Tokyo

We’ve been back in the UK for two weeks now. It’s been a lovely time of reconnecting with family and friends. Those days spent on the bike, and the tumult of Tokyo, seem as far away in spirit as they are in actual time and miles.

However, the blog is incomplete without some thoughts on our final week in Tokyo.

We very much enjoyed the change of scenery after our week in Hiroshima. However, this week definitely prepared us for the busyness of the city and it was less of an adjustment that we were expecting.

The Shinkansen was everything we expected from Japanese transport – fast, efficient and clean. It scaled distances in minutes that took us days to cover on our bike! The mountains and flat plains out of the window were sweetly familiar to us and we were secretly pleased to remember that we had previously manoeuvred through this landscape by our own exertions.

Armed with bike bag and suitcases we were given a swift and a rather stress-inducing introduction to the metro. 3.15 in the afternoon and it was packed to the rafters. I think we scraped elbows and legs trying to get off but there were no other options other than missing our stop.

Our AirBnB was in Meguro and the suburb held some surprising features such as a large nature reserve conducting active scientific research. The trees were looking absolutely stunning in the bright autumnal sunlight and the birdsong managed to cover up the intrusive city sounds. In fact, the trees across the city were in full autumnal splendour. We visited the Ginkgo avenue of Jingugaien, a street lined with ginkgo trees that is famous for its colours. The road was patrolled and half of it cornered off so that all the tourist could be accommodated!

During our first few days we explored the areas of Tokyo well visited by tourists: Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku. We walked across the famous crossing and then watched it from above through a department store window. It’s one of the best ways, along with the the subway, to get a real sense of how populated Tokyo is. The crossings are packed with people every couple of minutes and it carries on like that all day and night.

On a Sunday morning we strolled across Asakusa and visited the newly built Hokusai art gallery. It’s a small exhibition containing information on the artist’s life, early prints of some of Hokusai’s most famous images, and a detailed explanation of the printmaking process of Hokusai’s time. One of the highlights was facsimile displays of Hokusai’s extensive sketchbooks, containing images of plants, animals, people, buildings and just about anything you can think of, including a famous sketch of a man sticking chopsticks up his nose.

It was interesting to visit Sensoji temple, the largest and possibly the most famous religious site in Tokyo. Teeming with both tourists and spiritual devotees, it was an unusual juxtaposition to the temples and shrines we came across in Northern Honshu, which, though just as beautiful, were more often than not deserted and silent.

We enjoyed lots of good food and made sure to eat all our favourites before we left (this mainly involved eating copious amounts of biscuits – the fuel of cyclists). R ate the famous Harajuku crepe which can be filled with all manner of sweet things – in this case, ice cream and custard. Gyozas were recommended as a must-eat food and we found some on our final day that were vegetarian. Think fried dumpling stuffed full of flavour. Our final meal was vegetable tempura, a firm favourite and fully satisfying.

We made one last journey into the countryside to visit Mt Fuji. We couldn’t cycle across the length of Japan without visiting its highest peak, and it was absolutely worth the visit. It’s hard to describe or capture its commanding presence but it dwarfs everything in its immediate vicinity. It demands attention and you do spend a long time just staring at it. We were treated to the best conditions for viewing the volcano as we visited on a bright sunny day with gorgeous autumnal trees as a backdrop. We walked around lake Kawaguchi and reminisced about our journey. It felt fitting to end our trip here surrounded by the type of landscape that we had spent so much of our time in.

All that was left to do was survive the final train journey to the airport with all our stuff plus one bike box. Even at 5am the metro was busy but we made it without hitch. We only had some minor palpitations when the check-in lady got her tape measure out to measure the bike box. Thankfully, she was happy with its dimensions!