We still had 3 more days in Tokyo and we hadn't really looked around the area we were staying in. So we decided to stay in and around Asakusa (pronounced A-sak-sa) for the day. Our first port of call was the large market right in the centre of the area called Nakamise-dōri. It was filled with souvenirs, clothing, jewellery and the occasional food stall. It was another beautiful day in the Japanese capital, so the market was bustling with tourists as well as locals. The street the market was on led to the main sight of Asakusa, Sensō-ji temple. Again, there were people everywhere but it was an enjoyable place to be, experiencing the smells of burning incense and music being played. Sendō-ji is the oldest and one of the most important temples in Tokyo. We wandered round and snapped some photographs, soaking up the culture and enjoying doing something other than shopping for once. Although, we did manage to pick up a Tokyo pinbadge each. We'd worked up some hunger by now and fancied something traditional and local for our lunch, just a little less fishy than sushi, as Charlotte isn't its biggest fan. We'd constantly read and heard about Ramen noodles. We thought we had eaten them at the start of Japan in Fukuoka but we weren't sure. We'd also visited (and eaten) the instant ramen noodle museum but that's just not the same. So we went to the very impressive looking Asakusa tourist information centre and enquirer as to where we would find a good Ramen restaurant. The staff were very thorough and gave us a good long list to take our pick from. It didn't take us long though, plumping for the second one we had a look at. It must have been the faux bamboo branches in the window that enticed us in.
We went in, sat down on the dinkiest chairs ever and perused the menu anyway, even though we already knew what we were having. The ordering was slightly awkward though. Rather than a waiter ask us, we had to do it through a vending machine, which would produce a ticket saying what we wanted. It didn't really help our predicament that the vending machine was solely in Japanese. Fortunately, a member of staff was on hand to assist us. We sat down and awaited our meal. We had chosen large, but weren't expecting them to be as large as they were. We received a bowl of thick noodles, in a beef broth, with some veg, seaweed and something we weren't sure what it was and it was all presented in a bowl the size of a large wash basin. We tucked in and were pleasantly surprised, it was nice to finally eat something from a restaurant that didn't taste like it had lingered in a fish mangers for 2 weeks. Japanese food is nice but they could go without fish stock for once in a while. I just about conquered my bowl but Charlotte struggled with hers, so I tried conquering that too but failed miserably. The Ramen was by far our favourite meal in Japan, really tasty and unbelievably filling, so much so we struggled to pick ourselves out of our seats when we'd finished. The afternoon was spent doing a small amount of shopping for gifts again. So I'll skirt around that and write about our trip to the supermarket in the evening. We hit the jackpot on this shop, as Charlotte clocked, tucked away on the top shelf, a large bar of Asda's own Milk Chocolate and next to that, their Fruit and Nut bar as well. We couldn't miss this opportunity of a good bar of chocolate, so we snapped up one of each and ate them all that night after our dinner. It wasn't Cadbury's but it was pretty tasty. That was that for Monday, we went to bed feeling pretty sick but pretty satisfied.
Tuesday
Today was our very quiet day, which we spent almost the entirety of in the kitchen of our hostel. We'd had the idea to send a few things home that we'd picked up for ourselves during our travels. On top of that, we'd been picking up a few things for our families to send back as Christmas presents. Rather than send 2 parcels separately we tied the 2 things together. We wrote and taped and packed and ate (our noodles from the museum) until we were finished, ready to ship the package of to the UK. We walked down to the post office and it was whisked off, to be delivered the following Monday. It was a relief to get rid of some of the things we had picked up and lighten our load.
Wednesday
Finally, we could really relax. One thing we'd had our eye on in Tokyo to do, was the Sumo Museum. It was a bit of a walk away but we got to stroll alongside the Sumida River on our way there. The juxtaposition of the serenity of the River, next to the skyscrapers and elevated motorway was quite a sight, there doesn't seem to be many places in Tokyo, where you can escape from Tokyo. We arrived at the Sumo museum and took some photos with the murals painted on the from of the building. The museum is located at the national sumo stadium. Unfortunately, to our despair, there wasn't a sumo tournament on while we were in Tokyo, they were all down the other end of the country in Fukuoka. The museum was slightly disappointing, we couldn't take photos and it was mainly about the role of Rikishis (sumo wrestlers) during the wars. We still looked at all the photos and read the captions and enjoyed our time there. We were now stuck with what to though. There wasn't much to see in the area, so we started walking back towards our hostel. When we crossed the river into Asakusa, I looked back to the Tokyo Skytree, which towers above the city. In need of some adventure after a rather sedate stint in Tokyo, I decided I wanted to go up it. Charlotte, who isn't wild on heights, refused but still accompanied me to the base where, for the first time in 4 and a half months, we went our separate ways. I went up the Skytree and Charlotte picked up a coffee. The Skytree is the tallest tower in the world and the second tallest structure. The views of Tokyo were great, just city in every direction. The weather though, as ever here, spoiled it somewhat. On a good clear day, apparently you can see Mt.Fuji but it was very cloudy. I enjoyed my time up there but it was slightly off putting when they would announce what to do if there was an earthquake. I also missed Charlotte, so after about an hour, I took the lift back down to meet up with her again. I'm not sure she'd missed me as much though. We hunted down a bakers and bought ourselves a feast to toast our final day in Japan.
Japan had easily been our favourite country we'd visited so far, as well as containing Hiroshima, which had easily been our favourite city. The weather was nice, the people were unbelievably friendly, despite constantly hearing that Japan is expensive, compared to the UK, it's not really, the public transport is second to none (although, without a train pass, that is expensive) and everywhere we went was sparklingly clean.
After Japan, our return to China would be a little bit of a shock to the system.
James and Charlotte
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