Phew – Today was the busiest day we’ve had so far and we have an even busier day tomorrow so I think I might just explain this in pictures as best as I can again. It took *too many* photos today to upload them all here so the below is about HALF of the pictures I wanted to upload….
We met up with my friend Tim who has been living in Japan for a few years. It’s super nice of him to take the time to show us around so we really appreciated it 🙂 We met at Harajuku station and had a quick and delicious lunch at a cafe that had amazing drinks and American style dishes like hamburg and rice, curry, and BLTs.
Takeshita exit at Harajuku station
Tim first took us down Takeshita street which apparently is the best known street in Harajuku, and if you don’t go down it while in Harajuku you’re missing out on the real Harajuku experience apparently so thanks Tim! cuz we totally missed it on our first Harajuku run. Along the way, we stopped at an Alice in Wonderland themed store called Alice on Wednesday which Tim explained usually requires an invitation to enter, but today they were letting people in after queuing in a short line for a few minutes.
We waited along the wall here.. sorry for the bad angle! But you see that tiny door frame there? That was what you had to duck into to get inside.
Alex next to the door for scale
Next, we walked around quite a bit and did some gift shopping at Loft, two Disney stores, and a bunch of other places. Once it got dark, we headed to Ueno.
Random but beautiful temple in the middle of the busy Harajuku area
Got to Ueno and had a couple of snacks. The first was mini castellas freshly made at an “illegal” castella stand right outside of the station. They were soft and waffley. You could smell them from metres away… too bad they don’t have a permit and are forced to pack up when the police show up.
Next we stopped at another stand that sold freshly made dango, taiyaki, and iced matcha tea. They were all sooo fresh especially the dango which is the perfect amount of sweet and savoury at the same time. Oops I took a bite of the taiyaki before remembering to take a picture. Sorry!
All of this was in an an open market style area, with shops EVERYWHERE. Busy restaurants were tucked snugly under the subway underpass and you could just tell the food that was being served is good because people were lined up, tightly packed in, and the smell was amazing.
Tim showed us to a hot foot bath place around here which was perfect because by this point our feet were swollen and painful from walking around Harajuku all day. For 1000 yen, you could stay for 45 minutes, soak your feet, get a quick foot massage, a 5-10 min back massage, and get 1 hot or cold tea included. The place was very casual, you basically just walk in, take off your shoes, they give your feet a quick rinse and massage, and you stick them into the flowing hot river that surrounded the entire mini spa area. I was shy to take many pics but here you go !
After our quick foot soak, we felt energized again and headed to Asakusa. Asakusa is known to have more traditional buildings and it’s located on the opposite end of Tokyo from where we are staying.. so I was excited to see a new area! It did not disappoint me.
Oh– we also stopped for some capsule machine action on the way!
Tim’s capsule machine win… he got the one he wanted!
Finally, we arrived in Asakusa:
The view almost immediately outside of Asakusa station. That’s Tokyo Skytree in the background but it was a foggy night 😦 we will be back tomorrow Skytree!!!
Next, we headed to Yakitori for dinner. We had only previously had Yakitori at Yakitori Kintori in Toronto so we were excited to try the real thing and…. like many other things here… Yakitori in Toronto is now ruined I’m sad to say 😦 this place was amazing. It’s called Torikizoku and it’s a chain so you can probably visit one while in Tokyo sometime!
Alex’s melon soda, Tim’s peach sour, an order of cabbage with salt dressing and tsukune with cheese which basically tasted like a mini cheeseburger.. which just speaks for itself
Chicken hearts!! MY FAVOURITE! So juicy!!!!!!
Sorry. My Yakitori pics stopped here because I was too busy eating.
Next, we headed to the Sensoji temple just around the corner. It was super peaceful and quiet at night. I can just imagine how hard it is to take a good picture of it during the day because of all of the people that must go during day time hours. It’s Tokyo’s oldest temple and has a lot of history so please read about it here!
The shrine entrance form the street.
The pagoda was unfortunately not lit up tonight, but I hope I captured the absolute enormous size of it..
As we left, we found ourselves on a back street filled with closed shops that had incredible architecture and art.. it looked like something out of a movie set..
We hurried back to the subway to catch the last trains and now we’re going to bed because we have a long long day at Odaiba tomorrow.. Goodnight everyone ❤
hellofujisan 