My first trip back to Tokyo!

This weekend I headed down to Tokyo with Matt F, Matt H, Meredith and her boyfriend from Ireland who was over for a couple of weeks. It was the first time I had been back to Tokyo since I arrived in Japan. During the Tokyo orientation I didn’t really have a chance to see that much of Tokyo so it was good to go back down to have a look around.

It was a 3 day weekend again so we headed down early Saturday morning. The train takes about 4 hours from Tajima and we arrived in Asakusa about midday. We had a look around the Asakusa area, where there were lots of shrines and temples and also the big lantern which is sort of the symbol of Asakusa.

The Asakusa Lantern

Matt and Matt infront of a temple in Asakusa

Another Asakusa temple.

The crowded streets in Asakusa - There was some sort of parade with people dressed similarly to some of the people in the Aizuwakamatsu Samurai festival!

In the evening we went to Ginza which is a more up market shopping district and then to Shibuya which is more of nightlife area. We got out at Shibuya station and went to Shibuya crossing. It must be one of, if not the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. Hundreds of people line up on all sides of a triangular crossing and when the light goes green and everyone crosses it reminded me of a fight scene in Braveheart where everyone is charging at each other. We went to one bar in Shibuya called Liner Flips, which was a cocktail bar where the bartenders put on a show every hour or so making doing bar tricks making cocktails and even setting the bar on fire.

Ginza

Me at Shibuya Crossing!

Liner Flips Bar

We ended up going to Roppongi which is another nightlife district in Tokyo. We went to a little underground club called Lexington Queen which had photos of loads of famous people all over the walls that had visited over the years. I’m not quite sure how this club had attracted so many famous people but they had photos of everyone from Lionel Richie to the hobbits from Lord of the Rings. It’s been open for 25 years and is apparently quite famous. When we went there I wasn’t too sure how it had got such accolade but it was only 3,000 yen (about £15) for nomihoudai (All you can drink) so we made the most of that and enjoyed ourselves till about 4 in the morning.

Me, Kevin (Meredith's Boyfriend) Meredith and Matt H in Lexington Queen

Me and Matt H were the last to leave and we had difficulty finding somewhere to stay for the night. We ended up sleeping in an internet cafe, which was actually really comfortable. It had fully reclinable lazy boy style chairs and your own little cubicle. We got a good few hours sleep and it was only about 1,000 yen.

In the morning Matt and I went to get some breakfast but were still feeling a bit tired. We decided to head to one of the parks in Tokyo near the Imperial Palace. I couldn’t believe how warm it still was in Tokyo and I was comfortable sleeping on the grass in just jeans and a t-shirt. After a couple hours extra rest we got in contact with Matt who was with a Japanese girl he knew.

We headed to the Sapporo beer house which was a cool, but very busy bar. We had some dinner and I took advantage of the fact they had Guinness on tap. After a while Meredith and her boyfriend joined us.

After this we headed to another park in the evening where there was an unusual arty festival. I was for the culture day, long weekend but I couldn’t really work out the theme. They had lots of pretty lights and a laser show, and some music performances surrounding a pond and a small art museum.

Projections of Sumo Wrestlers on the art museum

The pond and museum lit up with lots of lights

Afterwards we looked for a long time to try and find a regular bar, but we ended up in strange darts bar. We only stayed for a couple of drinks as there wasn’t much atmosphere. When we left were given quite an expensive service charge. These are quite common in Tokyo but they had put it down as bar snacks. The bar snacks we had received amounted to a small plate of nuts and about 15 prawn crackers for which we were charged about £15.

Matt, Matt and I then headed off and stayed the night in a capsule hotel. It was an experience to stay in a capsule hotel but to be honest it wasn’t all that different from staying in a hostel.

Matt in the capsule hotel

We wandered round Tokyo a bit more on Monday and Matt H and I headed to Akihabara where I bought a much needed laptop. We then met back up with everyone in Asakusa station to catch the train back to Tajima. We had some nice Ramen noodles in Tajima to finish off a great weekend!