Tokyo day 8: Nezu Jinja, Yanaka Ginza, flying home

(I missed posting an update yesterday as I was away from WiFi. So this is Saturday’s and Sunday’s events combined. Also, I haven’t had time to upload any photos yet, so this post doesn’t have any photos.)

Saturday 1 March

We set an alarm for 07:30 this morning. We planned to message my in-laws to arrange a breakfast time, but we were ready to go well before them, so my wife 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 the in-laws 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 my in-laws.

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. My wife 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 my wife, 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. My wife 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. My in-laws went into the hotel to rest up a bit, while my wife 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. My wife 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 she 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 my in-laws, 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. My wife 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.

Sunday 2 March

Despite not really sleeping on the flight, the time seemed to pass faster than I expected, and before we knew it they were turning the lights on for the breakfast service. We flew into Sydney Airport from the north, and had a good view of the city out the left side of the plane. We landed just before 09:30.

Unfortunately there were several delays getting home. First, the terminal was full when we arrived, so the plane had to wait on the tarmac until a gate became available. Then there were a few flights arriving at the same time, and there was a long queue to get through the automated passport checking gates, so that took some time. We didn’t have to wait for checked luggage, so we left my in-laws at the baggage claim since were were heading to our respective homes by different transport, so there was no point waiting for them. My wife and I headed down to the train station and boarded a train to Central where we intended to change for a train on our own line that would drop us a short walk from home.

But as we pulled into Central it was clear that something was wrong. None of the other platforms in the entire station had so much as a single person on them waiting for trains. This could mean only one thing: the trains were not running. Obviously the airport train was, but it seemed no other train line was. Checking online, I discovered that the only trains running were essentially a shuttle between the airport and Central, and the Metro lin, which was also running a reduced service, with a shuttle between Central and Martin Place, and another shuttle from Martin Place to Tallawong. We could take the Metro and walk a longer distance from the nearest station to our home. Normally this would be a single train, but today for some reason we had to change trains at Martin Place. So our trip home had an extra train change and a walk about twice as long at the home end.

My wife stopped for an iced coffee in the Sydney heat and humidity that was a shock after being in winter Tokyo. We arrived at home, for one more shock.

When the lift door opened on our floor of our apartment building, we were greeted by the sight of a large plastic bin sitting in the corridor, catching a continual stream of drips leaking from a light fitting in the ceiling. The bin was half full, and the carpet in the corridor soaking wet!

We quickly went into our apartment and checked if the ceiling was leaking water anywhere. Thankfully it was all dry, but this was a definite moment of panic, thinking maybe our bedroom or living room might have been flooded while we were away. A building management representative arrived soon afterwards with a plumber, and I asked what the story was, and the guy said the leak only happened two or three hours ago, and was a hot water pipe in the corridor, which the plumber was about to fix. Phew!

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That ends the travel diary, but we had a few others things to do today. We went grocery shopping to restock with vegetables and fruit and milk. My wife’s friend brought Scully back over to drop her off, and my wife went with them to catch up and have a coffee out while I prepared for my ethics classes. I had three tonight, and it was a bit of a struggle with tiredness, but I managed okay.

Time for an early night to bed and hopefully a good sleep before tomorrow, which will be my usual very busy Monday.