Japan Trip Day 5 : Sensoji, Imperial Palace and Shibuya
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| Nakmise dori leading to The Thunder Gate Kaminarimon (just outside Sensoji Temple) |
Sensoji Temple - Asakusa, Tokyo
Sensoji was in our original itinerary but on the day 6. We pushed it forward and placed it on our day 5 first spot for the day. Another blogger mentioned that most of the stores on Nakamise dori there close by 4 pm so it's best to visit in the morning. Also because it's summer and it could get pretty warm in the afternoon I tried to start our day as early as possible.We got there around 9:30 and stores were opening on Nakamise dori. There were swarm of people taking pictures at the gates to the temple already. So we did our selfies quickly and moved on. Took a few more pictures of the inside of the temple and tried the omikuji as well (paper fortune).
As we sat down under one of the trees in the compound of the temple we were approached by a man who was doing survey on visitors' point of view of Tokyo. We did the survey and received a small souvenir. Then we continued exploring the Asakusa area outside of the temple. There were quite a few street food that one could find around Asakusa and we did try though only managed to try two -agemanju and taiyaki.
Check out story on Sensoji over on this link.
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| Gate before Sensoji Temple |
Imperial Palace (East Garden)
This was not on my original itinerary. It was thrown in last minute and was inspired by the visitors' survey we took at Sensoji Temple. Our consideration was there is a big park surrounding the Imperial Palace so we may have chance to catch Farfetch'd. The actual palace itself is not open to public. Though some areas are open to public on New Year (Jan 2) and the Emperor's birthday. (source : wikipedia).
We found our way to the Takebashi station. There were two different exits there pointed to the Imperial Palace but I didn't remember which one we took. We got to the street level and walked about 10 minutes on a nice road planted with fully grown trees. Then we crossed the moat to the entrance of the garden. There was a security guard checking our bags and pointed to a sign that said "no drones allowed". We passed through with no issue and were issued passes.
Honestly we didn't explore far deep in the garden as sun got higher and the day got hotter. No farfetch'd sighting on our Pokemon Go games. We decided to leave and looked for lunch.
There was also another store, a clothing store called GU which offered similar items to Uniqlo but at a lower price. We bought quite a few items there.
Another store which I think worth checking out in the Ginza area was the Muji flagship store. Muji is popular for the natural look clothing but the store also carried food items, essential oils, books, stationery etc. We spent quite some times there just browsing and ended with some food for gifts.
But the most surprising thing for us was to find a restaurant that serves the best Singaporean style Hainamese chicken rice outside Singapore. And also a Bee Cheng Hiang store which is a popular brand of Singaporean style barbecue pork.
We found our way to the Takebashi station. There were two different exits there pointed to the Imperial Palace but I didn't remember which one we took. We got to the street level and walked about 10 minutes on a nice road planted with fully grown trees. Then we crossed the moat to the entrance of the garden. There was a security guard checking our bags and pointed to a sign that said "no drones allowed". We passed through with no issue and were issued passes.
Honestly we didn't explore far deep in the garden as sun got higher and the day got hotter. No farfetch'd sighting on our Pokemon Go games. We decided to leave and looked for lunch.
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| East Garden of Tokyo Imperial Palace |
Ginza
Ginza is the famous shopping district with stores like Burberry and Chanel. But some bloggers talked about the eight storey Uniqlo flagship store. Eight storey Uniqlo store ? What could they possibly have ? Ground floor gave preview of what's in store. Then two floors of womens, one floor of childrens, one floor of mens, one floor of pyjamas (?).There was also another store, a clothing store called GU which offered similar items to Uniqlo but at a lower price. We bought quite a few items there.
Another store which I think worth checking out in the Ginza area was the Muji flagship store. Muji is popular for the natural look clothing but the store also carried food items, essential oils, books, stationery etc. We spent quite some times there just browsing and ended with some food for gifts.
But the most surprising thing for us was to find a restaurant that serves the best Singaporean style Hainamese chicken rice outside Singapore. And also a Bee Cheng Hiang store which is a popular brand of Singaporean style barbecue pork.
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| Muji matcha red bean cookies |
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| Muji lemon lime ginger mixture |
Shibuya
From Muji we found our way back to the subway to go to Shibuya for dinner at Torikizoku. From Shibuya we didn't do much and just went straight back to our Airbnb because our Tokyo pass will expire about 7:30 pm.
Curious about our dinner at Torikizoku ? You could read it here.
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