Adventure In Japan

A few minutes away from the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, we'll go on to a 175 acre, evergreen forest right in the middle of central Tokyo. Within we'll find Meiji Shrine. Dedicated to the memory of the late Emperor Meiji and his wife, the shrine is the greatest in Tokyo and an oasis of calm amidst the urban maelstrom.

We then head straight into the heart of the city; the central business district of Shinjuku. Our destination is the 45th floor of the monolithic Tokyo City Hall Building. From there we'll have a birds eye view of the city we will go on to explore and, on a clear day, a view of Mt. Fuji.

Next, we cross over to the grittier East Tokyo area. Gone are the towering skyscrapers and massive shopping complexes and in their place we find quiet local temples and teahouses in the Asakusa district of Shitamachi.

Before we do any more exploring however, we'll stop at Aoi-Marushin, a famed Tempura restaurant with more than fifty years of history. The restaurant has won numerous awards and appeared on television countless times, however doesn't break the bank.

This is a great place to soak up the East Tokyo atmosphere. Past the Thunder Gate, you'll find a street leading to the temple lined with shops on either side that sell everything from chopsticks and teacups to t-shirts and kimono. Past there is the temple itself, an immense red construction dominating the landscape.

In the seventh century, legend has it that two fishermen found a golden statue of the Kannon (a buddhist deity) in the Sumida river. The village chief recognised the sanctity of the statue and converted his house into a temple so that worshippers could venerate it. That temple is present day Sensoji and the complex surrounding it.

We conclude the tour with a stroll through the lesser-known areas of Shitamachi, where if you squint you might just catch a glimpse of the Tokyo of a hundred years ago. While developers have converted every other ward of Tokyo into smaller versions of Shibuya or Ikebukuro over the past twenty years, Shitamachi remains trapped in a perennial time warp.

The tour starts at Tsukiji fish market, the largest wholesale food market in the world. The market was originally built to provide food for Edo castle, and now it feeds the whole city. Here we can sample the best Sushi in Tokyo (arguably Japan).

Our next stop is Yanaka Ginza, a traditional market street lined with traditional, quirky little shops selling all manner of items. Along the way we will stop at Kanekichi, a traditional tea shop selling only their own blends. Close by is Buseki's Basket Shop, a basket weaver that only uses well smoked, hundred-year-old bamboo procured from under thatched roofs of country cottages.

In this area there are temples and shrines almost every fifty metres. We'll be making a stop at Keio-ji, known for its intricate system of copper pipes used for collecting rainwater in case of a fire. Later on we'll also see Nezu shrine; its main hall is made with red lacquer, and a shrine to the god of rice (Inari) lies to the west. These shrines are known for their lines or consecutive red gates, donated by everyone from individual families to multinational coorporations.

Next we stroll through the Thunder Gate, down nakamise (shops which have been serving pilgrims for hundreds of years) and into Senso-ji. This temple is said to house the legendary statue of the Kannon, fished out of the Sumida river a milennia ago. The temple complex is home to a five-story pagoda and the huge Sanja matsuri festival drawing in crowds from all over Japan.

After Asakusa, we make a move to Ochanomizu. This area gets its name (literally meaning 'water for tea') for being the area where water was collected from the Kanda river for tea at the Imperial Palace. Now it is home to a thriving student population. The tour ends after dining at Yabu Soba, a 120-year-old soba restaurant well known to the locals, and then at Takemura for traditional Japanese desserts.