Tuesday to Tokyo Tower, a walk in a garden and in a boat to Asakusa

Getting up early quickly became a problem for us, tuesday was even worse than yesterday.

We took the Yamanote circle line to Hamamatsucho station, that is only about 15 minuttes walk away from Tokyo Tower. So I unpacked the Nikon D90 outside the station in front of the World Trade Building and we walked towards the gate to the Zojoji temple, which stands across a somewhat busy road, to finally arrive past the front gate, to the area, where the Tokyo Tower also becomes fully visible behind the Zojoji temple.

The temple area has become slightly more touristy since 2½ years ago, with mechandise being sold by monks at a stall to the left just past the gate, which makes it a bit inconvenient to make an all wide shot of the premises.

Between the temple and the tower is a small park that was filled with school children and some adults having their lunch. Well we had started pretty late out on this day.

Tour buses and groups of school children had arrived, and more were arriving at the Tokyo Tower, so we hurried along and bought tickets for both the 150m and 250m level. No reason to just go halfway when one is finally there. The second elevator from to the top had a nice mirror in the ceiling which I just had to utilize.

It was still a bit foggy or cloudy so it was not possible to see that far, but we got a nice look over Tokyo, including the Rainbow Bridge which we had planned to get some nice night shoots from later on, naturally because we were planning to have dinner in Odaiba, with a view.

We quickly went through the souvenir sections both on the top levels and the main shop near the bottom, as we of course jumped of at the wrong floor. When the elevator goes down it stops on all the 4 (I think) floors before hitting the bottom. On these are museums (additional cost) and souvenir shops, so we got to see one more of these as we decided to walk the last floors down.

We then went back towards Hamamatsucho station, and as we were late, we had decided to buy some lunch in  a convenience store on the way and eat a picnic in the Kyu Shiba Rikyu garden that is very close by the station. It was the first garden visit this time, as every time, it was like stepping into a different world. Suddenly we could feel relaxed from the busy ongoings outside. Although the garden is very small and you can both see and hear every train on the station just outside, you still feel like you are in your own small relaxing place.

We sat down on the benches just inside the gaden with a view over most of it (it is not very big). We could study the 12 (I counted) workers tying up a tree for the winter so they don't break under the weight of snow. Although in Japan everything seems to go in threes when something needs to get done, one to do the work, one to warn people to go around and one to supervise, in this case most of them were busy tying the tree up, and I dont think they finished this particular tree in the time we spent at the garden.

I had visited the garden 2 years ago around the same time of year, but still managed to find some new places and views in the small garden. This has become a favorite place along with Rikugien garden at Komagome station, and my travelling companion much prefered this garden, due to its small and cozy size, and it really is a very beautifull Japanese styled garden.

I had recommended and I also really wanted to take the boat up Sumeida river to Asakusa, and although my travel companinion did not fully agree, as she was looking forward to seeing Asakusa, we went ahead and walked the one kilometer or so to Hinode Pier where the boats were. Of course we had a 30 minute wait before the next boat was leaving and as it was a 40 minute ride, we could already foresee that the sun would have set when we arrived at Asakusa. So I had to take a bit of flak for that from my companion, who also was beginning to worry a bit about dinner. It was still only 4:30pm but a foodphile has a different time perspective in regards to food. :-)

After a nice boat ride, though not as nice as I remembered it, where one gets a different view of Tokyo, we finally arrived at Asakusa pier as the sun was setting. Then I got confused, I was pretty sure I remembered the walk to the temple, but after consulting the maps I managed to create a 90 degree turn wrong, so we had to walk a 100m back after my miswalk, which I got to hear a bit about.

But finally we where there and it was as touristy, but at least less filled with people as we were close to closing time.

The shops along the way to the actual temple of course had a lot of duplicate stuff, but it was quite interesting to browse and some things were shopped. The actual temple is under renovation, so it was completely covered up, the mirror gate at the other end was fully available though for some nicer shots with less people in them.

We went back slightly quicker as shops were closing up and we went looking for the place that had been set as our designated eating place for the evening, a well known and recommend old unagi place. I must say proudly that without any detour I found it, and they had a sign on the door that due to some circumstances the restaturant was closed for the night, and as we approached the door the lights went out.

Below is a picture of the restaurant (it looks worse and more shabby in real life), and strangely I did not feel that much regret that it was closed.

Instead we walked back towards the Ginza line station and started looking for a restaurant close by the station. We quickly found one which looked like it mostly catered to locals but still with parts of the menu available in English. There was a section for squatters and one with chairs, we choose the chair one.

And we got our unagi after all with tea.

At the way back from Shinjuku station we went to the restaurant floors on Tashakimya and bought a crepe suzette with banana and ice cream as dessert, before heading back to the hotel after what had become a long day after all.