This was one of the worst, and then best days in Kyoto.

Today, we had a mission… to visit the Golden Temple, Imperial Palace and Nijo Castle. We also decided to scrap our plans to go all the way to Fukuoka in a few days’ time. The original plan from Kyoto was spending eight hours on a train, for twenty-four hours in Fukuoka, followed by twelve hours on a train back to Tokyo. All for the sake of visiting another island.

Well, we decided that it’d be better to scrap the night in Fukuoka, book an extra night back in the lovely Sakura hotel in Tokyo, and share the time between a morning in Kyoto and an extra day-and-a-half in Tokyo. Phone calls were made and internets internetted and the plans were all made.

So… out to the Golden Temple. We used the aforementioned tube system to get us to the right latitude, then walked a couple of miles to the correct longitude. I still think it’s a strange tube system.

The Golden Temple is a temple. Unlike the Silver Temple which never received its leaf coating, the Golden Temple most certainly did…

The Golden Temple, Kyoto

On walking round the beautiful gardens, we found a money bowl. The theory is that if you manage to make the bowl ring by throwing a coin into it, you will receive good fortune. It seems to me that the temple receives quite a lot of good fortune from all the attempts to hit the bowl…

Money Bowl

It also strikes me, looking at the periphery of the area, that some people really can’t throw very well.

After the Golden Temple we walked miles and miles and miles to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Before Tokyo was the capital of Japan, the role was fulfilled by Kyoto - part of the reason there are so many historic buildings there. The imperial palace is probably an amazing place, and probably has lovely gardens. We didn’t find out because there are only a couple of days a year you can go within the perimeter wall, which is all we saw of it…

Imperial Palace, Kyoto

Our next destination was the other side of the palace, so we walked approximately seven hundred miles around the not-very-picturesque wall, being eyed supsiciously each time the police patrol came past and finally made it out of the park towards Nijo Castle.

Which was closed on Tuesdays.

By now, we’d walked down to the left branch of the tube network, and there was a McDonald’s next door to the tube station. We decided this was definitely a McDonald’s and tube moment. After our stuff that was laughingly called food (McDonald’s is exactly the same in Japan as the UK) we had the strength to formulate a plan.

I’d heard of this funny place down in the south east of the city called “Fushimi Shrine”. In fact, I hadn’t really heard of it, I’d just seen a picture in the guide book and thought it looked quite interesting. The picture had an avenue of red torii gates. So we took the tube eastwards, then changed line and took it southwards to reach the correct latitude, then once again walked for miles and miles and miles to the shrine. In fact, I’m sure we nearly died from exhaustion.

Well, what a fascinating place!

Fushimi is a shrine to fortune in business, and anyone who feels they have benefitted from its power donates a red torii gate. After entering the main gate, you are greeted immediately with an avenue of these - free-standing, individual gates creating an enclosed corridor.

Avenue of Torii Gates, Fushimi Inari Shrine

After passing the main shrine, the site then winds its way up the Inari mountain. Still enclosed in a torii corridor. I know I maybe exaggerated a little about distances earlier, but the Inari shrine literally has miles of these corridors. I think our route around took about two hours, up and down steep slopes, past little waterfalls, all through these gates. There are thousands of them. Thousands.

Any part of the hill flat enough to be built on is built on. Occasionally a tea house, but mostly small shrines. The shrines which crop up everywhere have fox statues (messengers of the Inari spirit) and piles of model gates with prayers written on.

Fushimi Inari Shrine

Fushimi Inari Shrine

The Fushimi shrine was one of the highlights of our holiday for me, and had Nijo castle been open, we may have never visited. I’ve heard since that the shrine appears in the film adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha. If you’re in Kyoto at any time, pull on your walking legs and go for a visit.

On our way to the shrine, we discovered “Inari” station, a Japan Rail commuter station which meant we could then ride back into the main Kyoto station for free on our rail passes. We still had to walk miles to the hotel from there, though.

I wrote a set of notes for each day while we were in Japan. Sometimes at the end of the day, sometimes a day or so later. On occasion, if we were enjoying ourselves too much, the notes were very brief. Day eight was one of those days. My notes read, in their entirety…

Higashiyama
Best technotoilet (lid opens on entry!)

