Before coming to Japan, I had absolutely no idea what Golden Week was. But, upon being here, I learned that it is a string of holidays in late April and early May that come together and form a full week of holidays. In this time, almost all of Japan goes on holiday at once. Yet, even though I knew tourist spots would be super crowded, I still chose to go to Tokyo for two days! I knew I wouldn't have had another chance to go, and I would have regretted it if I left Japan without going to Tokyo.
After buying some very expensive Shinkansen tickets, we headed on our way to Shinjuku. Unfortunately, we arrived at 6:35 in the morning and it was pouring rain. We had no choice but to take shelter in a local Starbucks until stores started opening. Once the sun came out, we headed on our way to do some shopping in the city. After that, we went to Shinjuku Gyoen, and we got in admission free because it was Kodomo No Hi. Whooo!! Though the park was crowded, it was a beautiful sunny day to go to, and all of the trees, grass and plants were so green and lush. There were families sitting for picnics and lots of people taking photos. After that we met a friend from Waseda and went to Tokyo Tower. Since we went at night, we got to see all of the city lights of Minato. The next day, we went to Harajuku and first went to Meiji Jingu. The first Tori was absolutely massive. And I didn't realize how large Meiji Jingu was until it took us 20 minutes to get to the inner shrine. I was glad to see that the city still preserved a large part of trees for this shrine. After this, we went to Harajuku, and to no surprise, the shopping street looked like a game of Frogger. It was person to person, shoulder to shoulder, and very uncomfortable. Needless to say, we didn't stay there long as all the clothing shops were too expensive and the hoards of people just made it too uncomfortable to stay there. Next we went to Akihabara and that wasn't bad at all. We checked out a lot of used card, game and book shops. We even got to try a virtual reality headset for free. After all of this, we were exhausted and hungry so we stopped at a local Seizeirya and got dinner before heading to the station to catch the Shinkansen. Overall, it was a really fun trip but I wish we had gone longer. I definitely overestimated how much we could do in only two days. But I'm satisfied with our trip. It was too expensive, but I'm glad I got the chance to go to Tokyo in the end.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMarissa Armstrong Archives
June 2016
Categories |