Part 6 - Tokyo, Nikko, and Toyama
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Arriving in Tokyo on a rainy Sunday evening, my main focus was finding something to eat and having a good night’s sleep (at this point in the trip, I’m starting to wear down a little bit...I’ve been busy!). My hotel was in Shinjuku - a very popular and crazy neighborhood in Tokyo. Every night - but especially Sunday night - the streets are packed...neon signs everywhere...just sensory overload! Not exactly what I was looking for at that exact moment. That’s when I turned a corner and happened to look down a little path in the middle of this bustling metropolis when I came upon this sight of a lady getting some photos taken in a temple area. It was so unexpected and nice, I had to sneak a quick shot!
The next day, I took a train to Nikko - a city somewhat near Tokyo famous for its shrines and temples. There was this cool bridge - the Shinkyo Bridge.
I loved this dragon fountain. That’s one awesome dragon!
There are many very important temples in the Nikko area. This is a very important area for Buddhist and Shinto worship. Looking at a Google Maps view of the area (and yes, I wore Google Maps out on this trip) shows a scary site. Just as a church has a cross symbol and a synagogue has a Star of David, the Buddhist temples are marked with a swastika - it’s not at a 45 degree angle like the Nazi’s used, but still...something you don’t see every day.
Neat thing.
The highlight of Nikko was the Toshogu Shrine. This is a crazily decorated shrine. THe detail work was spectacular to look at.
They went all out on this shrine. It serves as the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate.
That’s a sweet fish you’re riding there dude! Strangely, this is the first of two photos of a person riding a fish in this album...
They had some people taking pictures of you in front of the shrine. They were trying to get you to buy their version, but they’d still take a photo with your camera as well...doesn’t seem like a tremendous business plan. Suffice it to say, I did not purchase the 1,000 yen version ($10)
Cool Torii
I am very disappointed to report that I did not get to see or fight any monkeys on this trip.
After seeing the temples and shrines, I took a bus up a mountain to see the beautiful Lake Chuzenjiko. I had seen some great pictures on the lake and waterfalls in the area and was pumped to check them out. One problem though...it’s was a tad foggy. At one point I was very close to a very impressive sounding waterfall. I couldn’t see a lick of it, but it sounded cool. Sort of a bummer, but you win some - you lose some! This won’t be the last time I’m foiled by fog on this trip...
When I’m riding trains, I often make the time pass by trying to figure out what the advertisement is selling. I might need to sign up for this “Cute Pose Lesson” to help spice up my selfies!
That night, I wandered by Tokyo Tower. It’s inspired *cough* copied *cough* by the Eiffel Tower. They painted it white and international orange for air safety reasons. It’s a cool looking tower that has a very different effect from the actual Eiffel tower. In Paris, there aren’t a ton of tall buildings, so the Eiffel Tower dominates the sky. In Tokyo, there are quite a few tall buildings so you just get glimpses of the Tokyo Tower. It’s a pretty thing.
I had hoped that this old vs. new shot had turned out better, but alas, it was sort of late at night. It does a decent job showing the tower though. You can go up to an observation deck, but I decided against it - I’ve been to the SkyTree (a much taller tower) and frankly didn’t feel like spending the money.
On the way back to my hotel, I dropped by Shibuya. If you’ve seen videos of Japan, you’ve likely seen the Shibuya crossing - a huge road crossing with tons of people. One very famous landmark right next to the train station is the statue for Hatchiko - a dog that kept returning to the station to meet its master, even after the master had died. The loyalty it displayed greatly impressed the Japanese people. It’s now a very popular meeting spot.
Shibuya Crossing
This is the Yamanote Line - this train line simply circles Tokyo and it can be a bit nuts at times. Trains are how Tokyo runs. The station I stayed near (Shinjuku Station) is the train station with the highest number of passengers passing through it - 1.26 BILLION people a year. For reference, the busiest station in the US (Penn Station) carries 107 million people per year. If you want to have fun, try taking a heavily loaded suitcase on one of these trains during the morning rush hour...great fun!
The next day I had a light day - as I was completely pooped. I did a little museum hopping and hung out in an entertainment district. I checked out the Tokyo National Museum. This day was the first day of a new special exhibit “Three Kingdoms: Unveiling the Story”. It was all about the Chinese drama after the Han Dynasty broke up after 220. The next eight years featured three kingdoms vying for control of China. The exhibit had a bunch of very important Chinese artifacts from the 200’s (that’s hard to imagine how long ago this was!).
