Day 3 in Toky (Vlog) | Sensoji & Tokyo Tower



Here's a snapshot of what I did throughout these four days:

*Day 3 is marked in bold
  • Shrines: Nezu Shrine (Nezu), Hanazono Shrine (Shinjuku), Gotokuji Temple (Gotokuji), Sensoji Temple (Asakusa), Togo Shrine (Harajuku), and      Meijijingu Shrine (Harajuku)
  • Shopping: Harajuku's Takeshita Street, Shibuya's 109, Asakusa Area, Tokyo JR Underground Shopping Street, and Mitsui Outlet Park Tama-Minami Osawa Branch
  • Sight Seeing: Tokyo Tower, Tokyo Sky Tree Tower (from Asakusa)
  • Targeted food items: Japanese curry, Sashimi, Yakitori, Ikayaki, Tonkatsu, any kind of Don (Rice bowls) and Green Tea/Red Bean desserts.
  • Special Agenda: Owl Cafe


St Marc café has Nutella croissants. Shut up and take my money. 

I slept in today because yesterday was absolutely exhausting with lots on the agenda. I didn’t arrive at Sensoji Temple until around 10:30am and it was already crawling with tourists. The walkway (Nakamise-dori) between after entering Kaminarimon (雷門, “Thunder Gate”)  up to the actual temple are stalls on either sides selling traditional souvenirs ranging from kimonos, to lucky cats, fans, handkerchiefs, coin pouches, toys, cellphone charms, food, and anything you can imagine. I decided to make my way straight to the temple and do the shopping later.

Sensoji, built in year 628 is one of the oldest temples in Japan.







Walking into the main temple area, you can hear people shaking away on the Omikuji buckets to get their lucky number. There were students, businessmen, tourists, families, and people of all kinds. At the very center was where the incense were placed. It is seen as good luck to fan some smoke onto your body. I went for a lucky draw and got a “blessing” which is quite good. For souvenirs, I bought a few lucky cats as well as a handkerchief. In Japan all public toilets do not offer paper towels to dry off your hands to be environmentally friendly. They only have hand drying machines, but I much prefer drying my hand on a towel of some sort. From one of the side streets off the right side (facing the temple), you can see Sky Tree Tower perfectly in the distance.


Tokyo Eki – Ichibangai 東京駅一番街

This is the underground shopping area located directly beneath the JR Tokyo Station. You can find food, souvenirs, and specialty store for many famous cartoon characters such as Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Totoro, Miffy, Mr. Capybara, and Rilakkuma. I was mainly there for lunch, and found this place that served Okinawa cuisine - Ryutan 龍潭 (Dragon Lake) it was called, pretty sick name. I ordered a Pork Rice Bowl. I’ve never had anything like it; the meat was so tender and sweet, rich with soy sauce, garlic, onions and spring onion flavors. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. ¥950 for the rice bowl, miso soup, and a salad.

In the afternoon, I went back to Harajuku again to visit Tōgō Shrine. I saw an advertisement on TV about it and did not know it existed. It was actually right next to the busy Takeshita Street. The main shrine was really pretty, it had designs that reminded me of a Japanese Samurai’s helmet. Since it’s a temple built more in the modern years, and also being right in Harajuku, they had really interesting types of Omikuji. Instead of the standard white paper inked with calligraphy in black, they had Omikuji wrapped in a flower shaped card, and also colorful cartoon looking ones.


St Marc Café - Green tea ice cream and red bean dessert

I know, this sounds weird. But trust me, green tea and red bean go really well together. And this form of dessert is extremely popular in Japan.  This dessert break was perfect because my feel were killing me again. After that I attempted to withdraw some cash from the ATM because I had been paying everything including meals with cash up to this point and was running out. Good thing is, because Chinese tourists are so common now, all ATMs will accept China Union Pay! Most Hong Kong credit cards use that so hooray, cash successfully obtained. This might be one of the rare occasions where I’m thankful that Hong Kong has anything to do with China.

Sunset started at 5:30pm, and I got to Tokyo Tower at around 6.





I don’t really remember what Tokyo looked like in 2009. I know that Skytree Tower is built and all that, but the height of Skytree Tower is too tall and doesn’t allow you to see the details of certain buildings. And the price is also pretty outrageous (¥3,090 yen on the day of and ¥3,600 for advance tickets to skip the long waiting line). I will always be loyal to Tokyo Tower. It was ¥1,600 yen for both the Main Observatory (145m) and Special Observatory (250m). And wow the view was breathtaking. The elevators up both observatories had clear windows, but once you stepped to the actual observatory, there is a symphony of sparkling lights right before your eyes. It’s absolutely stunning. Tokyo is a very beautiful city. And although it doesn’t have any distinctive skyline, since last time I was here the entire business district’s buildings have changed to a more modern style with all glass windows. Both the Main and Special Observatory had really good views of the city. There’s also a Jazz bar on the second floor of the Main Observatory which made the atmosphere extra classy and romantic.





And then I saw Morohoshi San’s (Japanese Gangster) Silver Reflective LED Lamborghini.

It was light straight out of Fast and Furious. I’ve seen enough of Lamborghinis and Ferraris in Hong Kong, it’s no special scene, but wow, this Silver LED Lamborghini was off the rails. I am so glad I caught it on camera. I don’t know how to describe the feeling.. it was kind of like this:

(What is that noise?)

(Dude, that’s way too loud for Japan...)

(Wait.. that’s way too bright…)

(Woahhhhhh the colors)

hahahaha (Yes I caught it on camera.. who the heck drives that? I wonder if it’s a really young or really old guy.)




West of Tokyo tower was the Roppongi district, last time traveling was with family so we didn’t really explore this area. I was planning to grab dinner here this time round. I was walking around for a while looking for an Izakaya with a good menu but couldn’t seem to find one. Roppongi is really different from the rest of Tokyo. Let me be blunt here, there were a lot of black guys, Indian guys, and very ratchet looking white girls in skimpy dresses. And then there’s the expat guy and Japanese girl combo where the Japanese girl could barely speak English and the expat was definitely not the best looking but managed to woo the girl with his poor Japanese. Such a cliché. (Shivers) 


“Hi my name is xxx, you look really pretty, can we be friends? (In Japanese)” – Random street guy #63, Shibuya.

The one good Izakaya I found wasn’t free till 8:45pm and I was starving, so I head back to the place I went to on day one in Shibuya instead. I didn’t realize that it’s end of the month closing day so all the sales businessmen are out drinking and eating at Izakaya’s. Luckily I still had my own booth. By the time I finished, it wasn’t 10pm yet, and there were drunk people everywhere on the streets; two guys holding up their friend in the middle, another young girl sitting on the side walk in front of a bar refusing to stand up to leave with her friends and just laid down and started sleeping.

There was this German family on the subway train when I was heading back to the hotel. There were 3 kids in the family, all around the ages of maybe 7-10? These 2 Japanese women beside me were whispering in Japanese loud enough for me to hear. The conversation kind of went like this:

“Look at those kids, aren’t they adorable?”

“Yea, the blonde hair makes them extra cute!”

“I know, and don’t forget about the blue eyes too, makes them look like dolls!”

#Asians.



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Tokyo Day 4’s agenda includes: Owl Café, Akihabara, Ueno, and a Tonkatsu place.



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