First few days in Tokyo, Japan

On Friday 9th December we flew from Hong Kong to Singapore, arriving in the evening. You don't even need to leave the airport in order to experience the marvellous feat of engineering that is the Japanese toilet... I grew to LOVE the heated toilet seats!

We were in Japan for three and a half weeks, so our first mission in the airport was to get sorted with some local currency, closely followed by sorting local sim cards for our phones. Then we were ready to tackle the public transport system to get to our Airbnb apartment in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. 

Luckily our host had provided us with excellent instructions, enabling us to comfortably negotiate the three different trains needed to get us from the airport to our accommodation. He also provided us with a step by step photo guide of how to locate the apartment from the nearest train station (which was approximately 5 minutes walk away). This was a good thing, as street signs and numbers didn't seem to exist (and even if we could find them, we wouldn't be able to read them...).

The apartment was great (which was just as well, since we had booked it for 8 nights!). Like most places in Japan it was compact, but had everything we needed. The host was very sweet and had left us a few welcome treats, as well as little touches like two clocks on the wall, one set to local time and the other to NZ time. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it had been a good nine months or so since I'd been running on NZ time! 

We had arrived near the start of winter in Japan, but the temperatures were reasonably mild. We soon realised that you didn't need to go more than a couple of hundred metres before coming across vending machines. However, the most exciting thing about these vending machines was that they sold both cold and hot drinks. The ones with a blue label in the pic above are cold, whereas the red label indicates a hot drink. Not being a tea or coffee drinker, Will was also pretty excited when he discovered that a couple of different companies stocked hot chocolate in their machines!   

We spent the next few days exploring our local area, mostly on foot. We did pass through Shinjuku Railway station on a few occasions which was always an experience, being the busiest railway station in the world! Luckily we managed to avoid rush hour and didn't have to experience any train stuffing...

One outing took us to Takeshita Street in Harajuku, known as a fashion mecca and hot-bed of Japanese sub-culture. If I ever feel the need for tiaras, cutesy hair accessories and even cuter rabbit onesies, I now know where to go...

The crepe selection was also rather impressive, even if the plastic 'models' are a bit disconcerting.

A short walk from the Harajuku train station was Yoyogi Park which we had a pleasant time wandering around.

We had arrived a few weeks too late, but there was still some pretty autumn colour around.

Below is a shrine dedicated to saki. It is made up of straw-covered saki barrels.

In the centre of the park is Meiji Jingu which is a well-known Shinto shrine. It had an amazing copper roof, especially one section which had recently been restored.

A couple more pics to finish, just as the sun was starting to set.

Another excursion took us to Shibuya where we did the 'Shibuya Scramble' ie. crossed the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. There is another, more arty take on it here which is pretty cool.

I think Japan does the cutest little fire engines.

I'm not as big a fan of Japanese food as Will is, but I do love ramen and dumplings, so the feast below was right up my alley... Will loves raw fish, whereas I'm not much of a fan. There is also a LOT of tofu in Japan which I don't like much.

We found an excellent supermarket close to our apartment which we frequented often. The mushroom selection is a bit more extensive than it is in New Zealand!

So, that sums up our first few days in Japan, a very very interesting country to visit.