Ice cream flavour: Green Tea

That’s it.

We had been implored, before our trip, that we must visit the eastern mountains (Higashiyama) of Kyoto, and so that’s what we did…

First, we walked miles and miles and miles to get to the tube network. I say network… from yesterday’s diagram, you’ll remember it’s essentially a pair of lines. So, on at shijo, change at karasuma oike and off at keage. This brought us to Nanzenji Temple and the southern end of the Philosopher’s Walk, named after a philosophy professor at the university who used this walk for his daily constitutional.

The walk itself is a couple-of-mile canalside ramble with more temples and shrines than you can shake a bō at. The route itself is very straightforward - with only a couple of tea shops to show for its popularity. It’s the diversions from the path which really make it. Apparantly, during cherry blossom season, the area is packed with people, but since we were out of season we had a much quieter time. Every side path has something different, and it was always good to turn off and meet someone coming the other way saying “Wow… this one’s definitely worth it… make sure you check out the thatched gate, and make sure you have a chat with the guy playing the harmonica”.

I think at this point, we should move on to pictures…

During the Meiji restoration, a European architect was brought in to build an aqueduct. It looks just as interesting and out of place as a pagoda does in the UK.

Kyoto was excellent for gardens and “VIP Moss”. They had employees here to brush leaves off the moss so it could be seen by all.

It’s the attention to detail on the water features. This leaf obviously has to be replaced regularly with a fresh one, and has probably had to for hundreds of years.

Real-life Geisha. Kyoto was popular for traditionally dressed Japanese - much more so than Tokyo.

Even the residential back streets in Kyoto are picturesque.

Day one in the Big Buddha house… haha… see what I did there?. This really was a very large Buddha. Unfortunately, due to our meanderings it was closed by the time we arrived.

More back-streets, this time with a famous seven-storey pagoda.

It was around this temple that I started incessantly humming the end theme to Monkey.

After a rest, we walked for miles and miles and miles because whereas Tokyo is this shape…

…Kyoto is this shape…

On every street corner there was a little shrine. Like you’d see newspaper stands in London. And I mean a little shrine… no more than a metre square, on a pedestal, like a little nativity-scene version of a temple. And then there were real temples too. Big ones. Anywhere they wanted one. We found a seemingly endless shopping centre…

…but even in here, commerce had to stop at regular intervals for yet another temple or shrine…

The whole city had such a stark contrast between new and old, although unlike Tokyo’s constant development, I think Kyoto had a boom in the late 70s or early 80s and pretty much stopped there, judging by some of the architecture. The old bits were more abundant too, and given greater priority. Even Colonel Sanders was Japanified here…

(Although to be fair, when we passed by a day or two later, he was no longer a Samurai. Disgraced his family? Or maybe head office complained.)

We woke and checked out from our lovely Saukra hotel, went to the rail station, reserved seats on the Shinkansen and made our way to Kyoto. Separately.

Ok… not very separately, but we hadn’t realised that Sunday is Official Long-Distance Travel Day™ in Japan. We had the option take the next train in separate seats, or take the one after that and sit together. We were keen to get to Kyoto, and plumped for the former.

Tip: If travelling in Japan on a Sunday, reserve your seats well in advance.

There were several empty seats we could have moved to, including an unreserved carriage or two, but in Japan that doesn’t work. They’re a bit funny about things being orderly. The ticket inspector has a little pad which has a diagram of where everyone should be sitting. If anyone is not sitting there, it becomes difficult.

There are rules like… “If you have an unreserved seat and there is standing room only, and there are lots of free seats in the reserved carriage, you may sit in one of them - but only if you pay for the reserved seat.”

We’d already witnessed the reserved seat thing on the bus to Fuji. There were two ladies sitting next to each other and two empty seats to the left of them. One of them moved across so that they both had a little more room, at which point the driver told her off and made her move back.

So, anyway, a couple of hours later, and absolutely bang on time of course, we were pulling into Kyoto station. It was here that we really fell over Japanese maps. I’ve already talked briefly about Japanese addresses, and the way you must have directions to your destination to have any hope of reaching it… well in Kyoto we had only a map.

