Day 7-17/12 Tokyo - Meiji Jingu, Shibuya

With our previous late night, it was past 1pm when we ventured out.  Our Tokyo apartment was the nearest to the train station of all our Japan accommodation.  Looking at the time... lunch first.  Spotted a promising Korean place - ah this turned out to be MY favourite meal in Japan.

My meat is cooking

First destination in Tokyo, the Meiji-Jingu shrine.  The area including the grounds was large.  One cannot see Japan without a lot of walking heh.  

Map of Meiji Jingu

At the torii gate entrance

Sake barrels behind us

Took our time to wander around.  Locals obviously had reverence for this place as I noticed many bowing at the shrine.  Taking photos at the shrine itself was also not permitted and there was one man employed just to walk around holding the "No photo" sign.  At the end JE said this place was nothing special and boring - I was like WHATTT this reaction to a historic must-see place where even locals show so much respect??  Grrrr.  I should get her to read up on each of our destinations on future trips.

Us nearer the shrine

At the shrine

Meiji Jingu closes at 4pmt.  We then had a peek at nearby Yoyogi Park.  A nice place - if only we had more time and weren't so tired. 

Take a picture of me here

We then walked to Harajuku.  We knew we were the right place from the sign but the place was basically empty.  Maybe we reached it too late.  Oh well one more item crossed off our list.

Harajuku behind us

Next, Shibuya.  Reminded myself I was in Japan and snapped away.

Weird creature

Our target was the "Shibuya Blue Cave", the annual winter illumination where the street becomes a tunnel of blue light.  There were stalls selling various foodstuff so the place was pretty happening.

With blue trees

We didn't buy anything though.  Went for a proper dinner - glad to try ordering from a machine!  Ramen of various sorts tasted good.  

Let's order!

This shop had interesting condiments - shaved kelp, dried fungus, citrus/miso paste setc.  The food got too salty for me towards the end though.  Plus the fact that it was a big bowl.... after this I was officially fed-up of ramen and didn't want any more for the rest of the trip.  :)

Multiple condiments

Meet Ramen, and Ramen

Last stop for the day, Akasaka station which is Harry Potter-themed.  Music from the movies was playing, which lent to the atmosphere.

Dobby's outline, and Hogwarts portraits

The time turner

Letters from Hogwarts

We then gratefully called it a day and returned to our apartment.  

Day 6-16/12 Kyoto - Fushimi Inari, Arashimaya bamboo forest

Our last day in Kyoto.  SE was all well, fortunately.  We checked out and took the bus to Kyoto station.  The bus-stop was just outside our hotel.  I got onto the bus there not realising hubby had stopped to adjust something (either his scarf, bag or the like haha).  The door closed before he and SE could get on.  We had wifi (roaming for hubby, eSims for me and JE) so I called him to take any bus which all go to Kyoto station from that stop.  No issues, we arrived about the same time.  Our first job, to find a locker for our luggage.  So happy that all the bags could fit into 1 large locker!  Just 700yen and job done. 

Next target, the Moomin shop for SE.  That was quickly found, phew.  SE was happy and we bought a few things. 

Moomin shop for me!

Next agenda, lunch.  We were outside Pronto which I rejected - why eat pasta in Japan right?  However we walked around and kept coming back to the same place.  Decided not to challenge fate any longer and just went in.  Hmm the pasta was good!  I would actually be looking for Pronto at later days when I got tired of sushi and ramen - never did find a convenient outlet when I wanted it though.

Pasta for lunch

Tummies filled, on we went!  I was hoping to make up for lost ground this day although timing would be tight.  First, train to Fushimi Inari for the torii gates, the traditional Japanese gates found at shrines.  Fushimi Inari is obligingly located right outside the station heh. 

Outside Fushimi Inari

Us at the low torii gates

Realised the series of torii gates at the entrance are lower.  After that stretch, the next gates are higher.

SE at the higher gates

The gates go on for miles but reviews say they are similar, just that further up the track there are fewer people so you could take better photos.  We walked around a bit then left at 3pm.   

From Fushimi Inari, we went on the train directly to Saga-Arashimaya station.  So convenient, made my target to visit the bamboo forest achievable bearing in mind the 5pm sunset.  It was a 15min walk to the forest from the station, which we are used to by now.  

At last yes, the bamboo forest!  Reviews say there are crowds of people and that the bamboo isn't actually planted that densely.  Reality exceeded my expectations - the crowds had thinned out this late in the day and the bamboo WAS dense.

Bamboo everywhere

I didn't expect the area to be so huge.  There were multiple shrines, walking paths and areas with bamboo.  It would have been fantastic to have rented kimonos in this area - only 2500yen and the background would have been beautiful.  We had just enough time for the main sights before it got dark.

Picturesque road with just me

Getting dark... a last picture

The shops and cafes looked pretty all lit up.  But we had to get to Tokyo and I was anxious not to leave it till too late.  Oh well at least we managed to see this area.

One pretty building

Back we went to Kyoto station and bought our Shinkansen/bullet train tickets.  I was amazed these tickets could be bought from machines when they cost so much - 13000yen/RM400 each.  I would have been feeding RM1,600 into machines for the 4 of us.  Anyway as it was, we returned JE's prepaid ICOCA card at a counter for foreigners and bought the tickets from the very helpful guy there.  SE had lost her card a few days back.  Each card had a deposit of 500yen and there was an admin charge of 220yen.  The helpful guy informed that if there was money in the card, the admin charge would be deducted from there.  If there was no money, there would be no deduction.  Strange system haha.  We spent the balance in the nearby 7-11 and got back the full 500yen. 

I picked a slightly-later train (they were so frequent!) to have time to buy some dinner.  This had been on my wishlist - eat an ekiben/bento in the train!  

My set and JE's

Many items arranged nicely

Well the bento was all right.  I didn't see any heated ones so our sets were cold ones.  Some items were sweet, some salty... ok lah try once enough.  SE was sitting with hubby in front but she said she was too tired to enjoy the ekiben.  

We got to Tokyo station.  Gosh the station was so huge.  We spent quite some time trying to find the line we wanted and it turned to be rather a long walk.  Eventually we made it to Otemachi station where we took the train to Shibakoen station.  From there finding our apartment was smooth enough.  I now realise I didn't take any photos in the apartment heh.  Besides it being late and we tired, the place didn't wow us especially after our nice Kyoto hotel.  

Anyway rating of this day: Successful - caught up on all planned sight-seeing for Kyoto (albeit less time for each) and made it to Tokyo!  Pat on back for trip planner.  Oh but I caught the bug from SE and from this day had ongoing blocked nose and cough, also fever twice.