https://tokyocheapo.com/events/furusato-festival-tokyo/

So there’s this annual 10 day event in Tokyo celebrating the foods and culture of Japan. I’d seen it TV before and always wanted to see it. Imagine my luck when I found it is happening here, now!

I ate and drank until my tummy hurt. So, winning!!

Later a nap and a cooking class.

The class was in Japanese, so I may have missed a bit. But it wasn’t too hard to follow along and pay attention. I know about 10 Japanese words now, so that helped. As is always the case, real home cooking is the best. I could make homemade miso soup now so that’s cool!

Tomorrow, laundry.

Goodnight!!

It didn’t rain like I expected, so that was nice.

I didn’t really have a plan but to walk and explore. The mistake I made yesterday was to start wandering aimlessly AFTER my feet already hurt. So today I just walked slow and took lots of pictures.

I’d wanted to go back to the cemetery that Allisa and I had found back in 2016. The neighborhood seemed to have more to offer but we ran out of day.

There’s a lot to see up there. The actual walking around is less hectic than other parts of town, so it’s much more pleasant to sightsee. In the busy tourist areas you kinda just get swept along, in the worst way.

I found lots to see but not much to talk about. So many cemeteries and shrines, I lost count.

I had a nice lunch in a cute shopping street. Ramen again, this time a different kind of pork slices.

On the way back I walked through the kitchen utensils town. Lots of knife shops. I saw one priced at thousands of dollars. Who’s buying that ????

That’s all I guess.

Night!

Gather ’round, boys and girls and let me tell you a story.

It sounds a lot like stories I’ve told before, involving new shoes, and poor decisions, and the incontrovertible pull of the aging process.

Actually, that’s all you need to know.

Anyhoo, had a lovely day today at Mt Takao. Its 90 minutes from my hostel and with the partly cloudy conditions it was a great day for a hike.

Really it’s just uphill walking but I’m going to call it hiking to sound more athletic lol. Nonetheless I was passed by every. single. old person on the way up AND down. Allisa will appreciate that.

So I’m just having a great old time but I forget the most important thing. SNACKS.

Everyone else has brought food, drinks, camp stoves, a skillet I shit you not to make hot food. I’ve got….a can of beer from the snack bar and pringles.

At least I’m the only person drinking beer at 10 am lol. So I’ve got that going for me

An older gal called Kyoko took pity on me and shared an apple and talked about traveling the world. It was cool.

On a clearer day and with different eyes you can see Fuji

On the way down I make a terrible decision not to take the chairlift.

Friends, take the chairlift. That’s all you need to know.

I went back to town for lunch. I accidentally had some curry at a famous tourist attraction. I’m looking at pics online and I see that the street is casually called Piss Alley!!

It was way too early to head back, so I lost myself in the Shinjuku neighborhood.

So I’m walking along this street and the real estate looks more and more expensive, but the folks look like hobos. I’ve managed to find Daikanyama. The people and hotel guests are SO rich they’re rocking socks and Crocs. With panache.

Love this place!!

I went to the Shibuya scramble and walked around a little bit, but it wasn’t fun anymore so now I’m home and eating cheese.

Life is good

But it all worked out well.

I tried hard to stay in until 10 but I was up soooooo early. Jet lag or something. So I checked out Tokyo station. It’s been rebuilt and is amazing. It has a good wikipedia page.

I thought that with rain in the forecast, I should probably find a way to be inside a lot….hahahaja.

But then 10 minutes later (that is my maximum attention span) I just walked towards the palace grounds to try again to see what I could see.

So anyway I found myself on an outdoor walking tour during the rainiest time of the day, of course. Totally worth it. We saw as much of the palace complex as anyone ever does. None is in any way original of course bc WWII. Still neat.

After an adequate lunch, a museum. The museums in Japan are very moderately priced so that’s nice. It was ok.

Then I was thinking of going to this neat old shrine and park that I’d seen before, and then promptly subway’d it to the wrong station. Oops. TripAdvisor told me that there’s this free observation deck nearby and it was cool! A snack bar, and a piano, and other neat stuff.

On the way back I walked through a park and saw an old shinto shrine. It still had a semi-original wooden pagoda and priests that drive Mercedes Benzes lol.

Thus my day ended. Dinner was some random stuff from the 7-11.

Night!