Welcome to Japan, and back to Winter. Having recently enjoyed the 30+ degrees average temperature in Australia, the single digit and minus temperatures here certainly felt very cold, and hence the hat, scarfs and gloves were unpacked from our rucksacks for the first time.
Tokyo:
Our first stop was the Tokyo Skytree, opened in May 2012 it is certainly attracting lots of visitors to its 350m high observation deck. You have a 360 degree view over Tokyo, and for the brave even a look down to the shopping center of Solamachi below.
In the shopping center below for fans there is a large Hello Kitty store…
Next was on to Ginza and the Ginza Yonchome Intersection, where you will also find the Sony Building with its 4 floors of showrooms showing the latest in mobile phones, cameras, TV’s and perhaps the future of 3D home cinema ???
In the Tokyo Metropolitan Edo-Tokyo Museum you can find large-scale and small-scale models of Tokyo and some of its buildings from the Edo era
Next door to the museum is the Sumo tournament location of Ryogoku Kokugikan, where the January tournament is currently taking place. We are not sure who he is, but he received a big round of applause from the waiting crowd. What was more surprising was many of the sumo contestants were arriving by metro.
enjoying a beer in the Irish/English pub where you still will not find someone who can speak English 😉
The Kanda Myojin Shrine
Kyoto:
First stop on our city hopping adventure was Kyoto. We were taking the Shinkansen or “bullet trains” which had a good view to mount Fuji on route. We had purchased the JR Rail tickets in advance, which allows non resident visitors to travel on certain trains within Japan. You do need to make a seat reservation for each of the trains though. We would recommend planning which train and time you would like to take first and noting down before going to the ticket office as English is not commonly spoken by the staff.
Kyoto is the former imperial capital of Japan and has many shrines and temples and castles listed as world heritage sites by UNESCO.
We visited the Nijo Castle, the Imperial Palace (well the outside of it as it is only open 2 days a year), the Heian Jingu Shrine and Chionin Temple
Hiroshima:
On August 6th 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on a city, killing almost 200,000 people. The center of the destroyed town has been turned into a war memorial garden, with a very good museum on the effects of the bomb on the people of Hiroshima.
The Commercial Exhibition Hall built in 1914 was one of the few buildings to survive the bombing and has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. Now referred to as the A-bomb dome it serves as a reminder of the destructive force the bomb had
We also visited Hiroshima castle rebuilt in the 1950’s here you can dress up as either a samurai warrior or in other traditional Japanese clothes
Osaka:
We had a quick stop in Osaka between trains, there is not too much to do here, so we visited one museum before taking the train back to Tokyo.
Next stop Hawaii 25 degrees 🙂
Round the World 2012 / 2013 