Katie Does Japan

Day 1 - Arriving into Shinjuku

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We probably chose the wrong flight time, because we get into Tokyo at 8am after a 5am start and 14-hour journey. After a fun bonus 'guns and narcotics' search at customs and a brief panic about which carriage to get on, we board a spotlessly clean train and enjoy the views of traditional-looking Japanese houses rolling through the suburbs.

We arrive into Shinjuku at about 11am, blinking onto the busiest crossing in the world. Takes about fifteen minutes to orientate ourselves then find the hotel with little bother (apart from one of the wheels falling off my suitcase en route). We're too early to check-in, so dump our cases and go for a sleepy wander. Find a Muji store with attached cafe, have a drawn-out cup of tea, poke around the funny packet foods for sale and find a few other local shops worth exploring another time. Go back to check in, have a blissful 2-hour nap then, feeling in need of something quick and uncomplicated, have dinner in the Lumine mall at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant. He's apparently huge in America and invented California-Italian cuisine, which seems to mean terrible tortilla chips and guacamole, so-so burgers and pizza with weird yellow paste on. Not a great introduction to Tokyo cuisine. Then back to the hotel for a much needed 12-hour sleep.

View from hotel room	Shinjuku crossing
Shinjuku crossing

Maps

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These are the maps I made before going; we didn't visit everywhere on the maps but nearly all the places I wrote about in the travelog are on here.

Tokyo

View Larger Map

Kyoto

View Kyoto in a larger map

Entertainment/Sights

2009-11-11T11:14:00.017Z

Tokyo

Videogame arcades

These are everywhere, with an especially massive collection in Electronics town, Akihabara. The big names are Sega, Namco and Taito. They are often huge, around 7 floors, arranged by type of game - usually with addictive grab machines to draw you in (these machine swallowed so many of my Y100 coins!) and floors full of shoot-em-ups, driving games, flight simulators and role-play war games, for the hardcore-ers. We mostly played Mario Kart, Guitar Hero and a drumming game. Most of them also contain a floor of photo machines, where all the schoolkids gather to take photos on cheesy backgrounds, printed onto a post-card sized sheet. I made us have a go too - twice.

Studio Ghibli Museum

A really charming museum dedicated to the Japanese animation studio which made Spirited Away and many other films. Even if you aren't particularly a Ghibli fan (I haven't seen any of the films all the way through) it's a really lovely and captivating museum. Read more about it on Day 4's page. The nearest metro stop is Mitaka, but it's nice to go via Kichijoji and walk through the wildlife reserve park, which also houses a pretty shrine. You have to buy a ticket for a specific date before you leave, check the website for details.

Asakusa - Senso-ji temple

This is the oldest temple remaining in Tokyo (WW2 bombs took out most of them). It has a famous iconic entrance gate with a huge red paper lantern, and a street lined with souvenir shops leads up the the temple. Unfortunately when we visited it was extremely busy and the temple was covered in scaffolding so it wasn't particularly enjoyable; the smaller shrines in Yanaka outshone it.

Yanaka - old town

A nice area for a stroll away from the craziness of Tokyo. It's all traditional houses interspersed with lots of small shrines. We walked from Nippori down to Ueno in an hour or two.

Super Deluxe

A cool basement venue/bar/art space in Roppongi. Attracts an international crowd to its eclectic music/art events. They also brew their own excellent beer, Tokyo Ale. Check the website to see what's on.

Odaiba/Joypolis

A modern beachside development to the south of Tokyo, accessed by a private monorail line from Shimbashi. The beach is gorgeous and calm with views across the bay. There's a complex called Decks nearby which contains Joypolis, an indoor Sega amusement park with rides and arcade games. It also has a slightly odd 1960s-themed retro arcade with vintage games, and a few tacky sweet and souvenir shops.

Cat cafes

Aaah, only in Japan would such a place exist where you could pay to go into a room and pet kitties all afternoon. They attract a range of customers from intrigued tourists to middle-aged ladies to young men. We went to two cat cafes in Tokyo - Nekubukuro, which is in the Ikebukuro branch of Tokyu Hands, and Cha Ma Mo, a newly-opened one in Harajuku. I preferred the Harajuku one - although you couldn't pick the cats up, this made them calmer and more playful.

National Museum

A smallish but well-stocked museum in Ueno containing art and artefacts from throughout Japan's history. There's also a separate building of Asian treasures with access included in the ticket price.

Modern Art Museum

The Modern Art Museum is in Maranouchi, across the road from the Imperial Palace, so you can visit both on the same day. You can buy a joint ticket for the main art gallery, the special exhibition and the nearby craft museum for Y840. The main gallery has a interesting selection of modern Japanese artists as well as some international names including Paul Klee and Frida Kahlo. I found the craft museum pretty dull - there's only so many glazed ceramic tea bowls you can look at.

Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens

These gardens were a 5 minute walk from our hotel. There's an English rose garden, a pretty lake, and a tea house in the middle, nice for a quiet wander

Kyoto

Nishi Hongan-ji Temple

This was across the road from our ryokan. A large shrine with several smaller sub-building in the complex. Contains lovely intricate lanterns and gilded carvings. This and the nearby Higashi Hongan-ji temple were originally part of the same complex, and are a World Heritage site (one of 17 in Kyoto).

Higashiyama district

This mountainous area to the east of Kyoto (Higashiyama literally means 'East mountains') contains loads of cultural sites. We visited:

Kiyomizudera temple - A lovely temple complex perched up in the hilly forest areas.

Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka - Stone steps down from theKiyomizudera temple, lined with souvenir and gift shops.

Chion-in temple - A large and attractive temple with huge entrance gate.

The Nanzen-ji temple - A huge entrance gate marks the start of the complex which contains several sub-temples, a small waterfall, and an attractive aqueduct with huge archways.

The Philosopher's Path - A scenic walkway up the hills starting at the Nanzen-ji temple. It follows a canal, lined with trees and the odd cafe and gift shop

Kyoto Handicraft Centre

A 7-storey superstore selling all kinds of local specialty crafts like woodblock prints, kimono, fans and jewellery. It also runs demonstrations and workshops- we did a fun woodblock printing workshop when we visited.

Arashiyama

A mountain town to the north-west of Kyoto - you can catch a bus or train out there. A pretty little place that has a quaint village-y feel, but busy with tourists when we visited. Contains the Tenryu-ji, a major Zen Buddhist temple which is much more simple and minimalist in design than some of the more grandiose ones. It's surrounded by pretty gardens, and right next to it is a large bamboo grove, which is calm and beautiful to walk through. There are a few souvenir shops in town mostly selling bamboo items due to the nearby forest, and some cue tea houses to eat in.

Manga Museum

A fairly grand institution set in an old school house, with a huge library of manga books and an academic learning facility. The exhibition side is pretty small so I'd say it's for people with a serious interest in manga only.

Nara

Nara is about 45 minutes south of Kyoto by train. It's Japan's first capital city but now feels like a smallish town that centres around tourism. Read more about it on my Nara travelog entry.

Costume Museum

A cute one-room museum containing a miniature-sized diorama of an Emperor's palace, with little dolls of all the people in costume. You can also try on a full-size traditional robe and have photos taken.

Nijo Castle

A shogun castle dating from the 1600s. It's expensive to get in and didn't particularly enjoy visiting it - the place is totally filled with signs stating 'NO PHOTOS', 'DO NOT TOUCH', 'NO SKETCHING' (no sketching, seriously?), 'DO NOT OPEN' - so many rules that it ruined the enjoyment of the place, some of which would otherwise be interesting and attractive.

Photo map

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Useful links

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Bento.com
Excellent website for finding restaurants; their reviews are generally on the money. Covers Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka.

Deepkyoto.com
Events, eating and sights in Kyoto.

Asking for Trouble
This is an excellent guide to Tokyo shopping, with a strong focus on the crafty and kawaii. Excellent descriptions and directions to hard-to-find shops. It's all online or you can buy the printed zine to take with you.

Tokyo Art Beat
Comprehensive site of all things arty and design-y in Tokyo, with listings by popularity and date.

Hyperedia travel
Useful site for finding your way around the sprawling Japanese public transport system.

Japan rail pass
If you're planning on doing much travelling around Japan, you will probably save money by buying a Japan Rail Pass, which allows unlimited travel on most trains for 7 or 14 days. We bought ours from Inside Japan Tours, and you can also add a Pasmo card for Tokyo metro travel.

Superfuture - Supertravel
Find the coolest shops by area with Superfuture's interactive maps.

TokyoQ
Quirky site with more unusual bar and shop listings.

CNN Go: Tokyo
New but informative site with current events and the newest shops and restaurants.

Food guide

2009-11-09T11:34:00.018Z

Being a vegetarian and speaking no Japanese, I thought it would be a bit of a nightmare trying to find things to eat in Japan. Luckily I was (mostly) wrong, and the food turned out to be some of the best I've ever eaten. Plenty of places have English menus and there are a lot of healthy/organic cafes that have the best range of vegetarian options. There are also a lot of good quality Italian restauarants, and several Indian and Nepalese curry houses - both of which are a good bet for veggies. Eating out is not particularly expensive; especially good value are 'set' lunch and dinners which usually offer lots of small dishes for a fixed price. All of the places listed below are veggie-friendly and have English menu/staff.

