When we realised that my birthday fell on the last day of our second term, we decided to bite the bullet and take the opportunity to book our first trip out of Korea! What with Tokyo being so close and, to us, such a fascinating and exciting city, we decided that it would be the perfect place for a long weekend.
We had a long day of travelling on my birthday (Wednesday). I won't bore you too much with the details, but this is an outline of how our journey went; woke up at 3.45am, took a taxi to Daejeon Station, took the KTX at 6.30am to Busan, took a taxi to Gimhae Airport, took off at 11am (after some baggage re-arranging as our case was too heavy!), arrived in Tokyo at around 1pm, took the train to Asakusa where our hostel was, got lost for around an hour trying to find the hostel, finally arrived at around 4.30pm. Considering how 'close' we thought Tokyo was, it was a long and tiring trip.
We had planned on heading into more central Tokyo for a fancy birthday meal, but we were tired and didn't fancy any more travelling that evening! We went to a place called '270' very close to the hostel and recommended by the staff, where most of the dishes cost 270 yen, which is just under £2. We ordered the food on a little screen attached to our table, with the help(?!) of some drunken elderly men on the table next to us! We then went back to the hostel for an early night.
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| Birthday Beer! |
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| A Selection From Our Meal - Sushi, Salty Peas And Camembert Wontons |
The next day, we woke up at 8.30am, eager to start exploring. We took the subway to Shibuya, where we saw the busiest crossing in the world. Each of the pedestrian crossings at this junction goes green at the same time, and everyone streams into the road in a mad rush. When we were there it obviously wasn't one of the busiest times, but it was still quite crazy.
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| Shibuya Crossing |
We then walked towards the Harajuku area, grabbed some lunch and headed to Yoyogi Park, one of the largest in Tokyo and adjacent to Meiji Shrine. It was a beautiful park and luckily a sunny day - it was just a shame that the park was all walkways and large trees rather than big open spaces to enjoy the sunshine!
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| Barrels of Sake Offered Every Year to the Enshrined Deities to Show Their Deep Respect for the Souls of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken |
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| Washing Your Hands And Mouth Before Entering The Shrine |
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| Meiji Shrine |
We then explored the area a little and began a long walk down Omotesando Dori, a posh shopping street, towards Roppongi Hills. Some of the architecture along this avenue is incredible, with each designer brand trying to outdo the others with their eye-catching shops.
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| Cartier On Omotesando Dori, With Chloe Behind And Prada On The Right |
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| Looking Out From The Escalator Of A Shopping Centre In Harajuku |
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Tokyo Is Littered With Fascinating Little Places Like This
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| Cute Little Statuettes Outside A Shrine Wearing Little Hats And Carrying Pinwheels |
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| Roppongi Hills |
We finally reached Roppongi Hills with the help of Google Maps, city maps that are dotted around Toyko, and heading towards any skyscrapers we spotted. Roppongi Hills is a 'mega-complex' opened to the public in 2003. I was built to allow people to live, work, play and shop in one area to reduce travelling time, and it also includes the famous Park Hyatt Hotel, which many people would recognise from Lost In Translation. We then realised that Tokyo Tower was not far from where we were, so we wandered towards it and found a nice park nearby to have a rest in.
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Tokyo Tower
We were exhausted after all that walking, so we caught the subway back to our hostel and allowed ourselves a small rest and a shower. After that, we were ready to head out again for our evening's activities. We actually planned to go to a very famous tempura restaurant in our area, but it was a little elusive... i.e. we couldn't find it. However we came across this shrine on our travels which we had seen in the daytime, but it was far more beautiful and less tourist-ridden at night! We were starving after our lengthy search for the tempura restaurant and this detour, so we popped in to a nearby eatery and had pork and prawns.
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Asakusa Shrine
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