The map, of course, didn’t tell us which way was north. Nor did it explain which exit from the station was which. Kyoto, fortunately, has a giant landmark - the Kyoto Tower - right outisde the station.

This was not marked on the map.

The map did have, uncharacteristically for Japan, some road names marked on it. The roads in real life didn’t, though. So I approached a local advertising-tissue-hander-outerer and asked if the road in front of me matched the one on the map. He had to think for a while. Then he had to ask another tissue-hander-outerer. She decided that yes, maybe that was the road we were looking at.

In classic helpful Japanese style, she then handed her basket of tissues to the first guy and began to walk us the whole two miles to our hotel. They do that, you know. Fortunately, I managed to thank her profusely, and point out that yes, I did now understand the map, and explain that the world’s opinion of her nation didn’t hang on her personal actions. Finally, after half a pretty long street, she was happy to leave us to our own destiny, and return to her tissue-handering-outering.

I should mention the tissues at this point. The two big advertising opportunities in Japan (after giant TVs on every street corner) are freebie fans and tissues. You never have to buy tissues in Japan… just take a little wander into town and you’ll be offered three or four packs in the space of an hour. You have to look like you’ll understand the advert printed on the pack though - if they think you won’t be able to read it, they won’t offer them. So you have to walk along, carefully noting all the interesting Japanese writing around you - maybe pointing and laughing if you see the flaming chicken shed character, that sort of thing. If you can bluff them, they’ll offer the tissues and you’ll be quids in.

They’ll give anyone a fan because everyone else can read that even if you can’t.

Where were we?

In Kyoto, heading for the hotel.

Ok… so after a couple of turns we found ourselves passing alongside a huge temple. This was the western Hongwanji temple. There’s another, equally large eastern Hongwanji temple a few streets away. Kyoto really was the place for temples and shrines as we’d been led to believe.

And so to the hotel. Rather grander than our beloved Sakura in Ikebukuro. The sort of place where a white-gloved man greets you part way across the car park to take your cases from you. A place with huge glass windows looking out onto beautifully designed pools and waterfalls. A place where rather than telling you your room number, they allocate you a person to show you up there, open the door for you, and show you round. The sort of place where, despite the good deal on the room rate, there’s absolutely NO WAY you can afford to eat in the restaurant, or use the bar.

It was Saturday and Tokyo was a completely different city. With the exhausted salarymen crashed out in their suburban homes, there was a distinct air of kicked-back-ness.

We had a plan to visit three distinct regions… Yoyogi, Harajuku and West Shinjuku for a daytime trip up the metropolitan government building. On looking at the map, we realised that these places weren’t all that far apart from each other and decided (slightly foolishly, it turned out) to walk between them.

Yoyogi station brought us into, strangely enough, Yoyogi park. In a place as short on space as Tokyo, it was a real surprise to find a 175 acre forest, but that’s exactly what we found. In 1912, the Japanese parliament dedicated a shrine to Emporer Meiji - he of the Meiji Restoration when Japan opened its borders and modernised to what we see today. People from all over Japan donated their time and their saplings and the forest was planted. In the subsequent near-century, it has matured into a bona fide forest. Impressive.

Torii gate at the Meiji shrine, Yoyogi
Everything around the shrine is grand. The torii gates are the height of four-storey buildings. The emporer was, apparantly, partial to a little bit of the old happy juice and so a liquid donation was made by several French wineries and Japanese sakeries (warning: not a real word) with barrels adorning the sides of the path.

Sake barrels at the Meiji shrine, Yoyogi

We met a very chatty gentleman - I think he’d clocked we were not Japanese (a simple task) and wanted to practice his English. He was very knowledgeable and was interested in where we’d been and where we were going to. In fact, it was here that our itinerary would begin to change, but for now we chatted about emporers and earthquakes and fish and things like that. We explained we were going to Harajuku next, and he asked why we’d be going there. I began to explain about popular culture over here and he stopped me, rummaged in his bag and brought out a dictophone. I was interviewed about Harajuku.

I seem to remember he was a teacher, and I assume he wanted a recording to play to his class. I hope so, anyway. We bade farewell and headed out of the other end of the park which brings you neatly to Harajuku, spiritual home of Japanese youth culture.