Tokyo

Potluck (lunch, sandwiches)
A great lunch spot in Shibuya (in the basement of Opening Ceremony), it serves Vietnamese ban minh (baguette sandwiches stuffed with meat, egg, or veggies).
Potluck website

Cafe Ratia (healthy, fusion)
Tasty east/west fusion food in a minimalist-designed restaurant behind Harajuku's main bustle (near the Ukiyo-e Museum). We ate deep-fried tofu and chicken, balsamic glazed veggies, and bruschetta.
Cafe Ratia website

Japanese Vegetable Kitchen (healthy)
A fantastic find in Kichijoji, at the crossroads under the railway bridge near the park - look for the sign leading up a flight of stairs. Not all veggie but lots of options, food comes with bowls of rice, pickles and miso, with free roobois tea.

Sansar (Nepalese, curry)
Delicious curries served by friendly Nepalese staff, on a Shinjuku backstreet. Good value set thali-style meals. I'd walk back to Tokyo for more of their heavenly naan bread.
Sansar on bento.com

Gonpachi (teppanyaki)
Fantastic place housed in a converted warehouse in Roppongi, which apparently inspired the restaurant scene from 'Kill Bill'. Large menu of small tapas-style dishes, including chargrilled skewers of meat and veggies, fresh noodles, and amazing rice cooked in a hot stone pot. Upstairs is a more refined sushi restaurant. Slightly expensive but worth it for the experience.
Gonpachi website

Fonda De La Madrugada (Mexican)
Surprisingly authentic Mexican food in a large basement restaurant in Harajuku. Fun atmosphere with a live table-side mariachi band. Great cocktails and frijoles, rather expensive.
Fonda De La Madrugada website

Chibo (okonomiyaki)
Classy okonomikayi restaurant in Ebisu, in the Yebisu Garden Place complex. Great views and fun cook-it-yourself with the table hotplate.
Chibo website

Court Lodge (Sri Lankan, curry)
A small Sri Lankan eatery tucked into Shinjuku's business district to the west of the station. Unusual, authentic-tasting curries, and they also make their own range of sauces and chutneys which you can buy to take away.
Court Lodge website

Aureole (healthy, lunch)
A nice lunch spot facing onto Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens. Fixed price around ￥1000 (£6) for a starter salad, main, and cake for dessert. Mains include wholewheat pizza and California rolls.
Aureole website

Crayon House (healthy, organic)
Cafe/restaurant in Harajuku with its own health food shop attached. Food is alright, a bit bland. Lots of veggie options, nice ambience with lots of children and Japanese-stye sunken seating.
Crayon House website

Kyoto

Nishiki Market (ramen)
I don't even know the name of this place as it was in Japanese, but look for the red lanterns and kitschy 60s advertising posters on Nishiki Market. Great steamy little place with good booze and extensive menu. Big bowls of tasty ramen, and the fried sweet potatoes with sweetened butter dipping sauce are absolutely heavenly.

Cafe Rocka (vegetarian)
Basement cafe on the Ninenzaka near Kiyomizudera Temple, behind a cool design-y store. Tasty veg food including curry and teriyaki tofu wraps.

Kyodofu Fujino (tofu, vegetarian)
Tofu and yuba (tofu skins) done every way imaginable and all delicious (all vegetarian). On the 11th floor of the Isetan mall above Kyoto station - it doesn't get much more Japanese than a restaurant within a mall within a station. Set meals and a la carte; we shared a ￥3000 set meal between us which was about enough.
Kyodofu Fujino website

Kairas (oragnic, vegetarian)
A charming cosy little cafe that feels like it's converted from someone's home. The food is mostly vegan with a large menu (cutely hand-written and illustrated) including a good value set lunch. Fantastic food, great organic coffee, and a friendly owner. On the same road as the Kyoto Handicraft Centre.
Kairas on Happycow website

Kerala (Indian)
Old-skool British curry house styling on Kawaramachi Street. Nice menu with a large veggie section, good value.
Kerala on Bento.com

The Kitchen Salvatore Cuomo (Italian)
A classy Italian place on the 11th floor of Kyoto station Isetan. Nice views of the city from the window-side tables and really good, refined Italian food. Dishes are fairly small and designed to be shared. Pretty pricey.
Salvatore Cuomo website

Mikoan (vegetarian)
Extremely special place which went to on our last night in Japan. A tiny bar with about ten seats, packed to the rafters with books and trinkets and a whole family of live-in tabby cats (they had newborn kittens when we visited, so adorable). The owner cooks everything on a tiny stove behind the bar and her mother helps out. ￥1000 (£6) gets you a whole tray full of little dishes including deep-fried yuba, tofu-filled spring rolls, sesame seaweed, hot ginger and chilli beansprouts and miso broth. If two of you order, you get different dishes so you can share. An amazing experience of high-end shojin ryori (Zen Buddhist vegetarian food) without the usual high price tag.
Mikaon on deepkyoto.com

