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We set an alarm for 07:30 this morning. We planned to message T. and K. to arrange a breakfast time, but we were ready to go well before them, so M. and I headed over to the City Bakery by ourselves. I had the granola this time, which was good, but a very small serve. I'd normally have three times that much at home for breakfast. We were finished pretty much as T. and K. arrived, so we just said hi in passing and went back to our room to finish packing and check out of the hotel. We arranged to meet after checking out at 10:30. Everyone dropped their luggage at the hotel luggage room, to be picked up in the evening.
We caught a Yamanote Line train north to Nishi-Nippori, where we changed for a Chiyoda Line train to take us two stops to Nezu. This is further north than I've ever been before in Tokyo, seeing new sights and neighbourhoods. Right near Nezu Station is Nezu Jinja, a Shinto shrine. This one is smaller and less well known that some others, but notable for having hundreds of red torii gates, which are rarer in Tokyo than at the famous temples in Kyoto. I thought this would be a great finish to our time in Tokyo for T. and K.
When we got to the temple, there were a handful of market stalls just inside the entrance, selling mostly foodstuffs: rice crackers, mochi, cakes, and one selling fresh vegetables.Beyond this was a small pond with dozens of tortoises sunning themselves on a rock. People were tossing food, and dozens of pigeons were flocking around for it, plus another couple of birds which I couldn't identify until I looked them up on eBird: brown-eared bulbuls. I'm not sure if I've ever seen this species before. A bit later I got a decent photo of one, so that's good too.
Near here was the beginning of the path under the torii. I was surprised how small they were, each one with an opening basically the size of a door, not much bigger than would allow a person through. I had been expecting them to be much larger, like the ones at Fushimi Inari Taisha in Kyoto. Still, it was fun and very scenic to walk through the corridor created by the gates, and there weren't nearly as many people as in Kyoto. There was one Spanish couple who took forever taking photos of each other at multiple scenic spots, causing us to have to wait interminably for a photo without them in it, but for the most part it was pretty quiet and easy to get good photos.
After finishing the torii walk, we explored the rest of the shrine, with one large courtyard and building, and a few smaller outbuildings and features. It wasn't a large shrine, so we finished without taking too long and then began walking towards the Yanaka Ginza shopping street for our next sight of the day.
On the way we stopped at the Art Cafe Polypus for lunch and drinks. M. decided to go explore around the area on her own while the rest of us ate. I got a chicken curry donburi and it came with a drink as a lunch set, so I chose the house-made ginger lemonade. Both the food and drink were pretty good. We sat up in a room on the third floor which just had three tables in it, while the counter and a few other tables were on the second floor. We thought we were the only customers until we left, when we saw that the second floor was full of people.
Rejoining M., we walked towards Yanaka Ginza. This is an old shopping street that survived the war, with many older buildings crowding a narrow street lined with shops. As we got near, the tourist density grew, showing that this place was more well-known that Nezu Jinja. The shopping street itself was picturesque, but somewhat crowded, with hundreds of people walking in both directions. There were street food stalls, restaurants, and various shops, many with interesting things to look at. M bought us a ceramic bowl, like a slightly small rice bowl, in the wabi-sabi style with some asymmetry to the shape.
After reaching the end of the street we were at Nippori Station, where we boarded a train back to Shinagawa. We arrived there about 15:30. T. and K. went into the hotel to rest up a bit, while M. and I ventured out again to walk around and keep moving, rather than sit and for a couple of hours. We walked back over to Gotanda to look around some of the shops there. On the way we passed two embassies, the embassy of Iceland, and one with the plaque on the door written in Cyrillic script that I couldn't read but later searched and found it to be the Embassy of Serbia.
When we reached Gotanda, there was a small shopping mall, but it didn't have a lot in it. After walking around a few of the streets M. decided she could do with a coffee and I searched cafes in the area, finding Café au Lait Tokyo. This was also up an unassuming old staircase on the second floor of a building. When we arrived they said they only had room at the bar for us, so we sat there. There was another room up the front with a window facing the street where there were a few tables with very plush lounge chairs and sofas. They only served café au lait coffee, but you could customise it in various ways with amounts of milk, amounts of sugar, different toppings, flavours, types of milk, etc. They guy behind the bar gave us each a small slip of paper and highlighter pens to mark our customisations. I was worried they'd ask me to order a coffee in order to sit there, but they were okay when we only ordered one drink. M. also got a grilled cheese sandwich, asking for no ham on the ham and cheese menu item, and then having to say no mustard or ketchup either when the guy asked if she wanted those. I chose a mini dessert of a caramel mouse cake, which was a smallish serving, but enough to satisfy a sweet tooth. The coffee came in a small wide bowl without any handle, and M. said it was good.
From here we decided to take a further walk down towards Osaki, along the Meguro River. I thought we might see some more birds, but the river was very canal-like and we didn't see any. We found the Osaki New City shopping mall and looked around. It was larger and better than the one at Gotanda, but not very big, with only two moderate sized floors of shops.
Once done with that we headed back to the hotel, via another route. At first we passed mainly office buildings, but we turned into a residential neighbourhood and this was much more interesting, with a mix of old houses and some very new and expensive looking apartment buildings. We arrived back at the hotel at 18:00.
We met up with T. and K., collected our luggage, and left for Haneda Airport about 18:20. We caught the Keikyu Line Haneda Express and arrived at the airport just before 19:00. We passed through security and customs, which were a little busy so it took some time, and then had a couple of hours to wait for our flight. M. and I did some stretching exercises to help ensure we didn't get stiff or cramped during the long hours of sitting on the flight. We boarded and departed just a few minutes behind schedule.
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