The Crazy Capital - Tokyo!

With my body still aching, I made my way to Tokyo. I decided that the first place I should visit should be the Imperial Palace but you can barely see any of it, except the forts on the edge of the moat. I went and visited a couple of shrines in the north of the city - Yushima-seido and Kanda Myojin before visiting the Nikolai Cathedral - the first cathedral in Japan. I finished off the day with a tour of Ueno park.

The next morning, I met up with Mary, Lee and Samira from my hostel at 4:45am and we made our way to the Tokyo Fish Market. I'm not a big fan of fish and this was an overkill on the senses! We watched the auctioneer selling off giant frozen tuna which was fascinating! Then we decided to go and get breakfast - sushi of course! It was very surreal at 7:30am! But it was the nicest sushi that I have tasted!

I then go on the train to Nikko, a town 2 hours north of Tokyo. That afternoon I went to see the Shinkyo Sacred Bridge - an old bridge that crosses the river and makes you walk back to the same side that you came from! The river was an impressive rapid though!

The next day I walked around the world heritage site and saw 5 shrines - the Rinnoji Temple (Sanbutsudo), Toshogu shrine, Yakusido, Futarasan temple and the Rinnoji Temple (Taiyuin). The most impressive of these was Yakusido - it has a painting of a dragon on the ceiling and a monk showed us how to make the dragon 'roar' (by clapping two blocks together directly underneath its mouth - anywhere else didn't work!) Later on I made my way back to Tokyo.

I wandered around Shibuya area and saw the statue of Hachi-ko dog - who followed his master to work every day and even did the same walk after he'd died. The city apparently fell in love with the dog and made him a statue when he died! Then I went to Omotesando - the home of every fashion designer shop! I did allow myself to wander around various shops but left pretty quickly when I saw Luis Vuitton purses at extortionate prices!!! I also saw the Meiji Jingu shrine.

The next day I went to Asakusa and saw the Sensoji Temple. To get to it, you have to walk through a market place which sold every type of tourist tat that you'd need. Some of the silk garments were pretty though! I also went to Rappongi Hills and visited the Mori Art Museum, which had an exhibition about an architect who created some very ugly looking buildings! In the same building was also the Sky Aquarium (on the 53rd floor) which had lots of types of fish including some very small Nemo's. It also gave you great views of the city, including the Tokyo Tower (a larger version of the Eiffel Tower), which I went and visited.

On my last day in Japan, I had to go & collect my Mongolian visa so Mary and I headed over to their consulate in Shibuya. That night, I stayed awake, chatting to people in the hostel who couldn't sleep and finally headed off to the airport at 4am so that I could get my flight to China!