Japan: Tokyo - returning to the vibrant capital

From Hiroshima, we returned to the vibrant and exuberant Tokyo by Shinkansen in a little more than 5h.

We were still amazed by the speed of this train that can cross the country so fast. Apart from the pressure on our noses and ears, we had a great ride in this bullet train.

But once in Tokyo station, we immediately felt overwhelmed by the amount of people, noise and signs everywhere.

It was a relief just to go outside!

Our hotel was in Ginza on the east side of the metropolis. It's the place where all the big brands are located, a little bit like the Champs Élysées but without the Arc de Triomphe. It is even more obvious during the evening when all the displays are lit up, or during weekend afternoons when the roads are closed and people can just enjoy the space.

They don't have an Arc de Triomphe but they do have their Eiffel tower, the iconic red and white Tokyo tower 🗼. It has been the emblem of Tokyo for as long as I can remember. Nowadays, it is a little bit overshadowed by the buildings built all around it but it was still awesome to see it at night, like a flame lighting up the dark.

North of Ginza, there is another area of Tokyo which is also well known: Akihabara or the dreamland of the Otaku. An Otaku is a person who is obsessed with electronics, computer games or manga/anime/comics - think Sheldon Cooper in the "Big Bang Theory". In Akihabara, one can find any toy, figurine, video game, costume or book of their most beloved series, any component for their phones or computers, and even rice cookers or Japanese toilets in the Yodobashi mall. It was overwhelming to see all of this in one place, but at the same time exciting as I know a little bit about this world. It was especially exciting when we saw people in costumes driving around like a real life Mario Kart race in the middle of Tokyo (too fast for me to take a photo, sorry!). 

Also in Akihabara, we went to experience a maid cafe, one of the weirdest things you have to do while in Japan.

We were welcomed by the strident voices of 4 Japanese women wearing maid costumes and cat ears, enticing us to call them using the Japanese version of meow, which is Niaw Niaw! 😹

They also invited us to bless your drinks or desserts with a hand heart gesture - like the Bisounours / Care Bears from my childhood. No pictures of them were allowed unless you paid a fee and there was a steep cover charge of 880 JPY/pax, but that paid for a sexy techno dance by one of the maids. It was a weird but interesting experience.

Continuing north east from Akihabara, we arrived at another main tourist area of Tokyo, Asakusa.

It is a very lively and crowded neighborhood with a lot of shops and restaurants, but it still retains some aspects of the older Tokyo, like Gion in Kyoto. Here as well, there were a lot of people wearing kimonos visiting the main attraction, the Senso-ji temple.

To get to the temple, you go through a narrow street of 1-storey shops with cherry tree branches hung on top. The view of the temple from this street makes it a perfect spot for photos, which also means it's extremely crowded.

The red Senso-ji temple by day or by night is awesome to look at with its big red lantern and 5-storey pagoda next to it. During the night, it is even more impressive as the lights highlight the temple, and is far less crowded.

Not far from Senso-ji temple, we could see the Tokyo Skytree, the highest free standing tower in the world with a height of 606m, and the fifth highest man made structure, after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Merdeka118 in Kuala Lumpur. At night, it changes color reminding us of our beloved CN tower.

That's it for now but we haven't finished our Tokyo tour just yet!