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| The Pokemon Center statue was nicely decorated for Halloween again |
The highlight of the day though was dinner with our friends again, which was also at Ikebukuro. We wanted to try a traditional hot pot and chose for a place that serves chanko nabe which is a hot pot originally meant for sumo wrestlers, meaning it is served with plenty of protein. The place was hard to find though, it took a while. Once there the restaurant-host was being very nice and probably only had one group of foreigners that night since she directly knew who we were (we had a reservation of course). We were brought to one of the rooms (there were different parts in this restaurant), got our shoes off (because of tatami mats), and got instructions for the meal. It was really cool to try and we had a great evening.
Harajuku
The day after that we went to Harajuku! I think our friends went somewhere else again as well. We did not spend every day together because they wanted to also see some main places while we already went there.
To be honest, I think it was a Sunday and I don't recommend to go to Harajuku on a Sunday at all, it was way too crowded but it was one of the days we didn't plan in already so it wasn't really a choice. Surprisingly I don't remember a lot because of that it was so crowded. When there's a lot of input my mind just numbs and checks-out a bit unfortunately. I think we went to my favourite shops, such as Wego, Paris Kids, Disney store, and of course Closet Child, but yeah as I said I frankly do not remember it very well sadly.
One funny thing that happened is that we found a shop that sold ichiban kuji stuff and tickets. Ichiban kuji is a thing in Japan: it is a lottery that always gives you a prize, you always win something. The cost depends but I think is usually around 600 yen (5 euro) per ticket. Prizes range from A (big prize) to G (small cheap prize) and then there is one last special prize for the last ticket. You get to know upfront what the prizes are and how many tickets there are still left so you can calculate your chance. Sometimes people buy the whole last batch that is left to get the special prize. We had seen this thing on the youtube channel Kawaii Arcade Masters and were eager to try one out. There are multiple ones going on at a time, usually anime or game-themed. We had seen one that was Pokemon related and had nice keychains so we gave it a try. Guess what happened, we got the A prize on the first try! It was a huge Mimikyu plush, haha, we were not prepared for that and were now thinking of how to stuff this into our bagage (but luckily you can squish it). We would have been happy with just a nice keychain, what a surprise.
In the evening we met up with our friends again and went to the shopping/restaurant district next to Iidabashi: Kagurazaka. They indeed had some fancy restaurants (also European dishes) and we saw some nice souvenir shops too. We however went for dinner to a very nice tonkatsu restaurant with all kinds of different tonkatsu. I did not have proper tonkatsu until then, so I was eager to try and it did not disappoint, it was pretty tasty!
Nikko
The Monday after that we had plans to go out of Tokyo again! I really wanted to go to Nikko National Park, but this time we wanted to try to go with a guide so we booked a day-trip that was popular and highly rated on the internet. It was with a bus! We had to go to a hotel called Keio Plaza in Shinjuku first from where the bus left. The hotel was an interesting experience too, I thought it did not look like a hotel at all because it was huge, more like a big convention center, it probably was both though. We waited to get our tickets and followed the guide to the bus. It was interesting to see things from the bus though, a totally different experience than you would get from the train as you can see all the roads and buildings when you leave Tokyo. I also do remember it was an excellent way to 'tap' all the Pokemon Go stops (that we still played by then).
Anyway, Nikko is a famous national park. It is a very popular destination and so our guide warned us upfront that it could be that we would be later at some points or had to switch certain places because of the crowd. When we got close to the park indeed we were stuck in a traffic Jam but it was quite relaxed sitting in the bus so that was alright.
At the entrance there is the Toshogu shrine which I think has both Shinto and Buddhist buildings which is quite unique. The temples were highly decorated so there was a lot to see! For one of them we had to walk up a lot of stairs, for another one we had to switch shoes to get in. The temples were one of the prettiest ones I have seen in Japan, very much worth visiting.
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| Famous nemuri-neko carving by Hidari Jingoro, a national treasure |
After the temple visits we went to a place were we got lunch, it was served in some fancy layered bowls! After that the bus went to the old Tamozawa Imperial villa, a big house that used to belong to the imperial family and was build in 1899. It also had a wonderful garden that we could walk around. It was nice to see a fancy traditional villa, I can totally imagine living there, haha. The villa has 106 rooms in total, it's crazy, you could get lost. The architecture is a bit of a mix of Japanese and Western-style, but mostly still reminds me of traditional Japanese houses though.
So after this it would be a guess if we had time for the grand finish: to see one of the waterfalls. The big well-known waterfall was unfortunately already too crowded so our guide decided to see another one from afar. It indeed was less crowded and not very close to it, but the sight from high up in the mountains was spectacular so I was not sad at all that we had to go there instead.
On the way back we had a sanitary stop at an interesting place that was modeled around the Edo-period. It was called the Hanyu PA or Onihei Edo-dokoro Parking Area. What an interesting idea to make a rest-stop an actual entertaining place itself, people are sure to stop there to take a look.
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| The Hanyu Edo-dokoro stop. Photo from Insaitama.com |
All in all the trip was great! And although we didn't really get a lot of special info/knowledge from the guide I think, it was very convenient to have someone with you that knows where to go and arranging everything, so it was quite a relaxing day still and made for a nice memory, I can totally recommend it!
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