Day 3 – Tokyo

6.27AM, Ueno – I managed to sleep 11 and a half hours before waking up early morning – thankfully it wasn’t night when I stirred, so hopefully that’s my body clock reset. The first thing I need to do today is hopefully reserve a seat on an afternoon bullet train for my Kyoto trip on Friday.

9.47AM, Shinbashi – I’m sitting in a small garden having some breakfast. I walked down Ginza Street, which is Tokyo’s Fifth Avenue. It’s full of large department stores and lots of Western names – it’s impressive but not as much as it would have been if I’d never done NYC before. Also, everywhere opens at 11AM which is odd to a 9AM opening hour man like me. I’m smack in the middle of the financial district surrounded by large skyscrapers. Fun times.

1.52PM, Iidabashi – Well that was expensive. I got confused and bought a subway ticket I didn’t need, damn Japanese language… Back to the JR station I go.

2.11PM, Akihabara – Nicknamed Electric Town Akihabara is a geek’s wet dream – it’s full of electronics shops, arcades, girls in amazing outfits and gaming stores.

6.41PM, Ueno – Today was lovely. It was around 23 degrees, a tad humid and very windy (Tokyo is a coastal town don’t forget). My legs are very tired, I don’t dare think how far I walked. I’ve just finished dinner, a selection of meat skewers in the hotel’s restaurant. Yum. I’m just watching Discovery Channel, the only English speaking channel on the TV supplied. I managed to get a seat reserved for Friday – there was only one train left with reserved space left. It’s at 7.33AM, which means I’ll have to see Senso-Ji on the afternoon of the 13th when I return to Tokyo.

I could do the Fish Market tomorrow, but I’m planning on visiting Kamakura. I’ll leave something for a return visit to Japan.

So what did I see today – first was Hama Rikju park. It’s Tokyo’s most beautiful green space, situated right in the heart of the city. Surrounded by skyscrapers, it’s an odd experience. There was a free electronic walking tour that took you around the park and explained the history behind it – it was very interesting. It was clever the way it used GPS to automatically play when you reached certain points.

After that I travelled back to Tokyo and walked to the Imperial Palace East Gardens. Sadly Tokyo station is under renovation so it’s completely covered up – it’s a shame because it’s supposed to be as impressive as our St Pancreas station. The gardens were nice, lots of nice colour. I stopped for an ice-cream as it was pretty humid. After that I walked through to Yasukuni shrine which was cool.

Then I caught the JR to the aforementioned Akihabara, before heading north to Ueno to drop off my stuff. I then spent an hour in the Tokyo National Museum – it’s only two floors and shows a limited selection of the museum’s full collection. After that it was back to the hotel and the end of a good day sightseeing.

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Tagged: diary, Holiday, Japan, marco fiori, Tokyo, Trip