Harajuku Girls

This is where gang culture is absolutely rampant, though the worst the gangs will do is look slightly condescendingly at the choice of clothes of a rival gang member. We spotted the eighties gang and the rock gang and the frilly gang and the dirty-old-men-ogling-the-pretty-girls gang.

I went in a shop and bought some nonsensical t-shirts bearing such wisdom as Luck Is Given To The Person Who Is Enjoying The Ball and The RIDERS the NATURE have known, FUNKY BLANKEY MONKEY. Only a fiver each, what a bargain.

Now, the aforementioned folly. That was the bit where we walked from Harajuku to Shinjuku. You see, Tokyo is made up of lots of little town centres, most of them on the Yamanote line - did I mention the Yamanote line yet? Between the town centres is, essentially, urban suburbs if that makes any sense at all. So after the first street, they were all pretty much the same, and it was a long walk. We had headed south from Yoyogi, through the park to Harajuku, and now had to head north again. In the blistering heat it was, as I said, a long walk.

A great bonus, though, as we approached Shinjuku, we spotted the Sunflower Building. I’ve already mentioned how difficult addresses are in Toyko, and we knew that the all you can deep-fry place was in the Sunflower Building, but didn’t know where the Sunflower Building was, except now we did, it was in front of us.

West Shinjuku skyscrapers

Location noted, we walked through the skyscraper district for our second trip up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) Building, this time in daylight. It was good to be able to pick out some things we’d actually visited this time.

Drinking fountains. I forgot to mention them. All over Tokyo are drinking fountains. It’s wonderful to be able to take a free drink and/or top up your water bottle in any park/open space/public building/street corner. Well done Tokyo.

After our aerial views, and copious use of the TMG Building drinking fountain, we descended the 45 floors and made our way to the Sunflower building and thence up to the 8th floor for our deep-fry fun.

“O KYAKU SAMA DE~!”, the Maitre D’ shouted.
“There’s a customer”

“IRRASHAIMASE!!!!” came the shout from every single member of staff.
“WELCOME!”

Whenever any customer appeared, this cry would go up. There were lots of other call-and-answer things going on… “What do we say in the morning?” “GOOOOOD MORNING!!!!!!” It was certainly a lively place.

The all-you-can-deep-fry place was fascinating and Would Not Work™ in Britain. There are too many ways to die:

1. A deep fat fryer sunk flush with every table. One spill of a drink could send boiling fat into the air.
2. A deep fat fryer sunk flush with every table. When they’re not frying they look very, well… calm. It would be easy to forget that’s it’s VERY HOT and put your finger in and NEARLY DIE.
3. Raw food and self cooking. The threat of food poisoning, while very low in Japan on the whole, is very real. You’re handling raw food, cooked food and salad so proper coordination of plates and implements is important.
4. Even if you survive the visit, the huge coronary you’ll suffer later is worth considering.
5. …and the shock of the cleaning bill to get the smell of deep fat frying out of your clothes. Let’s just say, don’t turn up in your Sunday best, eh?

Almost certain death on so many counts

But it was oh so good, and we found our first tentacle. With suckers on and everything. It was hiding in a dumpling.

Where were we? A long weekend spent in a field with good pals (some of whom have now become finances) and plenty of ’special juice’ (nicer than Aunty Sandy’s) has caused a slight glitch in my flow.

Er yes… Fuij. Up, nearly die, down, back to Tokyo, sleep.

This evening had been planned since Tuesday night when we had passed The Hobgoblin. As is tradition after going up a mountain, we had already mentally booked ourselves in for a pint and a pie. Did I ever mention that H absolutely loves pie? You’d never think to look at her, but she does.

With our one-track mission, we made our way to Shibuya, past Hachiko’s statue, and round the corner to the pub. We were a little apprehensive on entering the lift. There’s not really an option to back out if the lift door opens and you’re confronted with an unwanted location. However, we had nothing to worry about. It was just like our local Hobgoblin, except on the third floor.

And except that the beer/cider was priced (not too extortionately) in Yen. And except there was no table football. Nor pool. But there was a dart board.

The proprieter and staff were Aussie/British and the clientelle were a mix of ex-pats and Japanese natives.

