Early Arrival in Tokyo
QF25 is slightly delayed leaving Sydney for Tokyo, but only 10 minutes late landing at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo at 05:25am. 6 full days in Tokyo with a series of day trips means hand luggage only. I’ve withdrawn yen at the international ATM near the Monorail ticket machines, recharged my Pasmo card, caught the Keikyu line train to Shinagawa and arrived at the reception desk at The Strings hotel by 6.30am. Japanese efficiency in action! The exit barriers at Shinagawa station doesn’t like my Pasmo card, which is a warning for things to come later in the day.
There are people up and about, but very it’s quiet at Shinagawa, and too early to collect my Japan Rail Pass, so an early gym session on the elliptical trainer and some stretching and a shower has me ready for breakfast at The City Bakery, which is the only café open at Shinagawa station at 8am on a Saturday.
Exchanging the Japan Rail voucher for the pass is easy – it’s yet another form to fill out though, which is cut and laminated onto the pass which is the size of a small greeting card. The first time you present it at the manned windows to the side of the barriers to enter the station concourse, the official will stamp it for you. Likewise, at the first Shinkansen seat reservation, the ticket agent will stamp the pass, and each time a reserved seat is issued.
Around Daikanyama
It’s a beautiful sunny day heading to 21 degrees Celsius, with a cool breeze in places. I decide to ease myself into Tokyo with some wandering around an area that I haven’t been to before, but which I’ve heard has some French influences. It means taking a JR line train to Ebisu, which is only two stops away from Shinagawa, but requires a train change at Osaki for the fastest route. It’s still quiet at 10am – Tokyo is still waking up on Saturday morning. At Ebisu I leave the station and head in the direction of an interesting looking street, with no plan other than to wander and see what I find.
It’s an interesting area, low density housing with a range of small specialist shops. It becomes evident that it’s an ex-pat area, with many English language signs in shop windows. As I’m wandering along Komazawa-dori Avenue, I spot an interesting building in the distance with a big silver pipe running from the top of the building and down the side. It looks like a old converted substation or industrial building, so I head up the hill to check it out.
This takes me on to Kyu Yamate-dori Avenue, in the heart of Daikanyama. The converted building is Le Cordon Bleu Tokyo! This is indeed a French-influenced area of Tokyo, with many French brands represented, including Petite Bateau and Bonpointe. In addition to Le Cordon Bleu (which has an on-site café), Paul Bocuse also has a basement restaurant nearby. It is also an embassy area, with the Egyptian, Malaysian and Royal Danish embassies in close proximity. Wedding function venues also dot the street, with one very elaborate church and reception centre called the Arkangel, and a modernist chateau-looking building further down the street preparing for the day’s weddings. Like most streets, a derelict building with a yard overgrown with weeds stands out – it’s a large block and must be worth a mint as an apartment development.
It is also home to Saigoyama Park, devoid of English language signs, but home to some late-blooming Cherry Blossom trees. It’s a popular local park for dog walkers, and the primped, dressed, and pram transported toy poodles that like to parade down Kyu Yamato-dori Avenue.
The area near Daikanyama station is a pleasant area to wander around, with plenty of window shopping opportunities. A local dance school is teaching Hawaiian dancing to students on their 1st-floor balcony, taking advantage of the lovely spring day. In the same street, I find an example of multi-story parking at it’s best, with a van parked on a lift above several motorbikes. I resist the urge to press the ‘down’ button and keep walking.
By 2pm I’ve racked up 20,000 steps for the day already, and head to Daikanyama station to return to the hotel. It’s at this point my Pasmo refuses to let me past the barriers. It’s been working fine paying for food and drinks, but even the ticket machines don’t recognise it. A fleeting message regarding ‘admission’ appears on the screen but disappears faster than I can read it. This is the Toyoko line train and the JR Pass is not valid on it, so I end up buying a ticket for 130 yen that will get me to Shinjuku, from where I can get on a JR Line back to Shinagawa.
After some Googling on the train platform, I realise that the error message at the station barriers this morning was that I had ‘exited’ through the wrong set of barriers, which meant that my Pasmo was effectively preventing me from further travel on transport until it was rectified. This involves presenting it to the train officials at the manned windows where you show them your JR Pass entering and exiting the station. The helpful staff at Shinjuku deleted the transaction that was effectively ‘pending’ on the card, and all should now be good. The Pasmo/Suica system is fantastic, but this is a real ‘undocumented feature’ that should be solved. I’ve been through the barriers at Shinagawa many times now, and I still can’t work out what went wrong this morning. Anyway, now I know how to get it fixed, so all good!
Tokyo train stations are something to behold really. The train stations have pretty much all you need in them – food, drink, coffee, clothes, flowers, gifts etc. Shinagawa station alone has a NewDays convenience store, a Dean & Deluca café/deli, the City Bakery, an Atre department store that has an ‘American pharmacy’, a Blue Bottle coffee shop, a food court with a Guzman y Gomez, a bar, another bakery upstairs, and a few restaurants. Inside the station barriers, there is a food-oriented store called Ecute, that has yet another two bakeries, flowers, and at least 50 small stylish food and drink vendors selling everything from chocolate, cakes, sushi, onigiri, donuts, ice cream and pretty much anything else. It’s onigiri for lunch, sold in a takeaway container with utensils, perfect for lunch on the go.
Shinjuku
Sunset is just after 6 pm at the moment, so for the last few hours of daylight, I head to Shinjuku Gyoen Park. It’s an easy walk from Yoyogi station, but the JR Line is very busy at 3 pm, so it’s standing room only the whole way.
It’s 500 yen to enter Shinjuku Gyoen, payable at automated machines or the manned ticket window, I’d heard that there were some late-blooming cherry blossom trees here, but there are less than 5, although two or three of them are in picturesque settings along the bridges of the ornamental lake, which is well-stocked with koi.
It’s a nice garden to wander around with some long shady paths around the outskirts, and some interesting derelict glasshouses hidden behind fences. It’s a busy, touristy park, and ultimately I prefer Yoyogi park which is free entry other than the formal gardens, and surprising for it’s old growth forest – a cool oasis in the centre of Tokyo.
I also realised this morning that despite having a second lightning cable and the SD camera connection for my iPad in my hand yesterday morning, somehow they aren’t in my cable bag, so it’s off to the Apple Store in Shinjuku to buy replacements. It takes me longer to find the products on the shelf (the Apple Store is wall to wall with people and green t-shirted staff) than it takes the staff member to say ‘Are you ready to pay’, process the payment, let me type in my email address for the receipt and be back out the door. Well done Apple for excellent customer service!
By 6 pm, it’s been a long day, and my Fitbit is telling me I’ve walked 28,297 steps and 20.45km, climbed 84 floors (got to love stairs at Tokyo train stations), been active for 314 minutes, and burnt 6,934 calories! Fitbit defines ‘active’ minutes as those occurring after 10 minutes of continuous moderate to intense activity. Time for a bath then.
Post script. 6,934 calories seems like a lot…I suspect that there is doubling counting of calories between the Fitbit app and the Map My Walk app that I’ve been using and that the real total is closer to 3,900 for the day. This is borne out by Sunday’s numbers which covered a shorter distance.
