13 March Shopping Day!

For those more eagle eyed you might have noticed I was a day ahead of myself. So I've amended yesterday's entry to show 12 March and today is 13th!!

Today's mission was to stock up on Peter's selection of Manga and Japanese written books. He's been very successful - 17 for today's hoard! Hopefully they'll keep him busy until the next trip.

Today's, I've never seen that before, was watching a car being parked in a high raise parking facility. In order to get into the parking facility the driver opened the sliding gates, reversed in, got out and pressed the appropriate button. The gate closed and you can see his car half way up on the lifting platform in the middle.

Once at the appropriate level the whole floor it was on mov d across to it's parking spot. Very clever!

On our way to the main shopping streets we took a new route, avoiding the busy bits, and came across 

Higashi Hongan-ji, a Buddhist temple that's currently undergoing repairs. It's definitely very dull in comparison to the temples on the main tourist route.

We just had to make a visit to another Japanese icon - Hello Kitty. A Japanese created character that is over 50 years old! Japan is just full of Hello Kitty merchandise in a wide array of colours and taking a variety of forms. Very cute!

Tonight it's been an opportunity to try out our final Japanese meal, before squashing everything into our bags. I might have to wear a few extra layers to get all our purchases home😄. An earlier night as we have an early morning start - our flight is 09.35 with a 15 hour flight ahead of us.

12 March Ueno Park

We stayed local today taking the bus along to Ueno Park.

In Japan cherry blossom is a big thing. The only problem is that anything on the pink colour spectrum that is blossoming is being photographed by everyone in the hope that it's cherry blossom! Sometimes it is, but mostly it's plum!

There's even manhole covers depicting the blossom.

At Ueno Park they're gearing up for the Cherry Blossom festival starting this weekend. Stalls were being constructed, posters advising against making fires or laying out blankets for 'banquets'! It's certainly big business.

There's a substantial zoo which you can access for about £3. It used to have pandas until China took them back at the beginning of the year.

Entry to the zoo means you can also see one of the oldest pagodas in the area - built in 1639. The zoo was built around it!

There's also the occasional tea house in the grounds.

Is this cherry blossom?

Or perhaps this is? I'm sure that we must've seen the actual thing at least once on this trip. Not what we'd expected though as the season is usually more towards the end of March but with the warmer weather it's uncharacteristically blossoming in the earlier part of March. So a bit of a surprise for us as visiting in Cherry Blossom season is peak season for visiting Japan and we'd planned our dates to avoid it!

My first Pokémon manhole cover!!

Well, only one more whole day in Japan so tomorrow we will be packing in anything we've missed as well as making time for shopping 😁. 

11 March Up Mount Takao

Today's trip out took us to Mt Takao, west of Tokyo on a bus, tube and train ride. 

Then a cable car took 6 minutes, at an angle of 31° for 1020m! It's the steepest funicular in Japan.

The seats are angled right back - we were almost lying back in comparison to the trees!

The opposing cable car on it's way to the crossing over point. 

Fuelling up on banana and cream pancake before our ascent.

Couldn't resist it 😄.

At the start of our trek to the summit.

Lots of steps on route but not as many as the Torii Gate hike.

Many shrines and temples on our route.

Tengu statues were dotted all along the route near the shrines and temples. It's a legendary creature from Japanese folklore with Karisu-Tengu often depicted with a bird like beak.

Or Great Tengu have a bright red face and a prominent, elongated nose. 

View from the summit. Unfortunately not clear enough to see Mt Fuji.

When it's clear the snow topped Mt Fuji is visible.

For the return trip we took a different route following the nature trail. We could hear woodpeckers but no flying squirrels or mongoose spotted on the walk. Probably because they tend to come out more in the dark.

We took the chair lift down - 872 m in length and 12 minutes to do the trip. The Japanese aren't too concerned about Health and Safety as they don't have safety bars to stop you falling out. I definitely made sure I hung on tight!!

Our first Tokyo trip colourful manhole cover spotted by Peter as we exited the chair lift.

After our rush hour journey back, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, we had dinner out.

A Korean restaurant tonight for spicy chicken and cinnamon pancakes. I had a Cajun chicken salad - quite a challenge to eat with chopsticks. By the end I was getting adept at picking up lettuce and pieces of sweetcorn 😁.

Tomorrow we're staying more local so maybe not as much walking. My shoes are definitely well worn in!