The waitress came over, saying “Good evening! It’s so stunning to see such a sight as some slightly starving strangers.” This may seem irrelevant right now, but you’ll probably notith the differenthe nektht week when we go back and thee greet-th uth again having had her tongue pierthed the previouth day.

Anyway, I digreth… we ordered a pie each. I know I’m not allowed pie due to the Gluten-Free thing, but in Japan I would have starved and ALMOST DIED if I’d stuck to a GF diet, so I just put up with the consequences (and am still doing so to some extent) and went for it.

If you go to your local pub and order pie, what do you receive? Well, Pie is a good start. Then probably mash or chips or maybe curly fries if you’re very lucky. Probably peas and possibly some other vegetables too.

In Japan you don’t. You receive pie.

And gravy. With soy sauce in.

It was actually pretty good pie, the gravy was definitely an acquired taste, but it was just all sort-of wrong in a way which is clearly too subtle to be noticed by the locals. It makes me wonder how ‘authentic’ our ‘authentic’ foreign restaurants are.

It was amusing to watch the pair of Japanese people at the next table. They ordered a fish and chips between them. They picked at it and commented on it to each other - they definitely enjoyed it. Then about thirty minutes later, they ordered a portion of bangers and mash. Between them. It was so strange to see people, probably experiencing their first bit of British food, just as we’d do in a Chinese, Japanese, Thai or Other restaurant. But this was Fish and Chips. And Bangers and Mash. They’re not STRANGE. They’re NORMAL. Well, as previously mentioned, they were strange, but only because they’d been made more normal for the Japanese.

Better than the clientelle inside the pub, we watched the world go by outside - a third-floor window seat is a Good Thing™ More pubs in Britain should be on the third floor, above a busy street with lively guys trying to lure people into their restaurants by showing them previews of the menu and pointing skywards to show the 8th-floor facade of the intended target which is completely missable by those wishing to notice where they’re going at street level, and with crowds of businessmen and office ladies deciding where tonight’s entertainment would be and going through etiquette rituals more complicated than two hours’ close scrutiny could unravel, and with some slightly dodgy-looking chaps who would only approach all-male groups, and only very well-dressed ones at that. Gambling, we reckoned. They wouldn’t have looked so shifty if they’d been advertising a house of ill repute. Japan has some very different priorities on its taboos.

Anyway, it was a wonderful couple of hours after which we decided to turn in. That involves a 15-minute trip on the train, and short walk to the hotel as you’re probably by now fully aware. On the Yamanote line, y’know. We boarded the train as usual, but the atmosphere couldn’t have been further from our previous experiences. It was clearly the party train. Everyone was chatting and laughing and joking. They were still dressed in their conservative business dress. But there was life and joy and fun.

On arriving at Shinjuku station, about 80% of the train piled off. In the 12 seconds we had before the doors closed, we managed to look at each other, telepathically have a discussion about how the party is obviously here and should we get off and yes, I think that’s probably a good idea. And so we found ourselves in East Shinjuku around 11pm on a Friday night.

Wow! Party central.

West Shinjuku is the skyscraper district of Tokyo. The Metropolitan Government Building is there. All the major corporations have a presence somewhere in the square mile or so. There’s a lot of money generated there.

When the school bell rings, the salarymen put down their pencils, throw everything in their satchels, don their Parkas superman-style and go to play in East Shinjuku. There’s a lot of money spent there.

We found ourselves lost in the back streets - an area known as Kabukicho - where the really seedy side of Tokyo takes over. Obviously, being Tokyo, we felt at no point that we were unsafe, but when cartoon adult toys are beckoning you into their brightly coloured shop next door to a bar called “Strawberry Jam” with a wholly illegal-looking poster which is next door to the “Casual Hotel” (rooms by the hour), you tend to find your way back to civilisation pretty quickly.

It was also our first sight of Japan’s institutional racism. One bar bore the legend “Japanese Only”. We’d heard that some bars are not welcoming to foreigners, but to have it in black and white on the front door was rather a surprise. It’s something you just couldn’t imagine even beginning to exist in the UK. Sure, the local NF chapter’s clubhouse probably has the same sentiments, but even they wouldn’t get away with writing it on the front door.

