Andre and Wendy: Shibuya and Shinjuku

Started our day today with another free walking tour. We had planned to visit Shibuya area and last night I saw there was a walking tour here so we booked, and we were glad that we did.

Got to the meeting spot a little early so we were able to line up for a picture with the Hachiko Statue. This dog used to wait at the train station every day for his master to come back from work, this was in the 1920's. His master had a heart attack one day at work and didn't come back, and the dog still went every day waiting for him for nearly 10 years. Word spread and he became very famous, there is even a Richard Geere movie about him that I hope to find at some point.

We still had a bit of time so decided to go through Shibuya Crossing to Starbucks to get a viewoverhead. This is the busiest crossing in the world with over 1 million people a day walking through this intersection. The lights are controlled by cameras, the more pedestrians that are waiting the longer the walk light stays on. It wasn't too busy yet as it was before 10AM on a weekend day when we were there, later I am sure it is crazy.

Our guide Ali showed up and there were 13 of us on the tour today. Once couple is from Isarel and they have no idea when they will get home, crazy times. Ali is originally from Montreal, moved to Toronto then has been in Tokyo for about 7 years and loves it.

We then visited a knife store, saw an original samurai costume and looked at prices of knives. Not sure yet if we will be taking one home with us. We were given a bit of a knife education when purchasing in Japan.

We walked around some streets and spent a little time in a park on the top floor of a building for a little break and finally we were left at Meiji Jingu Shrine to visit on our own. Ari explained to us how we were supposed to enter and exit through Torii gates along with a lot of other rules. We are trying to be respectful, but there are a lot of rules.

Andre and I went through the park to the Shrine, which involved 3 sets of Torii gates along the route, so 3 times bowing. Then we washed our hands and lips, then hands again before entering. There is running water outside of the shrines to perform this cleansing ritual. We could not enter the shrine, but there is a ritual for that as well which involves money and clapping and making a wish, will need to watch some locals if we are going to do that to.

We both really liked the wrapped Sake barrels at the beginning of the walk to the shrine.

After the visit to the shrine we decided to pay to visit the gardens and Kiyamosa's well in the park. We followed the signs to the iris gardens, well maybe they are an inch out of the ground at the most, it will be pretty later I am sure. The well we had to line up for and we nearly turned around before we got to the end of the line. It was basically a bucket in a spring, the well is supposed to bring good fortune to visitors. Oh well it was nice to take a new way back to the entrance through the paths in the garden.

Next we took the metro to Shinjuku which is the area we will be staying in when we return to Tokyo at the end of our trip. First off we had some lunch. We first tried a department store which was crazy expensive, I think we were in the wrong type of department store. We are really hungry so just went into the first raman noodle place we came across back on the street. Probably overpaid, but full bellies and we are happier. We walked down to see the Godzilla Head, lots and lots of billboards around. We will definitely come back to this area at night when we are back in Tokyo.

We wanted to look at new glasses, I found some that were OK, but the prices were really no better if you have a plan at home, so no new glasses for me.

Off to see the Cat Wall, I really thought that this was a cat coming out of a wall, but it is a 3D thing that was very cool. The cat comes out about every 15 minutes between other things being shown on the building.

We next checked the website that shows if Mt Fuji is visible, it said yes so we are off to the Metropolitan Government Building that has a free observatory on the 45 floor. Some nice views from here of the city, but Mt Fuji is not visible.

Decided to call it a day. We will be back here too next month as there is a show every night displayed on the outside of the Gov't Building but we were just too tired to wait around for a couple more hours.

2 great tourist information centers on the first floor of the Gov't Building so we now have a bunch of information to read on Japan, and also found out where we may find some peach trees in bloom tomorrow. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

20257 steps/12.5 kms