Shopping guide

2009-11-09T11:03:00.018Z

Tokyo

Loft (homeware, kitchenware, stationery)

Probably my favourite shopping find - a big department store with several branches, including Shibuya and Kichijoji (and Kyoto). Stocks homeware, kitchenware, stationery, accessories and much more - you could spend hours browsing it all.
Loft website

Opening Ceremony (clothing)
Quirky designer department store in Shibuya, each of the 8 floors bespokely designed. Great just to look around but the prices are quite high.
Opening Ceremony Tokyo website

Muji (homeware, stationery, food, clothing)
Mujis are everywhere in Tokyo, they are generally bigger than UK ones with a lot more range - including tons of crazy packet foods alongside the usual homewares and clothing. Some, like the Shinjuku one, have cafes which are really lovely. The prices are a bit lower than in the UK so it's good if you want to stock up on stuff.
Muji website

LaForet (clothing, crafts)
A gorgeous mall in Harajuku, full of boutiques from Japanese and international designers. My favourites are the bead shop and underwear/pajama shop. It even has a Topshop, with similar stock to the UK (but more expensive).
LaForet website

Lumine (clothing)
A mall that sits over Shinjuku station. I didn't look around the whole place but it looks to carry some nice clothing, accessories and shoes.
Lumine website

Tokyu Hands (homeware, crafts, bags)
A one-stop mall that sells everything from plumbing supplies to knitting yarn. The floor guides often aren't in English so you have to rummage a bit to find what you're after; worth a nose around, though. The Ikebukuro branch has a huge pet section with cat cafe on the top floor.
Tokyu Hands website

Graniph (clothing)
Stocks cool designer-y t-shirts for men and women. The best branch is in Harajuku.
Graniph website

Uniqlo (clothing)
Branches are everywhere and generally bigger than UK ones; prices are lower than the UK so good to stock up on basics. The UT concept store in Harajuku is pretty cool.
Uniqlo website

Forever 21 (clothing)
A big branch of the US store in Harajuku - packed with teenage girls but good for cheap fashionable clothes.
Forever 21 website

Kiddyland (toys, stationery, gifts)
A super toy store in Harajuku with zones dedicated to different characters, from Hello Kitty to Studio Ghibli. Also stocks quirky collectibles and stationery on the top floor.
Kiddyland website

MOMA Design Store (design, homeware, stationery)
Housed in a classy building above the Chanel shop in Omotesando, this store stocks international design classics and also has a small art gallery with changing exhibitions. It's pricey but fun to look around.
MOMA Design Store website

Oriental Bazaar (souvenirs, gifts)
A gift and souvenir shop that was full of tourists, but it isn't tacky or overpriced - it has a nice selection of gifts from bags to coasters to woodblock prints. Located in Omotesando/Harajuku.
Oriental Bazaar website

Mighty Soxer (socks)
Branches of this sock shop are dotted all over the place - there are good ones in Kichijoji and on Takeshita Dori in Harajuku. It's from the same people as Tabio in the UK, the same quality but a lot cheaper - pick up 3 pairs of cute socks for Y1000 (about £6). They also sell tights, leggings and slippers.
Mighty Soxer website

Super Potato (videogames, retro)
A retro videogame mecca in Akihabara. It sells used vintage games from SNES to Dreamcast as well as a few plushy toys, and has a small arcade of vintage game machines on the top floor.
Super Potato website

Aso Bit City (videogames)
Stocks a whole load geeky manga figurines, also some San-x stuff and cute stationery, and has a good selection of gashapon (machines which dispense a small toy for around Y200; I got a Mario mushroom). Located in Akihabara near the station.
Aso Bit City website

Mandarake (retro, toys)
Also in Akihabara, stocks mostly vintage figurines, toys and games.
Mandarake website

Sunshine City (mall)
A huge mall in Ikebukuro. The fashion shops are mostly a bit tacky but there's a Hello Kitty store and Studio Ghilbi merch store. It's attached to a branch of Tokyu Hands and nearly next door to a big Sanrio store.
Sunshine City website

Okadaya (fabric, crafts)
Lovely fabric store in Shinjuku with a great range of cute fabrics, from Alice in Wonderland to pretty florals.
Okadaya website

Nippori - Texile Town (fabric, crafts)
A whole area filled with fabric shops, heaven for crafters. The biggest selection is in Tomato but the smaller stores on the walk up have some little treasures too.
Map of Textile Town

Kyoto

Ninenzaka / Sannensaka (gifts, souvenirs)
Ancient stone steps leading down from the Kiyomizudera temple, lined with cute shops selling locally-crafted items like ceramics, fans, and sweets. Great for gifts and souvenirs.