What with Fuji and all the excitement, we didn’t spend that long in East Shinjuku, but it was ticked off the list of Things To See™ and we could make our way, thankfully without rail breakdowns, back to the hotel for sleep in preparation for tomorrow’s epic urban walk.

First a quick précis for those who can’t see the previously-posted video…

We went up Fuji, it rained, we almost died in a landslide, we made it to the top, there was no sunrise, we almost died by being blown into the crater, we came back down. It was hard work.

There’s quite a lot missing from the video. It doesn’t quite capture the essence of six hours of rain. Gore-tex is very good, but does only hold out for the first three hours. It also doesn’t work very well when the ground gives way under you (as it did for H) and you end up lying face down in a river.

It doesn’t capture the bitter cold on top. You can see the mist and hear the wind, but when you consider we were absolutely soaked through, and the temperature was pretty close to freezing, you can imagine just how miserable it might have been.

I’d like to say I didn’t juggle because I couldn’t feel my hands, but that would be a lie. After three hours of freezing, damp gloves, I could very much feel my hands. I experienced searing pain every time I tried to move them.

The summit hut was something else. Twelve of us - four from our coach, eight from the previous day - huddled around a brazier the size of a small waste-paper basket. There’s a guy who lives in the summit station who, without a word from any of us, chopped some wood and prepared a fire for us. He was absolutely the star of the trip.

Three of us decided to make an attempt on the crater. After about 20 paces, the guy who’d come with us declared he was going back. We never saw him again. The wind was such that we were keeping low and leaning into it - steep mountain on one side, steeper crater on the other. There were flattish areas with some cover where we felt it would be an achievable goal. But looking at the map, there were also points where we had to go over the top of very narrow sections. We could have crawled it, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

So we didn’t visit the post office, and the postcards we’d brought up would have to be taken back down again. It was only about 15 minutes into our descent that the mist lifted and we finally saw the stunning views. It was a pity, but how long can you hold out? We’d already spent 90 minutes on the top, who was to say it would ever clear?

So, after a long, but easier descent we returned to the 5th Station. We bumped into the people who had come off our coach and not made it to the top. Most had flaked around the 8th station, slept there, and begun their descent in the early morning. They made us feel quite clever and capable.

I mentioned Kim and Mac on the video credits. There were another two guys with them, but their names escape me right now.

Kim was a loud, but lovable American, Mac was a Japanese guy. It’s actually more of a surprise to see Mac there - only 1% of Japanese ever climb Fuji. We’d fallen in with them on departing the 5th station, but soon found ourselves ahead. We thought they might struggle when, even before the sixth station, Kim declared “This is a hundred times harder than I thought it would be”.

Even while ahead, we’d been bumping into them on our breaks. They would arrive just as we were thinking of starting again, but we finally lost track of them between the 7th and 8th stations.

Mac was very helpful - like us, they had booked the midday bus back to Tokyo, but we’d actually all arrived at the station just past 10am. He changed their tickets to the 11am bus, and on discovering we’d made the same plans, skipped the long queue by knocking on the back door of the ticket office and changed ours for us, too. Handy to have a native around!

TOP TIP: Book a bus later than you think you’ll need. The ticket conditions state that if the departure time has passed, you can do nothing and have to buy a new ticket. If the departure time has not passed, you can alter your ticket for no charge (space permitting).

While waiting for the bus, we pegged out the postcards to dry - they were very wet at this point - and posted all but one from the 5th station. We couldn’t post one because the stamp had soaked itself off and couldn’t be replaced.

We took the bus back, Yamanote to our hotel, and collapsed into bed for a couple of hours well-deserved rest.

That was the most miserable I have ever been in my whole entire life so far. It was also the best experience ever.

When I was ten, we went on a cycling trip to the New Forest, camping in the middle of nowhere. For one reason or another, we couldn’t take the bikes, so we kept the same itinerary, but did it on foot, in the pouring rain. My mum said it was not rubbish, it was ‘character building’. Now I understand…

I really need to improve my footage capture. It’s those moments where filming is the last thing on my mind when it really should be rolling. But I’m sure I’ll get used to that in time.

…in which Stu and H walk quite a long way in search of a dead dog.

I previously mentioned Hachiko, and now - as promised - will tell you more.

