Tokyo

We arrived at Tokyo Narita airport early in the morning after our overnight flight from Hanoi. It was not as busy as I expected and there was only a short wait at the JR East Office to pickup my JR Pass and arrange our first seat reservation to Kyoto which was not for a few days.

We also picked up our invaluable SUICA cards which are contactless smart cards for public transport and could be used all over Japan on buses and trains. My research had suggested that these may not be accepted on some of the private transport companies or in the quieter Fukui province that we were visiting later but as we found out this was not the case and they seemed to be universally accepted.

My final stop in the airport was to pick up our pre bought tickets for the Narita Express to take us into Tokyo and with the knowledge gleaned from some online videos the ticket machine was much less daunting and we boarded our first Japan train. As expected the train was very clean and efficiently ran perfectly to time with information boards and most announcements in Japanese and English. After a restful journey we arrived at our destination Shinjuku Station.

Shinjuku station is the busiest railway station in the world and it certainly seemed that way when we disembarked. Being used to mainline stations with a single large concourse this was something quite different. The station operates on a number of levels with different entrances to tracks for different railway companies and a large number of entrances. Getting your exit wrong could lead to a long walk. Unfortunately, Google Maps struggled in the station due to the levels and I eventually gave up with it and followed what I hoped was the correct exit. We came out at the exit near the Odakyu lines which is what we needed for tomorrow’s trip and from there I could navigate to our hotel.

We dropped our bags and headed out. Firstly, we went back to the Odakyu Sightseeing Centre in the station and booked our tickets for the Hakone loop. As we were not on a return trip to Tokyo, but heading to Kyoto, we booked the Romance Car one way and then the loop ticket separately. We were wanting to be on the first train the next day so would have had to book on the ticket machines as the office did not open on time.

As we were keen to see some cherry blossom we took the short walk to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. There was already a queue at the ticket barriers but they moved quite quickly and we paid the 500 yen entry charge. It certainly is a large and beautifully laid out park and has that slightly incongruous position of being surrounded by modern skyscrapers, which appear in many photographs. Unfortunately, as I said in my introduction, the cold weather had delayed the main blooming of the blossom and there were only a few buds at early stages. However this did not stop large crowds gathering around these trees to take pictures. We had a very pleasant walk through the park until we came out at the station we were looking for and headed to Ueno Park

As we were now getting hungry we had an excellent vegetarian meal in Ueno Station at T’s TanTan Ecute restaurant, followed by a walk around Ueno park. Again, disappointingly, there was very little progress on the cherry blossom but it was a lovely walk and we headed back to the hotel.

Later in the early evening we talk a walk around the hotel but we did not realise that we were in the Kabukicho neighbourhood which is a red light area of Tokyo. We were early enough that there were no indications of the nature of the area other than, on one street, lines of young people, mostly girls, with signs advertising prices for, I believe, hosting services. However we didn’t feel hassled or uneasy about walking around.