Naturally Nihon

That's all folks! The adventure is over. D and I popped over to Odaiba, a spot on reclaimed land in the harbour facing Tokyo City from the sea. They even have a replica of The Statue of Liberty here... But the heatwave continues with temperatures in the high thirties and feeling like high forties (°C), and it's just too hot to be sightseeing, so we left Tokyo and headed out to Narita Airport earlier than we'd planned. Goodbye Japan! 👋   Just in case you thought I'd forgotten, here's another power pylon, my favourite that I have named 'Godzilla'... 😆 

This morning we experienced the aftermath of Tokyo morning rush hour, crammed into a metro train to get to Tokyo's tallest structure for our 10am booking. The Skytree looks out over metropolitan Tokyo which is home to 38 million people!!! Weirdly, even though we didn't go to the topmost viewing gallery, it was so high up that it didn't seem real. It could just have been painted scenery two floors beneath us... And when we got back to Shibuya, we manged to get a view down onto the famous 'scramble' crossing... Check out this video for a 20-second insight into the madness that is The Shibuya Scramble...

Most of today was taken up by a 700km train journey back to Tokyo, crossing The Seto Ohashi Bridge on the first leg... ...and then Shinkansen all the way from Okayama to Tokyo. Sadly, Mount Fuji was swathed in cloud, so we didn't get to see that iconic scene of the snow-capped volcano. Back in Tokyo, and staying very close to the Shibuya Scramble, that mad multi-way pedestrian crossing. I only took video footage, but here's a shot from a nearby street, just to give you some of the big city vibes...

Back on the metro this morning heading north to Asakusa and the Senso-ji temple. If anyone asks you about any historic structure in Japan and you want to appear knowledgeable, when asked about This Temple, That Shrine or Yon Castle, just nod your head wisely and say, " Ah, yes, of course it's a later reconstruction as the original burned down." There will be no possibility of being wrong.  Now I feel like starting a blog dedicated to the most deserving electricity pylons. I might start it with this one. What do you think? Next stop, Nagano!

Ueno Park lies on the route back to Tokyo from Omiya so we stopped there as it has much to offer!  As an aside, I love the variety of dress styles in Japan. I'd love to catalogue some of them on this trip, but getting photos would be problematic. There are the tradional kimono wearers, the gothic kimono folks, the maid outfits which may group with the frou-frou dress wearers, I have no idea. There are the neo-rockabilly lads with thick crepe-soled shoes, there are the office suited people, yes, even on a Sunday!  The National Museum was interesting, but a bit gloomy, when you compare it with the slick lighting and displays in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. We only visited one building as our legs just didn't want to carry us any further. Photography not allowed in there so you'll just have to imagine the Japanese art, the Samurai armour and swords. These photos below of the Toshogu Shrine. And then some food near Ueno Station at a very hi...