Nishiki Market (food)
A covered-over food market selling everything from dried fish to sweets. Also houses some good cafes and restaurants.
Japan Guide to Nishiki Market

Teramachi Street (clothing, souvenirs, fabric)
Another covered shopping street that runs perpendicular to Nishiki Market. Most of the shops are tacky as hell but there is a good ukiyo-e (woodblock) print shop and a lovely fabric shop called Nomura Tailor House so it's worth a walk down. There are also some small but attractive shrines in the area which jar a bit with all the modern shops.

Mina (department store)
A department store of mostly women's fashion on Kawaramachi Street. Also has a 2-floor branch of Uniqlo on the top, and a very cute homeware/kichenware shop.
Mina website

WeGo
Cool vintage warehouse off to the west of Kawaramachi-dori, near Loft.
WeGo website

Day 16 - Bye bye Japan

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Views from the train

A bleary-eyed 5am start. We creep out of the ryokan and find out taxi waiting - love that Japanese punctuality, but it means we're very early for our train and nothing's even open at the station yet. I have to settle for a can of warm coffee from a vending machine - the stuff is so sweet and milky, I don't know how people stomach it. We get onto the bullet train and watch out the window as the sun rises. Toward the end of the journey we spy the iconic Mount Fuji in the distance.

Mt. Fuji from the train

We now need to get the Narita Express train to the airport, but find red alarm messages all over the announcement board. A Japanese man who speaks good English tells us the trains are delayed - I thought this was unheard of in Japan and it's disastrous timing as we're already cutting it fine to make our flight. We wait tensely on the platform, wondering why loads of local trains are coming through - surely the airport is a bit more important a destination. The train finally shows up half an hour late, giving us leeway of exactly ten minutes before our last check-in time. It's the most tense train ride I've ever had and every time the train slows down I feel sick and think we're going to miss our flight. When the train finally pulls in we dash to check-in, and luckily there are more last-minute stragglers too which makes me relax a little. We check in our cases but find we're 10kg over the baggage limit, oops, so some quick re-organisation is required. We get to the gate and sit down for about 2 minutes before the plane boards - the fastest time I've ever spent in an airport without a doubt. Still a bit jittery and tense from the rush to get the flight, so we don't sleep much, but the rest of the journey otherwise goes without a hitch. When we finally arrive home we've been travelling for almost exactly 24 hours.

Trundling back into London, I already miss Tokyo's cleanliness, efficiency and friendliness. Usually I come back to London feeling that I already live in the best city in the world, but Tokyo has definitely challenged that idea - if I could learn a bit of Japanese I'd have no problem moving there tomorrow. I will definitely be returning in a few years to see more of the country.

Click here for all photos from this day on Flickr

Day 15 - Kyoto - Downtown

2009-11-09T09:58:00.023Z

Costume Museum

First thing today is to go back to the Costume Museum, which is happily open this time. It's a cute one-room affair with a miniature-sized diorama of an Emperor's palace, with little dolls of all the people in costume. Very nicely done, and you can also try on a full-size traditional robe and have photos taken - which I did, feeling a bit silly.

Next stop, Nijo Castle, a shogun castle dating from the 1600s. I'm in a bit of a bad mood on arriving due to navigating Kyoto's frustrating bus system, and it didn't improve when getting there. The place is totally filled with signs stating 'NO PHOTOS', 'DO NOT TOUCH', 'NO SKETCHING' (no sketching, seriously?), 'DO NOT OPEN' - so many rules that it ruined the enjoyment of the place, some of which would otherwise be interesting and attractive. Presumably all the rules are there to preserve the place but at a steep Y600 entrance fee, I didn't get anything out of it. The place was also overrun by American tourists and schoolchildren with whom we had to troupe around the carefully-signposted ROUTE mapped out for us. In the gardens some schoolchildren come up and sweetly ask us some questions to practice their English and give us a little handmade booklet as a thank-you. Other than that though, the castle is a dud for me. I think I also have a touch of architecture-fatigue after seeing so much more amazing stuff on previous days.

