Day 11 – 29 March 2017. Tokyo
Today was Keith’s mystery tour of Tokyo. Back in 2008 when Della and I went there for the first time, Julie and Barry from the club took us on a subway tour of Tokyo and taught us how to get around and find fun places. We decided to pass this on to our American friends who previously had been nervous of coming to Asia.
Again, the weather was looking good and although we had a slow start to the day, we hit the road about 10am and firstly headed to Shibuya. The Shibuya crossing is one of those places you always see on TV commercials of busy streets with thousands of people. It is an amazing pedestrian crossing outside of busy Shibuya station – sort of like New York’s Times Square with big screens, noise, shops, cars, trains and people. It is a must place to visit whenever you are in Tokyo – just for the atmosphere alone. While we were there, we paid a visit to Hachiko, the statue of the Akita dog still awaiting his master. Just around the corner from the crossing is the Tokyo flagship Disney Store which is three stories and a fun place to visit too, so we headed up there – not that we needed any more Disney stuff!
After Shibuya, we caught the train across town to Asakusa. We were there just a few days ago on the bus tour, but as we only had 30 minutes, it wasn’t long enough to do any serious shopping. Brian and Patti wanted to go back there so we did. We spent a couple of hours in the market street buying souvenirs which was a lot of fun. It wasn’t quite as busy as Saturday, but still much busier than the day we went back in 2008.
After the markets, we caught a train to Akihabera then walked to a coffee shop called N3331. Della and I saw this coffee shop on a TV show before we left Australia. It is located on an abandoned railway platform. The station was closed in 1946 and forgotten about until three years ago when some decided to open shops underneath and put a coffee shop on the old platform above. The fun thing is that although the station doesn’t operate, the tracks do and it is a JR main train line, so you have these cool looking trains driving by you every two minutes. We grabbed some coffees and cakes and sat in the outdoor area which is still glass enclosed. They gave us blankets as well (it is Japan after all) and we had a great time recharging and watching the trains fly by.
After that, we headed back into Akihabera to visit the Yodobashi Akiba – the crazy 10 story electronics department store. We had fun looking through different floors, especially the toy floor on level 6. There is nothing quite like this store anywhere else on earth. By the time we got out of there it was getting late so we decided to catch the train back to Maihama. We headed up to Ikspiari and was able to get a seat for dinner at the TGI Friday restaurant. I had some of the best pork ribs I’ve ever had – so tasty! It was the end of a great day.