One of the reasons for the popularity of the Three Kingdoms time was that the time has been written about heavily, including manga dramatizing many of the actual events. They had some original copies of the comics to see.
Cool old crossbow.
I went to the nearby science museum. I’m always a sucker for a good science museum! I had been here before but it was fun to come back to visit. One of my favorite pieces was a feature of different types of measurements featuring interactive explanations of the seven fundamental units in Physics. They even had an old kilogram and meter standard!
I then subway’ed over to Akasaka - they have a cool outdoor shopping area where I got some delicious treats (I wish I could say this was the only place I got delicious treats...fortunately/unfortunately, I found delicious treats at almost every stop! Diet starts soon!)
Cool thing in Akasaka
From Akasaka, I took a boat ride down a river. One famous sight of Japan is this statue (with the SkyTree in the background). It’s supposed to be a flame on top of a beer mug (the building is the Asahi Beer Hall). No one thinks its a flame...it’s definitely a golden poop (an actual Japanese symbol for good luck, called Kin No Unko)
I took the boat down to the entertainment island of Odaiba. I’d been here before, but I was just looking for a nice comfortable spot to spend an evening. It was mostly safe due to the Gundam guarding one of the malls.
Dusk falling over Tokyo. This bridge is a very famous on in Japan, called the “Rainbow Bridge”. Now, if you are anything like me...this name seems a little odd - it’s a white as can be, not exactly a rainbow. Turns out, during December they light up the bridge in multiple colors...hence the name. Certainly would be something cool to see. You can also see the Tokyo Tower in the background.
Upon returning to Shinjuku that night, I took a bit of a detour and went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. This city-owned skyscraper has an observatory that’s (be still my beating heart) FREE! I went to the top and saw the city of Tokyo at night. This picture is highlighted by airplanes lined up to land at one of the airports, Haneda (the place I’d fly out of two days hence).
Nice view of the town. Shinjuku station is bottom left and Tokyo Tower can sort of be seen a little to the right.
The next day, I travelled up to the mountains on the north coast of Japan. I followed a popular path called the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route utilizing many forms of transportation to move through the mountains of Japan. In total I took a train, slower train, inclined railway, bus, tunnel trolley bus (which they were very excited about, but seemed like a normal electric bus to me), ropeway (cablecar), walk across a dam, bus through a mountain, another bus, and finally a train. The journey had some great views.
At the top of one of the mountains, we stopped at a place called Murodo. This is a spot at 3000m high that has some incredible views of the surrounding mountains. Tremendous views, that is, if it isn’t totally covered in fog. There were some area closed off because the volcanic vents were pumping out a little too much gas. Smelled a little like rotting eggs. Probably a nice place for hot springs.
There were a few nice views when the clouds (that we were firmly in the middle of) broke for a moment.
This would probably be an incredible reflection shot...alas!
I had planned on doing a hike to the top of a mountain (you can see the path in this photo). Since all I would see is more fog, and the snow was tough to move on - I decided against it.
In spring, this spot features snow walls nearly 20 meters high (that’s a five story building!). Of course, by July - most of the snow has melted. It’s a very popular thing to check out in late April!
Beautiful views as we descended below the clouds down to the Kurobe Dam.
Final crazy bit of transport.
The Kurobe Dam is the tallest dam in Japan. The scale of this thing is hard to get your head around. It takes about 10 minutes at a good pace to walk across the top of the dam! The dam also shoots out two massive plumes of water.
It’d be sort of fun (and terrifying) to climb down the ladders mounted into the structure.
There was even a dam museum!
The amount of water shooting out was hard to fathom. I sure hope it’s intentional...
On the way back, I stopped by the town of Matsumoto. As the alternative was to pack for my flight home, I had a bit of an explore. This is the Matsumoto Castle.
Another artsy view of the Matsumoto Castle.
I was heading back to the station as I did need to catch a train back to Tokyo (I’m nowhere near Tokyo at this point!) when I saw a bunch of stuff happening down the road. Turns out that there was this random little festival happening on a Wednesday night at temple/shrine/something. Not sure what was going on, but I did check it out (and had some fun Japanese festival food! It seemed to be some sort of children’s festival (as there were a ton of little kids, including some in traditional kimonos - quite cute!).
Shinjuku. It’s packed with people pretty much every night. Thankfully, my hotel was a block or two away from the total craziness.
Cool looking dam.
Thursday was my final day of my ridiculous Summer Trip. I was to fly out at 4pm or so. I decided to go to a local aquarium that I read some good things about and was close to a station nearby the airport. The Aqua Park had a neat jellyfish exhibit.