Nijo Castle

Nijo Castle Gardens

We find some lunch in a nice French boulangerie where you grab a tray and some tongs and fill your tray with as much tasty carb-based goodness as you can eat. Pizza, garlic bread and cheese rolls for lunch - fine by me. Now to make up for the disappointment of Nijo castle with some SHOPPING. We head back downtown, starting in the Mina department store which has a big branch of Uniqlo and some fairly nice small boutiques, including a very cute homewares store. We then veer off Kawaramachi street and find an area that felt a bit more similar to Tokyo - I even find another branch of Loft and happily reminisce. Find a cool vintage-esque clothing shop called 'We Go' and buy an amusingly non-sensical logo sweater. Also pop into a supermarket to stock up on some umeshu (plum wine) and sake to take home, and into a bookshop to buy the Maru book, which I've been searching for all holiday.

Shopping in downtown Kyoto

All shopped out, we find a bar near the canal called Tori Dori for a drink - nice place with food illustrations on the outside and dark wood inside. For dinner, we try yet again to go to a veggie place in the market called Hale recommended in the guidebook, but it's still closed, with a sign in the window presumably explaining why (in Japanese). We decide to try to find a different veggie place in the guidebook that we couldn't find at all yesterday. Walking over, we bump into a friend of Josh's from London - totally random shock to see someone familiar in a city so far from home! We chat about our travels - they are doing a longer and more in-depth tour of Japan and have just arrived in from Tokyo; it's nice to share our experiences.

Toki Doki bar

We find the restaurant, Mikoan, this time, down a tiny alley off Teramachi Street, the English 'vegetarian restaurant' sign the only thing that gives it away. Walking in, we see a tiny little bar with about ten seats on the counter, and a massive accumulation of books, posters, a cat tree (!), trinkets and liquor bottles all over the place. The lady behind the bar beckons us to some free seats at the back, and we order the Y1000 set dinner. The food is as close as we get to experiencing shojin ryori, the high-class vegetarian Buddhist cuisine. Between us we get about twelve little dishes full of treats - deep-fried yuba, tofu-filled spring rolls, sesame seaweed, hot ginger and chilli beansprouts, miso broth, some I didn't even know what they are but everything is totally amazing. The one lady cooks it all at a tiny stove behind the bar, at the same time chatting to the other customers and changing the jazz tape for the music. It's laid back, cosy and just a fantastic experience.

Mikoan restaurant

When I finish eating, I go to look at the cat tree - I'd seen a picture of a cat in the guidebook - and I first spot a male tabby chilling in a cardboard box by the door, then turn to the cat tree and see a female cat nuzzling with the tiniest kitten I've ever seen in real life. It's totally adorable to see the whole little kitty family in this amazing little place.

Cats in Mikoan restaurant

We pay up - a total bargain considered the quality of food - and the old lady who's been sat at the bar the whole time gave us our change - I assume she's the mother of the lady doing all the cooking. She has the baby kitten sat on her shoulders and draped around her neck, so cute. Tear ourselves away eventually as we have to get back to the ryokan to pack for an early start tomorrow.

Click here for all photos from this day on Flickr

Day 14 - Nara

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Luckily the weather is much nicer today, still a little cold but bright and sunny. We get up early and catch the train (using our JR passes) out to Nara, about 45 minutes south of Kyoto. It's Japan's first capital city but now feels like a smallish town that centres around tourism. The main street is lined with souvenir shops, mostly to do with deer, as one of Nara's big attractions is the huge park where 1,200 deer roam around. At the top of the main street is a pretty lake with turtles in and the start of the park.

As soon as we walk in we start to see deer everywhere - they are so sweet, not shy at all because of all the visitors they get. You can buy crackers to feed them and they certainly aren't shy when it comes to trotting up for food. Once one gets wind, you're surrounded by five or six of them all jostling for food. They seem to bow and nod their hands as a thank you after you give them one.

Another quirky attraction in Nara is the Okamura earthquake centre, a small rest area/mini-museum set up by a company that builds technology to help buildings stay up during an earthquake. Josh has a go in the earthquake-simulation chair and we enjoy free tea and a sit-down. Quite an odd but nice little building. Around the back of the centre is a small complex of shops and cafes. We have lunch in a fast-food type okonomikayi joint - it's hot and smoky with all the hotplates going and the food big and greasy, but tasty anyway.

Todaji Shrine

Nara's other big attraction - literally - is the Todaji Shrine, which contains the biggest Buddha sculpture in Japan, at 250 tons of bronze. It's quite a startling sight and not done justice by photos. He's flanked by two slightly smaller statues and also in the same temple are two huge matching warrior statues. The temple was apparently built to try to unify all strands of Buddhism under one roof so it had to be pretty epic. Further up the hill is the Kasuga Shrine which has gorgeous views just as the sun is setting, and a lovely serene feeling. It's really fun to wander around with the cute deer everywhere, and occasionally give them a cracker and a stroke.

