Tokyo Part Ni

When we last left our brave heroine, she had just gone to bed after her first full day in Tokyo.  We set our alarm for 7:30 the next morning, and things began poorly when the alarm didn't actually go off and we woke up around 8:30.  No biggie since we didn't have anything scheduled for the day, but we were starting off later than expected which was not such good news for all of our plans.

In front of the Tokyo SkyTree that is still in the process of being built.  It's gonna be freaking tall.

We decided to shuffle things around in an attempt to still fit everything in, and headed to Asakusa to go to the Hotel Okura for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony.  Except that the Hotel Okura isn't in Asakusa.  First mistake.  We'll take the blame for that one.  At this point it was already around 11, so we decided to reshuffle our plans and start the day with the Sumida River boat cruise from Asakusa to the Hama Rikyu Gardens.  That's all well and good except that our tour books only explained how to get to the boat tour going from the gardens to Asakusa.  We found a street map that seemed to indicate where the cruise began, so we just made our way down to the river and hunted for any signs of a cruise.

We did eventually find it, and boarded for the 40 minute ride through downtown Tokyo.  It was a nice way to see the city, and even nicer to have 40 whole minutes of not trying to figure out where we were going.  By the time we made it to the gardens, it was close to one o'clock, and we were starving, having only been able to find some pretty bad coffee shop pastries that morning, but we were still trying to make the tea ceremony before they closed for the day, so we strolled through the garden and then began our hunt.

And we hunted, hunted, and hunted.  We still don't know how it happened, and would love to place the blame on the map, but we later discovered that all of that walking and searching we did was in the wrong direction.

Tip #1:  BRING A COMPASS!!!  There are tons of maps of the city at train stations and in hotels, but the vast majority of them give you no indication of which way is north.  It's possible to orient yourself using landmarks or street names if you can find a damn street sign, but it's a rare day in Tokyo when you can figure out what street you're on.  Our little compass saved us much heartache when we actually remembered to bring it with us.

A lovely girl in traditional garb who was kind enough to be strolling through the Hama Rikyu garden at the same time as us.

Finally, virtually ready to pass out from starvation and exhaustion, we cried uncle around 3:30 and ducked into yet another coffee shop just to put something into our stomachs.  While we were there, we had our first experience with the friendliness of the Japanese.  While Nicole was in the bathroom, I was consulting my guidebook in the hopes that it would suddenly and magically provide some sort of helpful directions, and an adorable older Japanese gentleman struck up a conversation with me.  We ended up chatting with him and his wife for over 30 minutes, and when they found out that we were heading to Roppongi for the evening, they insisted on walking us to the train station. 

View of the Tokyo Tower from Roppongi Hills.  You can see that tower from everywhere!

And then, once we got to the station, they realized they had brought us to the wrong one!!  Even lifelong residents of the city can't get around!  They consulted the station map and we checked our metro book and we discovered that we could still make a connection and get where we needed to go.  They went to our first stop with us, got us on the correct train and then we parted ways.  It was a really lovely moment in a pretty crap day!

Roppongi Hills is a giant shopping, office, restaurant, museum complex in Roppongi that we were interested in checking out for its shopping.  It ended up being a pretty swanky joint, so we mostly window shopped, but I was able to find a few little souvenir items.  Once we had wandered for a while, we went to Paddy Foley's for dinner.  It was one of the most recommended restaurants between our friends and guide books, and it was pretty tasty, though much quieter than we'd expected.  In what became the trend for the trip, we were utterly exhausted after dinner around 9, and just decided to make our way back to the hotel to crash.

The next morning, we called the Hotel Okura and got very specific walking directions from the subway stop we were planning to use.  Once we exited into the sunshine from the depths of Tokyo, we began the hunt.  And once more hunted, and hunted and hunted.  We really, really wanted to do that stupid tea ceremony, or we would have given up much earlier.  Instead, we pulled over to the side of the walkway, pulled out our compass, all of our maps and began searching for street names.  When that didn't work, we attempted to match up the street shapes on our map that had the Hotel Okura marked with a map that we recognized where we were on it.  At this point, we realized that they had told us to turn right at the big building (you know, the ONE big building in Tokyo), when we should have turned left.

  So, we packed up our navigation tools, and began to trudge in the opposite direction.  And we hunted and hunted and hunted.  We pulled over once more once we hit the end of the next street, and I think sensing our utter confusion and desperation, and nice policeman approached us, and at last pointed us in the correct direction.

 

Once we got there, it all ended up being so worth it.  The tea ceremony room was cool and quiet.  Our hostess was gentle and serene.  The sound of trickling water and the view of the Japanese rooftop garden, soothed the angry beast that had taken up residence in my body.  The ceremony was a beautiful and soothing experience, each action and subtle movement loaded with meaning.  We experienced two ceremonies, the first a very old and traditional one including Japanese sweets and matcha--a thick, whisked powdered green tea drunk from a bowl--and the second a more relaxed experience on a tatami mat floored tea room with a steeped green tea.

Tokyo National Museum

Torii gates leading to a shrine in Ueno Park.

Once the ceremony was over, we made our way to Ueno Park to spend the afternoon in the Tokyo National Museum.  I highly recommend this museum--there was a fair amount of explanation in English and it gave a very good overview of Japanese history, religion, art, culture and more.  It was a really beautiful museum in a lovely park setting.

After the museum, we strolled through the garden, checking out a few of the shrines along the way.  When dusk started to fall, we noticed a number of homeless people were setting up a tent city amongst the trees of the park.  Up until this point, we had actually noted the lack of homeless people and beggars on the street.  It seems as though a lot of them take up residence in Ueno Park at night though.  It makes me curious about what the city does with these folks as you rarely see them during the day, and it didn't seem like there were all that many of them in the park.

For dinner we headed to Ebisu, to the really lovely Yebisu Place Garden.  This was another complex similar to Roppongi Hills, except instead of tall skyscrapers, there were a number of charming buildings spread out around various squares and gardens.  We ate at a surprisingly delicious Italian restaurant and then went back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our very early morning departure to Kyoto the next day.

Comments

[The Incubator]

I'm exhausted from all the walking, and when commenting about something to the "Old Warrior" just now I couldn't say an "l", so I have apparently spent an extreme amount of time in Japan lately:)