calmer version of Shinjuku - meaning loads of places to shop, loads of places to eat, loads of places to drink. Basically there's loads to do there. The main attraction here is Sunshine City - basically the oldest "city within a city" complex in Tokyo (construction was complete in 1978). 

It's a huge complex (comprising of 4 buildings with the 240 meter Sunshine 60 building located in the middle) that basically contains a huge amount of shops, an observation floor (of course), offices, restaurants, bars, a planetarium, and aquarium, and loads of other stuff... We were content to just walk around, being impressed, and have dinner afterwards. The coolest thing about Sunshine city, if you ask me, was the pictured massive Godzilla foot - check out the size of that thing!

So, Ikebukero is a pretty nice part of Tokyo, I'm sure we'll be back!

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!