Kasuga Shrine

Deer at Todaji Shrine

We stay in Nara until sunset, then wander back down the main street, finding a nice ceramics shop on the way back to buy some gifts. We have dinner in the Kyoto Station Isetan mall again, at an Italian place by Salvatore Cuomo. It's pretty fancy with lovely views over night-time Kyoto (including the eyesore Kyoto Tower though, which looks like a cross between an air control tower and a traffic cone) and really good food. It's a bit weird to eat Western flavours like blue cheese and foccacia bread after all the Japanese food, and the two glasses of white wine give me a headache. Japanese food feels a lot healthier and more wholesome.

Click here for all photos from this day on Flickr

Day 13 - Kyoto - Arashiyama

2009-11-09T09:58:00.021Z

Our plan for today is to do some 'city' stuff like museums, shopping and playing video games. First stop is the Costume Museum, just up the road from our hotel, only to find it's mysteriously closed. I remember reading something about today being Kansai Culture Day, a semi-public holiday, so maybe that's why. Hopefully it will be open tomorrow or Thursday.

City plan is kinda of ruined, so despite it being absolutely freezing cold we decide to go and look around Arashiyama, a mountain town to the north-west of Kyoto. After getting confused by buses (the Kyoto system is pretty illogical to an outsider, and you often have to walk for ages to find the right stop) we make it there eventually. It's a pretty little place that has a quaint village-y feel, but packed with people today, maybe due to the cultural holiday.

Arashiyama

We look around the Tenryu-ji, a major Zen Buddhist temple - interesting to see a Zen temple, it's much more simple and minimalist in design than some of the more grandiose ones. It's surrounded by pretty gardens, and right next to it is a large bamboo grove, which is calm and beautiful to walk through. Unfortunately all the prettiness is marred by the cold - it's really freezing and a bit drizzly. We stop for lunch at a little tea room; little toasted sandwiches filled with omelette and coffee to warm up. There are a few souvenir shops too mostly selling bamboo items due to the nearby forest.

Buddhas at Tenryu-ji

Bamboo Grove

Bamboo Grove

After more difficulty finding a bus stop, we head back into town to go to the Manga Museum. Happily this place is open today, and also free because of culture day. It's a fairly grand institution set in an old school house, with a huge library of manga books and an academic learning facility. The exhibition side is pretty small - I'd have been a bit miffed if I had paid to get in. There are tons of people lining the stairs and corridors reading the books from the library. After leaving, we have a quick drink in a nice cafe/bar nearby called Cafe Bibliotech Hello! then walk down the Teramachi dori, a covered-over shopping street. Most of the shops sell tacky junk but we find a great antique woodblock print shop (a bit pricey though) and a gorgeous little fabric shop called Nomura Tailor House, full of cutesy printed fabrics and sweet little kits. I resist buying anything else; mostly because I didn't have any change on me.

Cafe Bibliotek Hello!

Nomura Tailor House

We try in vain for a little bit to find somewhere for dinner (one veggie place in the guidebook closed, another we can't find at all), before plumping for an izakaya (pub type place) with an English menu. I go for the only veggie option - tofu salad - and what I thought were plain udon noodles, but they came sprinkled with definitely-fishy-smelling shavings over the top. The tofu salad was tasty though and the waiters very friendly - we play rock, paper, scissors with one of them to determine how many edamame beans we get for our starter.

Kyoto at night

After dinner, we try to find a bar called Cafe La Siesta which has retro games machines and cocktails called things like '1 Up' but when we get to it it's annoyingly closed too so we head to the Namco 'Wonder Tower' on Kawaramachi Street instead. We play our old favourite games, Mario Kart, the building blocks game and the drumming game, and get some more silly photos taken. Then Josh randomly wins dozens of boxes of koala-shaped biscuits on one of the grab machines, we have a whole carrier bag full of the things.

Drumming arcade game

Not really sure i'm falling in love with Kyoto in the same way I did with Tokyo. It seems like everything good - all the gorgeous temples and scenery - is around the outside, and downtown is a bit like Tokyo-lite - it has the shops, restaurants and neon lights but nothing's as enticing as it was in Tokyo. It's also much more awkward and expensive to get around, it's not as clean and efficient and there are whole areas that are dead and featureless, whereas Tokyo was never boring. The cold and rainy weather probably hasn't helped either. We're going out to Nara tomorrow, 45 minutes away on the train, then only have one more day in Kyoto before flying home Friday morning.

