Tokyo Day 6 - Lazy Excursion
I was supposed to return on this day, but the airline cancelled the flight on this day and rescheduled me to the following day, so I had an extra day in Tokyo. Not really wanting to research and plan much, I decided to join a local tour. Meeting point was at Tokyo Station.
Basically it was simply like a carpool shared transport with a fixed itinerary. We went to 3 places. When we met, i was the only solo traveler and sat at a random seat in the car. When everyone arrived, the driver asked me to change the seat, because the last pair arrived and would have to be separated. The driver is mainland Chinese, and the last pair to arrive are also mainland Chinese, and they were discussing in Mandarin, "that's a solo traveler, just re-seat her." The driver asked me in English to re-seat and I was like "sure, cool" but I dunno. I have a resting bitch face? The driver was super afraid of me. (???) So I replied in Mandarin "Don't worry, I get it, I'll change my seat, no issue." .... and maybe that made him even more afraid of me lol.
The tour was to Ibaraki prefecture. First stop, 1.5hours away, Oarai Isosaki Shrine. The car dropped us off at the top (where the shrine is) but to take that photo we had to walk down to the coastline. It was such a beautiful place.
Well, having gone down meant I had to get back up.
The Goshuin-Cho is super pretty! But I'm not buying another one until I've filled up the current one. I didn't read too much about this shrine, but seeing as this is a coastal city, I guess it's like a shrine for the fishermen. Frogs are called "Kaeru" in Japanese, and it's synonymous with "Return home"... so my conclusion is the frogs are like trying to say for fishermen to "come back home."
Small shrine, gave us 40 minutes to roam around.
I think most of the tour group stayed down in the coast to take seaside photos. I did that already and roamed the shrine instead.
There's actually quite a lot of nooks and crannies and I found some interesting places within the shrine area.
Oh and then I found the display for these boats and stuff, so, kind of reconfirms my suspicion about this being a shrine for fishermen.
Very interesting display.
Then we made a short ride (30 minutes?) to the Nakaminato Fish Market. The driver/tour guide came to tell me that actually the fish from Tokyo is actually from Ibaraki (this place) and so the seafood here is even fresher than in Tokyo. We were given 1.5hours to eat and roam and shop here.
It's pretty lively and so I went for the full seafood lunch set first.
And then the roadside stalls I snacked on a couple of stuff. I've also since come to enjoy these Japanese pickled cucumber. I ate so much cucumbers throughout these 7 days here! I didn't buy anything. It's all seafood, I did think about bringing some furikake back, but then again, back at home I'd hardly eat rice, so was no point to buy any of that back.
Another 1-hour ride to Hitachi Seaside Park. The driver-guide suggested to buy a 600-yen ticket to take the in-park train. We were given 2 hours to explore this place.
I found a bike rental and of course... I went on the bike instead! It's pretty well planned - there is a bike path, and you can park somewhere near the main points, and walk there.
If you are a couple you can rent this two-seat bike lol.
The Nemophilia's in bloom.
The Narcissus were dried out already.
I should have taken more photos with my plushies.
There was a phone-stand and so I took a self photo.
... Poppies? Pansies? I don't know my flowers, sorry.
Hm...... tulips? No. Oh, there was an amusement park area and I was so tempted to go on the Ferris Wheel, but 2 hours really wasn't enough to explore all that.
I timed my trip pretty well, returned the bike and still had time to enjoy this "Nemophilia Float." Not that it was any good lol. It was just... sweet. Soda and syrup sweet. With ice cream. I finished the ice cream and poured the rest of the soda into my by-now empty tumbler.
And another 2 hours back to Tokyo station. I decided to have a walk around and found out apparently Tokyo Station as a "Character Street". Here's Goku (?) looking like a monkey. And you know what, Sun Goku started as a monkey, right? When he was a kid he had a tail and all? And in Chinese, his name is actually the name of the Monkey King in Journey to the West. And then another donut place had this HUGE donut.
Of course there's Pikachu station master!
The character street was pretty impressive - there were like actual character stores (Sanrio, Rilakkuma, Chiikawa etc)
And then there were also TV-channel specific stores. So like TBS store with all the recent TBS hot stuff.
