Japan Day 6 - More Tokyo

Monday, 1 January 2024

Jon and Jett got up early to run to, then loop around, the outside of the Imperial Palace Gardens this morning. It was about 12k return from our apartment - too long for me on pavements so I enjoyed sleeping in instead. 

When they returned we had a leisurely breakfast and went back out to Shibuya to exchange a t-shirt that was mistakenly bought in the wrong size the day before. We decided to combine this with a trip to a sushi train nearby then another wander up and down the streets an alleys in that area.

We took the metro home then spent a few hours relaxing and working out some logistics for the next few days. At 5 we went out to the Senso-Ji temple area which was very pretty and really buzzing with people and food stalls.

A popular thing to do was to get your fortune for the new year - so at the hefty cost of $1 Zali and Jon shook a little metal box to see what number came out, then they could take their pre-printed fortune from 1 of 100 little drawers.  

After this we wandered over a few bridges and went to the Tokyo Skytree - which is a big Sydney Centrepoint style tower with no other purpose than being a tall tower.  

It was pretty cool but too busy to really soak up the view - it was hard to even get to the windows in some parts.  Nevertheless the views from 450metres high over the city were pretty and made a nice contrast to what we'd seen the day before in daylight from the Shibuya Skytower.  Unfortunately my photos are all blurry:

We are now ringing in the new year by watching Japan's famous NYE singing contest on TV.