26th July. 6:00am
Arrive Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan
We have arrived, look out Tokyo!
As we pull our backpacks off the conveyer belt it is immediately agreed that we have over packed, the 20kg in our bags is enough to wheel, let alone put on our backs.
After deciphering the
train lines we buy a ticket and head through to the train terminal. Stopping on
the way to buy some chips off a little Japanese lady, we make our first
mistake. Missed the train.
Don’t worry, another
one comes in 15minutes. So at 7:15am we board our super flash train, that even
has its own café on board. As it stops at the next station a train attendant
approaches us saying what we assumed was “tickets”, or we thought perhaps he
was taking our coffee order, but it was in fact “last stop”. We were on the
wrong bloody train.
After speaking to a
few locals we figure out that we are looking for the blue line, not the red.
And so an hour later we are on a train headed towards the city.
At first we are the
only people aboard, but by the time we reach the next few stations we become
two among thousands of morning commuters. So jammed packed in, that when
transferring to another train we were unable to board as every single door we
ran past was packed full to the last centimetre.
After successfully
arriving in the district in which our hostel resides, we check in and set off
for the day. Our first stop was
Electric City, hundreds of stores filled with electronic goods and all things
high-tech. After that we caught the train to Shibuya, a district for the youth with
thousands of stores displaying the latest in Japanese fashion, food and music.
Electric City
Shibuya
Day 2
Our second day was
spent at Tokyo Bay area, Odaiba. Set along side a man-made beach, Odaiba has
enormous shopping malls, a giant sky wheel, the Panasonic centre and the Mega
Web- where you can see and ride the latest electric cars.
A highlight in the
Panasonic centre was a play ground made entirely from cardboard.
Day 3
We went on a cycling
tour around Tokyo.
Riding through local
residential areas, visiting Tokyo’s busiest crossing in Shibuya, the Yoyogi
Park Shrine, Harajuku's district aimed at Japanese teenage youth, Baseball batting cages and a Japanese cemetery in the middle of
Tokyo.
Saturday night was the
Sumida River Firework festival. Originally used to ward off evil
spirits, fireworks have a long history in Japan and are an integral part of
Japanese summers.
We ventured down to the festivities with some
fellow backpackers from our hostel. A German, an Irish and three French people
were amongst the mix. We sat in the middle of streets that had been closed off
for the occasion, seeing glimpses of the fireworks through the building that
line the river.
Day 4
A lazy sunday hanging out in Shibuya, then went to the Tokyo Government office viewing tower.
Day 5
Tsukiji Fish Market.
Every morning, except Sunday, the market opens at 5am for the morning auctions, at which about 15 000 restaurants and food sellers from all over the city buy 450 types of sea produce from about 1, 700 stalls. The market itself is kind of like a huge hanger, inside is a maze of tiny stalls crammed together. The place was buzzing! And the smell was not as bad as we anticipated.
