Postcards from Japan – part one

Hiya! Not-so-small daughter here, home from Japan!

I have had an amazing time on my travels, and I think we definitely managed to squeeze plenty in to two weeks!

It started off with a very long time in the air with a 7-hour journey to Dubai, a 6-hour layover in Dubai and then another 9 hours to Tokyo, and then one more hour on a silent train to our first hotel.  (It really was silent, they had announcements telling you where the only places you were allowed to talk were!)  We then arrived in Asakusa and dragged our suitcases over the Sumida River in 30-degree heat at 9:30pm with the Tokyo Skytree lit up in the distance.

We were very quickly met in Japan by their abundance of vending machines, and it is safe to say they received a lot of our money for a cold bottle of water!  We spent the rest of our evening with a stop to a 7/11 (a franchise that also received a lot of our money over the weeks) and rested in our rooms of four people for the rest of the evening for the packed days we had ahead of us.

The next morning, we left with an early start, lathered in layers of suncream ready for UV rays of 11, and hopped on the Tokyo metro to Tsukiji Fish Market, the start of our introduction to their food so different from ours. One of my friends and I ate grilled little octopi, and it was an experience.

We also went into a coffee shop, announced on their sign to be one loved by John Lennon, so I didn’t feel quite so far from home in this moment. From there we had a long walk during which we attempted to adjust to the heat (and didn’t quite as well as we thought we might’ve done)

and went to teamLab Planets Tokyo, an immersive museum where you walk through water, in rooms of mirrors or rooms made up of cushions or squishy light up balls, each with an explanation of the exhibition at the end. It was incredible.

That evening, we went to Tokyo Bay, saw their own Statue of Liberty, and went out for a meal for one of the girls on our trip’s birthday, before heading back to our hotel.

The next day we walked around The Imperial Palace’s gardens, which were so incredible. I don’t think I’d quite realised how massive koi fish are up close! They had big, tall walls with stories of how they were guard towers that protected the palace. It was so fascinating to imagine.

After that we ventured further with our Tokyo Metro passes and visited Harajuku and the famous shopping street of Takeshita. Harajuku was also the place that we spent half an hour in a café with MINI PIGS! We went to Tokyo’s MiPig Café to sit and have little pigs play around us. There was a small brown one named Taco with a little backpack who had me wondering if anyone would notice if I tried to put him in my hand luggage.

On our journey home that evening, we held very tightly onto each other’s hands or bags or t-shirts as we tried to find our way back to our hotel through the Sumida River Fireworks Festival, Tokyo’s oldest and most iconic fireworks show dating back to 1733! So as you can imagine, it was very popular and quite difficult to navigate 20 Girl Guides back to a hotel, but we managed! And saw the end of the display, which has the name of most iconic fireworks for a reason.

The next day, we went to Tokyo Skytree! The lift went up over 400m in about 50 seconds and then another 100m in 30 seconds! The view at the top was amazing and it was very amusing to try and spot our hotel from all the way up there.

We had our lunch there and most of us experienced our first proper ramen in Japan, which was sooo good, and then we had to quickly make our way back to the metro to go and meet Japanese Girl Scouts! It was such an wonderful experience meeting them and, despite the language barrier, we all attempted half Japanese, half English conversations and still had a lot of fun. We were introduced to new games, did some origami, had a tea ceremony in this proper tea ceremony room they just had next to their main hall (which I thought was so cool) and we swapped charms and food and they were introduced to Randoms and Grasmere Gingerbread (which doesn’t seem nearly as interesting as the food we were given) but soon it was time to go and we waved goodbye to our new friends and made our way back to the metro.

The following day, our final day in Tokyo, was our day in Tokyo Disney Sea Resort! Completely oblivious to signs, my friend and I began our early morning there drenched, as we somehow managed to miss the “Now doing our ‘get completely soaked’ version” sign on the ride, but it kept us cool for the few minutes before the baking heat completely dried us. The wait times were surprisingly short, and my friend and I managed to get on more rides than we thought we’d be able to. I experienced my first loop rollercoaster ride and we went on Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage twice (which we later found out was a ride exclusive to Tokyo Disney Sea)! Although we mostly had no idea what was going on rides that involved a lot of storytelling as neither of us speak Japanese, the rides were still amazing, we managed to get drenched more than once, which you would think we would’ve considered going to a place with ‘sea’ in the name, and I spent more than I’d care to admit on the coolest popcorn bucket ever, we still had a brilliant time.

The following day, we were up early again, but with suitcases as we made our way to our first journey on the Shinkansen (the bullet train) to Kyoto! Just escaping a thunderstorm, this train journey was amazing! It had such incredible views that I felt like I was journeying through My Neighbor Totoro as we went over miles of fields and countryside.

We arrived at our new hotel in Kyoto and then walked to the Gion District for our food. We have no idea what restaurant 5 of my friends and I went into but it was the best food I had on this trip. They were like platters of food and a few of my friends had meat in theirs and it came on its own little stove and it was so delicious, I still think about it.

Next day, we visited the Kyoto Gyoen National Gardens (which were beautiful, Japan have some seriously good gardeners) before we went to the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. The bamboo was so tall and as you were walking threw them it felt like all the sound was a lot more condensed, as if I was talking inside of a room! We visited the temple near the grove and then we had shaved ice (possibly not something I’ll be trying again) before heading back to our hotel.

Come back tomorrow for more Postcards from Japan!