Kawagoe

Last week I went to Kawagoe which was 30 minutes from Ikebukuro, maybe 1 hour from Tokyo station. Its this suburby area of Tokyo which is largely unremarkable except for this one street which has lots of buildings from japan's edo period. There aren't many building from that time still around since they were very supsetible to fire, the ones in Kawagoe only survived because the merchants decided to rebuild using more fire resistant materials after a fire in the early Meiji period.

It was really interesting to stroll down the street and get a picture of everyday live in a different period of Japanese history. There are lots of old temples and things like that around but rarely the kind of buildings that survive in Kawagoe such as shop fronts and warehouses.

This tower is one of the most famous landmarks of Kawagoe.

Kawagoe is also famous for its sweet making industry and I saw lots of places selling Japanese traditional sweets along with western snacks like ice cream. Unfortunately I didn't find the main sweet making street but I did try a few things including a Japanese bean in sweet powder that was very nice.

Kawagoe was really interesting but not very well know. Only one of my three guidebooks even mentioned it. Its a shame that more tourists don't visit it but kind of nice for me as it was nice and peaceful. Great place for an afternoon stroll.

Gakushuin school festival

Around the end of October beginning of November my university Gakushuin had a 3 day school festival. This is apparently normal in both Japanese universities and schools. Most of the clubs and societies of the university had booths or performances ranging from selling some homemade food to a portable planetarium run by the earth sciences club.

We saw this giant dance performance by some kind of hip-hop dance group. It was interesting to watch but dragged on for a bit.

Most of the savory food that was being sold had meat in it so I mostly ate crepes and other sweet things. They were very good though.

Tokyo Bus Tour

The first of my retropspective blog posts. This took place around mid october. The university organized a free bus trip around Tokyo for us. It was with a proper japanese tour company so we had a little yellow flag to follow and an annoying women giving us constant commentary and asking questions such as what is the flower of country.

The first thing we did was a boat trip from asakusa down to a park near Toyko Tower.

We boarded right next to the Golden Poo!




After working through the park we got back on the bus and went for a buffet lunch at a fancy restaurant.


We then went to a factory which made products ranging from make up to bottled green tea. They gave us free green tea and shanpoo. It was pretty good shanpoo too. One of the funniest things about this part was the looks on the guys faces in the beauty products room where you could test the condition of your hair and skin amoung other things.


We ended the trip back in Asakusa where we had some time to walk around look at the shops and temples although this wasn't very interesting for me since I had been there before. And have since been back several times.

Long time no post

Ah I didn't update this in a long time. Even though I've done lots of interesting things. From now on I'll try to update regularly and hopefully make retrospective posts on some of the other things I've done over the last 5 months or so.

For now since its sakura (cherry blossom) season here in Japan, please enjoy this photo of some of the sakura tree near my dawn. Hopefully I will be going to a hanami (cherry blossom viewing party in the next few days but since the blossoms are starting to wither and fall off I don't know how many will be left.

Yokohama

Today I went to Yokohama. (To see the morning musume bunkasai but that’s a matter for another blog.

It was good to see the sea again . And these little crabs kept being washed up on the pavement. One boy was collecting them in a plastic bag.

It may have just been me but Yokohama's port area seemed to give off slightly seedy vibe during the daytime.

But at night it vastly improved.

In the end I only visited the Minato Minai area and didn’t get to go to Yokohama’s famous China town but all in all I liked Yokohama a lot. Nice to get away from Tokyo for a little bit too.

Tokyo Dome City

I went to Tokyo Dome City yesterday but I forgot my camera so no photos. I had Indian food which is always good for a vegetarian. There were lots of interesting shops there too. Like a Thomas the Tank Engine shop (Kathryn) and a Shonen Jump shop (Alice). Afterwards we had some drinks in an odd little imported beer place. It had pumpkin candles and photographs of the UK on the wall. Even one from Edinburgh, the view from Calton Hill.

Harajuku

Last weekend I visited Harajuku. Mainly to see the vegetarian and Indian fairs there but I ended up spending more time visiting the Meiji shrine in Yayogi park.

While I was there, a Shinto wedding ceremony was taking place. The procession had a really ethereal quality, like a procession of spirits. But getting married at Meiji shrine has its downside as you can expect to be photographed by dozens of foreign tourists. (Like me)

After checking out the fairs, I wandered over to Shibuya to engage in more staring at pretty lights.

Also, there was a V6 (Japanese boy band) concert being held in Harajuku so the concentration of young Japanese fan girls was quite overwhelming. The number of ticket scalpers by the station was amusing though.

Sensouji

This evening I went to Sensouji temple in Asakusa.

Leading up to the temple were these cute market stalls with things like souvenirs and snacks but unfortunately they were all closing up as we got there.

The temple itself was very impressive and looked really pretty lit up in the dark.



There were these lanterns everywhere decorated with various illustrations of everything from traditional images to popular anime characters.



Afterwards we ate in a Japanese noodle restaurant. I feel a bit bad though, since everyone walked around looking in restaruant windows for ages to find something vaguely vegetarian I could eat.


In other news I am now a registered foreigner after submitting my application in Ikebukuro earlier today.

Shinjuku

Today I went to Shinjuku.

I spent about the first 15 minutes wandering about the station, one of the biggest in the world trying to find an exit that lead somewhere interesting. I was quite overwhelmed with the scale of the place and aside from looking in one of the department stores, I spent most of my time gawking.

After enduring the heat and crowds for a while I decided to go to the nearby Shinjuku Gyoen park which is a very peaceful and relaxing place. I really liked the way the traditional Japanese garden areas contrasting with the skyscrapers behind them.

There were also some interesting wildlife in the park including this turtle,

These odd looking spiders which made giant webs, are these common in Japan? I hope not......

And there were parrot like birds living in the trees which I believe are descended from escaped pets.

After the park closed, I went back into Shinjuku to look at the lights. For me this was a must see aspect of Tokyo. Although the streets filled with Pachinko parlours and porn shops seemed much more seedy at night.