Today starts with a good breakfast! Souffle pancakes at the Musashino Mori Diner.

Look at this adorable little (coffee) cream holder.

The eggs benedict were to die for as well. Highly recommend. The cutest little diner too, super cozy and peaceful.

We didn’t have any definite plans for the day, so we wandered a bit.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government building has two observatory towers – not quite as high as Shibuya Sky, but it’s also free and we were just lucky enough to be in the area, so up we went.

We went up in the southern tower – here’s the north tower as seen from ours.

This city is just insanely huge. Not even sprawling, just packed. Yet it’s clean and doesn’t smell terrible. NYC, looking at you. My new phone case got grossly dirty in less than 3 days in NYC – by comparison, this one is still kicking after being on the phone for a year. It’s crazy how clean the whole city is considering the millions upon millions living here.

Mt. Fuji in the distance. We will be seeing that on a bullet train in a few days and again in a week during our stay in Hakone.

Time to wander back to the hotel to grab the backpack and look at some other parts of the west side of Tokyo.

We’re using the afternoon to see the Meiji Temple and the ‘kawaii’ street of Harajuku.

But first, a cute little equestrian place near by.

Just some ponies hanging out. There was a bigger facility behind, but we couldn’t access that.

First gate to Meiji Jingu. We’re coming in from the west side, which is less traveled than the main entrance.

The temple is located in a big, dark old growth forest. It’s beautiful and a nice break from the city.

The west gate to the temple.

This is the main entrance, which we bypassed.

Curated trees.

The main temple – you’re not allowed to go past a certain point and not supposed to take pictures of what’s behind that barrier. It’s very pretty.

Prayers.

Very cool place. It was strangely enough peaceful despite the crowd.

On the way out, we walked by a large storage for wine barrels and sake!

Gate out to the Harajuku district.

I am not a religious person. But I do try to be respectful when I am around religious places. I don’t know if foreigners are supposed to practice the bowing custom around these gates, but we did. I didn’t see very many folks doing it at all, so it’s either not something to worry about or tourist just don’t know/care to know.

Interesting street corner performer.

The main street to see in Harakjuku is Takeshita Street. It was packed, but not terrible to navigate. We’re planning on coming back here near the end of the trip, on a Sunday, to see the real chaos. Lots of kawaii stores and craziness.

Stopped for a matcha-break.

To end the night, we went to the Golden Gai district. There was a ramen restaurant we wanted to try.

Golden Gai is a series of narrow alleys/streets with tiny (single room) bars that can fit anywhere from 4-10 people at my best estimate. And it was packed at 7pm.

Turns out our ramen place, Sugoi Niboshi Ramen Nagi, was in what amounted to as an attic. With steep narrow stairs to get there.

Like JA had to shift to fit up the stairs narrow.

It could fit ten patrons, plus the cooks. Very unique tasting ramen in a way that was both good and not what we were expecting (briney broth with lots of fishy aftertaste, but still good). We enjoyed the experience immensely, but not sure we’d go back unless it was to show someone else.

We wandered a little bit around the alleys but didn’t end up drinking – most everywhere wanted a thousand yen cover fee per person and as much for a drink. The one place we wanted to go – Deathmatch in Hell – didn’t charge a cover, all drinks were 666 yen, and was, of course, packed to overflowing with 7 people in it.

Jet lag caught us up yet again, so we wandered back to our hotel, stopping only to visit a familiar face.

Gachapon isn’t something I’m really into, but one concept artist I like has four figures from their ShineiRiku lore. Got my favorite one on the first try. Guess I gotta try to get the rest now. Makes a cute little bed guardian, right?

<a href=”https://awanderingjill.com/?page_id=5866“>Back to Tokyo – Day 1</a>

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