Japan Day 5

Today we took a walking tour that Dave found and booked online. It's called "The hidden/local sites and off-the-beaten tracks in Tokyo".

It's a 6 hour walking tour for a small group of up to 6 people. We met our tour guide in the lobby of our hotel at 10am. From there we went via train to our first stop of Yanaka which is a little neighbourhood near Ueno. We got to walk around this gorgeous neighbourhood looking at the older Japanese architecture, little shopping alleys, small temples and shrines and we visited Yanaka cemetery which is famous for cherry blossom trees and is the resting place of the last Shogun of the Edo period.

The main street of Yanaka with many small shops

The little alleys have lots of little shops and restaurants. It is an old style building with a wooden roof

Sembei shop - rice crackers... yummm. This shop sells many different flavours.

We watched the man make the rice crackers... He would pull them out of the oven and turn them and baste them with seasoning.

One of the small temples we saw. There is a large buddha inside. Yanaka is one of the few places left in Tokyo with small temples and shrines around. Most of the other bigger neighbourhoods have just one big temple and shrine rather than a few smaller ones.

Yanaka Cemetery is the resting place of the last Shogun (Tokigawa Yoshinobu) of Japan. In 1867, the rule of the Shoguns came to an end as power and governance was handed back to the Emperor of Japan.

The Yanaka Cemetery has beautiful cherry blossom trees. During Spring, these trees flower and many people come to admire them.

Kagurazaka

After Yanaka, we travelled to Kagurazaka. This area is filled with cobbled and narrow passageways.
It is an area known for Geishas. We were not to see any during the day but we checked out all the little restaurants lining the passageways in Kagurazaka. The area is designed so that it provided anonymity and some discretion for its visitors. Business men and politicians may come to this area to entertain clients or guests and have companionship and entertainment with Geishas.

The Geisha training school

 We took a break for lunch and dined at a restaurant along the main road in the Kagurazaka area.

Our bento lunch with our tour guide Monami (I think that's right)

After lunch, we took a half hour ride to Shiodome which is in a business district. From there we rode the lift of a tall building to see a view of the Tokyo river. Looking down, we could see Tsukiji markets and also some of the bridges linking the mainland to the island of reclaimed land (Tsukishima - Moon Island). We saw the rainbow bridge but it was not lit up because it was still daylight. I think that this part of the tour could have been missed because a half hour ride for the view hardly seemed worth it...

The view from Caretta Shiodome. You can see the Tsukiji fish markets and across the river is Moon Island - Tsukishima

We returned to our hotel after visiting Shiodome. After a half hour rest we set out for Shinjuku were I had arranged to catch up with an old school friend for dinner. 

Shinjuku is like another city on the western side of Tokyo. Near the station there is a shopping area with a lot of neon signs. We didn't explore much as we were trying to find the restaurant my friend Yumi booked for our dinner catchup.

After dinner we made our way to another area closeby named Shibuya. This has the intersection that boasts the Shibuya crossing - the rumoured world's busiest intersection aka 'The Scramble'. We took our obligatory photos at the crossing.

Old school friends

Yummm dessert... green tea sponge roll