Before we get into Day 4, I want to talk toilets. Japan is known for having fancy toilets, but how fancy? Here are the hotels I stayed at, in order:
The hotels got progressively better during the trip, but our Toto S550E at home outperforms the average hotel toilet in Japan (n=3). I will say that every hotel I’ve ever stayed at anywhere in the world (with the sole exception being the Lake Nona Wave Hotel ) has toilets worse than the worst Japanese toilet. Moving on…
Day 4
Today I wanted to explore other parts of Tokyo. I set my sights on Meiji Shrine , since it was in a different “neighborhood” / city, and it would take me to Shibuya. You possibly know Shibuya this famous crossing:
But before heading in that direction, I wanted to check out Asakusa Underground , which I was made aware of the night before. The description made it sound cyberpunk as hell, but it ended up being underwhelming and a little depressing . No big loss, though, as it’s at the subway station I needed to be at anyway. The train ride from Asakusa to Shibuya took about an hour (that orange line) on an efficient subway line.
This is when I started to get an appreciation for how massive Tokyo is! I did the obligatory walk across the Shibuya Scramble Crossing and then wandered around a bit, soaking up the culture. It’s busy and noisy, so I just kind of meandered through the shopping area in the direction of the temple, which took around half an hour.
Outside the entrance to the temple there’s a little cafe called CAFÉ Mori no Terrace I paused at to have a coffee, warm up from the chilly walk, and to people watch, after which I made my way into the park.
There was even this one area with a few restaurants that reminded me very much of Northern California and made me a bit ‘homesick’ for that old life:
After my time at the park and the temple, I hopped the subway and made my way back to Asakusa. Again I had sushi at the restaurant across from my hotel, wandered the neighborhood for a bit, then called it an early night. Tomorrow: taking the train to Kamakura, plus a snow storm!