Day 21: Last Day in Tokyo - Akihabara and Harajuku
The last day in Tokyo and so much left to see. We decided to spend the day running around Akihabara and Harajuku as these were the places we felt we had to see if we could see nothing else before we left Japan.
First stop we went to Akihabara via the JR line from Shinjuku station. Akihabara described in one word would be "vibrant". The colours, objects, streets, buildings. It's as if someone decided to splash colour everywhere.
Near Akihabara station there are a lot of stores with 6 floors or more filled with merchandise for various anime, manga and games. From old style Dragonball Z to newer anime that I've never heard of these stores have just about everything and would take a long time to cover completely.
Somehow out of the blue, Jose managed to spot a Robot Shop on the 6th floor of one of these buildings from the outside. It had the latest robots and parts ranging from a few thousand yen to hundreds of thousands of yen (£30 - £1500). It had been one of our goals to see a robot and whilst we saw one at AnimeJapan this one was actually purchasable.
We also found many doll collector shops and I have no idea how my fascination with these dolls began but it was great to see the variety of dolls and various accessories and outfits for them.
After Akihabara we dropped off stuff at our hotel and headed on to Harajuku, the home of modern fashion in Tokyo. The streets were packed with hundreds of people, an endless multitude, traversing the main streets.
Tokyu Plaza (that's correct, Tokyu!) is fashion designer central and has a beautiful mirrored ceiling that changes what you see as you move up the escalator and it's absolutely beautiful and probably very difficult to clean! Still it's something that you don't see and it was wonderful to see it.
Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street) can be accessed straight from the station and is full of various shops including places that sell Lolita outfits (in Japanese sizes only!) In fact their size system sets 4XL as a size 14 in the UK or something, not sure but their biggest size is smaller than the western sizes. They do have a tonne of cute clothes though!
Overall a good last day spent in Tokyo. Very productive and very long day. Today we used up the last of our yen on food and a few trinkets.
Day 20: On to Tokyo and Ghibli Museum
Today we said goodbye to Kanazawa to head back to Tokyo. The train station is enormous and I think that it must be a northern hub even though there are no direct trains to Tokyo. We took an express to Maibara where we then changed on to the Shinkansen. Thankfully the weather was beautiful!
Once we were on the Shinkansen we got to see Mount Fuji again and the train wasn't crowded. The journey took roughly about 4 and a half hours.
Once we got to Shinjuku we headed to the hotel and dropped off our bags before running out again to catch a train to go visit the Ghibli Museum. The museum is about a 20 minute walk from the station and is a very strange building. The whole thing is designed not to be square but very curvy. with various levels and roof terraces. Sadly it's forbidden to take photos inside (I've noticed this in a lot of Japanese places, even the shops!)
Whilst the museum was cool it was far too crowded! It actually reminded me how much I dislike crowds but it is to be expected in a popular place like this. Despite this the exhibitions were beautiful and it turns out there are a lot of references to British culture within the artwork. From the hills of Scotland to the small towns and villages dotted across the countryside. It was very cluttered in a very beautiful way.
After we left the museum we headed on to Shinjuku once more. Here we walked around and tried to find something to eat before crashing out for the evening.