Honestly, nothing around there caught my eye (I've got self-control lol). It rained this evening and I didn't feel like searching for new food, so I went back to some good old conveyor belt sushi near my hotel.
Basically it was simply like a carpool shared transport with a fixed itinerary. We went to 3 places. When we met, i was the only solo traveler and sat at a random seat in the car. When everyone arrived, the driver asked me to change the seat, because the last pair arrived and would have to be separated. The driver is mainland Chinese, and the last pair to arrive are also mainland Chinese, and they were discussing in Mandarin, "that's a solo traveler, just re-seat her." The driver asked me in English to re-seat and I was like "sure, cool" but I dunno. I have a resting bitch face? The driver was super afraid of me. (???) So I replied in Mandarin "Don't worry, I get it, I'll change my seat, no issue." .... and maybe that made him even more afraid of me lol.
The tour was to Ibaraki prefecture. First stop, 1.5hours away, Oarai Isosaki Shrine. The car dropped us off at the top (where the shrine is) but to take that photo we had to walk down to the coastline. It was such a beautiful place.
Well, having gone down meant I had to get back up.
The Goshuin-Cho is super pretty! But I'm not buying another one until I've filled up the current one. I didn't read too much about this shrine, but seeing as this is a coastal city, I guess it's like a shrine for the fishermen. Frogs are called "Kaeru" in Japanese, and it's synonymous with "Return home"... so my conclusion is the frogs are like trying to say for fishermen to "come back home."
Small shrine, gave us 40 minutes to roam around.
I think most of the tour group stayed down in the coast to take seaside photos. I did that already and roamed the shrine instead.
There's actually quite a lot of nooks and crannies and I found some interesting places within the shrine area.
Oh and then I found the display for these boats and stuff, so, kind of reconfirms my suspicion about this being a shrine for fishermen.
Very interesting display.
Then we made a short ride (30 minutes?) to the Nakaminato Fish Market. The driver/tour guide came to tell me that actually the fish from Tokyo is actually from Ibaraki (this place) and so the seafood here is even fresher than in Tokyo. We were given 1.5hours to eat and roam and shop here.
It's pretty lively and so I went for the full seafood lunch set first.
And then the roadside stalls I snacked on a couple of stuff. I've also since come to enjoy these Japanese pickled cucumber. I ate so much cucumbers throughout these 7 days here! I didn't buy anything. It's all seafood, I did think about bringing some furikake back, but then again, back at home I'd hardly eat rice, so was no point to buy any of that back.
Another 1-hour ride to Hitachi Seaside Park. The driver-guide suggested to buy a 600-yen ticket to take the in-park train. We were given 2 hours to explore this place.
I found a bike rental and of course... I went on the bike instead! It's pretty well planned - there is a bike path, and you can park somewhere near the main points, and walk there.
If you are a couple you can rent this two-seat bike lol.
The Nemophilia's in bloom.
The Narcissus were dried out already.
I should have taken more photos with my plushies.
There was a phone-stand and so I took a self photo.
... Poppies? Pansies? I don't know my flowers, sorry.
Hm...... tulips? No. Oh, there was an amusement park area and I was so tempted to go on the Ferris Wheel, but 2 hours really wasn't enough to explore all that.
I timed my trip pretty well, returned the bike and still had time to enjoy this "Nemophilia Float." Not that it was any good lol. It was just... sweet. Soda and syrup sweet. With ice cream. I finished the ice cream and poured the rest of the soda into my by-now empty tumbler.
And another 2 hours back to Tokyo station. I decided to have a walk around and found out apparently Tokyo Station as a "Character Street". Here's Goku (?) looking like a monkey. And you know what, Sun Goku started as a monkey, right? When he was a kid he had a tail and all? And in Chinese, his name is actually the name of the Monkey King in Journey to the West. And then another donut place had this HUGE donut.
Of course there's Pikachu station master!
The character street was pretty impressive - there were like actual character stores (Sanrio, Rilakkuma, Chiikawa etc)
And then there were also TV-channel specific stores. So like TBS store with all the recent TBS hot stuff.
Honestly, nothing around there caught my eye (I've got self-control lol). It rained this evening and I didn't feel like searching for new food, so I went back to some good old conveyor belt sushi near my hotel.