In 1924, Hidesamurō Ueno, a professor at the University of Tokyo moved to to the city with his dog, Hachiko. Each morning, Hachiko would see him off at the front door, and in the evening he would go to the station to meet the professor from his train.

In May 1925, Professor Ueno was taken ill at work and unfortunately died. However, every day for the following ten years, Hachiko arrived at the station precisely on time to meet the train, and wait in vain for his master.

Hachiko became well known in the area. Firstly people thought he was a stray, but slowly they began to notice the pattern. A student once followed him home and learnt the full story.

The dog’s loyalty to his master became nationally famous, such that a statue was erected to him - Hachiko was even present at its unveiling. The exit from the station was also named after him - a rarity in Tokyo where you’ll normally find the “East Exit”, “Central Gate” and so on. The statue is a very popular meeting point.

The Statue to Hachiko at Shibuya Station

Hachiko has also given his name (and cute cartoon likeness) to a bus line running in the area…

Hachiko Bus

We walked out from Shibuya to Aoyama Cemetary, an enormous area filled with fascinating graves, bonsai and city-centre peace and quiet. There is a geocache based around the Hachiko story and so we had the coordinates of Professor Ueno’s grave.

It took a while to find, but fortunately I knew the characters 上野 “Ueno” which, incidentally, match those of the place name in northern Tokyo.

Anyway, on arriving at the grave, we were touched to see that while the Professor has a very nice grave, on the left of the photo, Hachiko has not only his own little kennel-shaped grave at his master’s feet, but people are still leaving flowers to this local hero…

The Grave of Master and Faithful Dog

And I still nearly cry like a girl when I think about this story.

On our walk back, we passed our first (and only) Blowfish restaurant…

Almost certain death awaits

We didn’t go in - mostly due to the ludicrous price, and therefore for the second outing in a row we did not NEARLY DIE at all.

…in which Stu and H don’t nearly die at all!

After showers, it was time to go out for the evening. We were, as you can probably guess, a little tiddly by now so all potential problems with language were gone. I was absolutely fluent in Japanese, and any food we could find would be most suitable…

We’d passed a little curry place a few times where the owner had been standing outside imploring us to enter, so tonight we decided to do just that… enter.

As with many places in Japanese cities, space is at a premium, so the curry place was arranged with a counter, kitchen behind and a row of maybe six stools in front. We ordered the food and watched it being prepared - that guy has some great Naan skills.

It was a doddle to order - point at the English-language menu, but due to my new-found Japanese improvement I also managed to have a lovely, lengthy chat in Japanese with the proprieter. He told me all about the Japanese not liking spice, and I told him that curry is the national dish in the UK. We discussed the relativity of the term ‘hot’ and various other subjects which now escape me. You’ll see the chap on the Fuji video coming soon.

After beer and curry, there was only one thing to do… KARAOKE!

We wandered the streets of Ikebukuro searching for a karaoke bar. We are in Tokyo. This will be easy, right? Well, it seems not. It is very easy to find a karaoke centre - they’re on every street corner, but they’re the sort where you turn up with mates/family/colleagues/guests and hire a booth for an hour or three. If you’ve seen Lost in Translation, you’ll know exactly what I mean. We couldn’t, however, find a public bar with karaoke.

Back to the hotel (only just round the corner) to ask for more information. “What?” they say… “public karaoke? That doesn’t exist.”
“Of course it does”, we say.
“Never heard of it”, they say.
“In that case, have this 100 yen and I shall use your internet for 15 minutes and find out for myself”, I say.

Ah. Public karaoke doesn’t exist.

Well, we weren’t going to inflict ourselves just on each other, so returned to the fallback - the cheap hotel bar and patio. Great for watching the world go by, and fun when two people at the table next to you are chatting away in an unintelligible language which slowly sinks into your subconscience…

“Anteeksi”, I say, “oletteko Suomalaiset?”

Yes. They were Finnish, and we had a brief chat about what had brought us all there, about the fact that ticket is lippu in … um … Finnish, I think and kippu in Japanese and how I can never remember which is which, and yet more subjects which escape me.

Definitely time for bed. Especially as the following day we would be climbing Mount Fuji during which we predicted there would be an EXTREME chance that we could NEARLY DIE.