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Day 12 - Kyoto - Southern Hirashiyama

2009-11-09T09:57:00.012Z

A slightly alarming start to the day when I find that one of my little toes has swollen to nearly double its normal size and is extremely painful to walk on - I thought I had just get blisters from my shoes yesterday but this was beyond blister pain. Not going to waste time crying about it though, so I don comfy trainers and hobble to the metro to get a train up to to Kyoto Handicraft Centre. Unfortunately the guidebook mis-labelled the stations on its map so we have a long and unattractive (and painful, for me) walk to the centre. Downtown Kyoto certainly isn't a beautiful place to walk around - quite bland and featureless with none of Tokyo's excitement and constant distractions - but at least the street names are better labelled than in Tokyo so it's easier to navigate.

The Handicraft Centre is a 7-storey superstore selling all kinds of local specialty crafts, and it also runs demonstrations and workshops. We signed up to a woodblock printing workshop and after a short instructional video with amusing American voiceover, we get to have a go. None of our attempts come out perfect but it's really fun and we get a nice handmade souvenir to take home. We then get shown how to sign our names in kanji script, and I buy a calligraphy pen. We have a look around the rest of the store and I buy a few professional woodblock prints - nicer than my own effort.

Our lovely handmade woodblock prints

It's raining again when we leave the craft centre, so we duck into a nearby cafe for lunch - then I realise it's Kaira's Cafe, one I'd marked on my map to visit anyway. It's a charming little place that feels like it's converted from someone's home - there are childish drawings on the walls, stuffed bookcases, and low tables with floor cushions to sit at. The menu is like a little hand-bound book with cute illustrations of the food with little smiley faces. The owner's grandmother even makes the sweets for dessert. The food is mostly vegan (all vegetarian) so for the second day in a row I have a huge array to choose from. I go for the set lunch; I've got really keen on getting lots of little dishes of mini treats to nibble at. The food is amazing and feels really healthy and restorative. We linger over a pot of roasted Japanese tea, and amazingly my foot feels a whole lot better so we decide to stick to our original plan of walking the Philosopher's Path, a scenic walkway up the hills starting at the Nanzen-ji temple.

Kairas cafe

The Nanzen-ji temple is really lovely; a huge entrance gate marks the start of the complex which contains several sub-temples, a small waterfall, and an attractive aqueduct with huge archways. Perched on top was a large grey bird (a crane, maybe?) who looked like he was just sat there posing for photos.

Nanzen-ji temple

Nanzen-ji temple

As we leave and started walking towards the Philosopher's Path entrance, the sky breaks out into an amazing double rainbow behind the hills. The light is amazing and it's just jaw-droppingly beautiful. It more than makes up for the annoying stop-start rain showers of the day.

We start walking the path and immediately see two little cats on a bench by the side of the path - so sweet, one must only have been a couple of months old because he was teeny-tiny. They feel cold and wet from the rain and are very meowy - I hope they belonged to one of the nearby houses; they look clean and well-fed so I guess they are looked after. The path is really pretty, following a stream uphill lined with trees and the odd cafe and gift shop (there's even a gift shop dedicated to products all featuring cats). Near the end we see three maiko (apprentice geisha) walk past, seemingly on an errand - the first authentic geisha we've seen.

Cats on the Philosopher's Path

Maiko on the Philosopher's Path

Now feeling cold, tired, and a bit damp, we catch a bus downtown and find an Indian restaurant, Kerala, recommended in the guidebook. It has funny old-skool British curry house decor, but the curries are tasty, with lots of veggie options, just the thing to warm us up a bit. We finally see a more lively and city-ish side to Kyoto on the Kawaramachi road - the pavements are lined with lit-up covered walkways and it houses the big department stores Takashimaya and Hankya, as well as a Namco arcade we'll have to visit before leaving. it's quite surprising to see this area after our first impressions of Kyoto as so quiet, but I guess it is still Japan's second-biggest city. The night has turned freezing cold so we hop on a bus back to the ryokan fairly quickly.

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Day 11 - Kyoto - Northern Hirashiyama

2009-11-09T09:57:00.011Z

Wake up early as we'd ordered the ryokan breakfast which is only served until 9.30 - we're used to getting up about 10.30ish as Tokyo doesn't really wake up until mid-morning. Eat toast and coffee with the other guests then go back to the room to plan a temple-walking route for today. It's a bright and sunny morning but rain is scheduled to hit mid-afternoon.

Grave stone valley on the walk up to Kiyomizudera

We walk along the busy main street to the Higashiyama district and follow signs steeply uphill, past more grave stones than I've ever seen in one place, to the Kiyomizudera temple. It's packed full of people but still undeniably beautiful, perched up in the hilly forest which is just turning from green to orange and red.

Kiyomizudera temple

From there we walk down the stone-paved steps (Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka) which are lined with souvenir and gift shops - some are tacky but most are selling quite nice pottery, sweets and art. We stop for lunch at a place called Cafe Rocka which is all vegetarian - tasty teriyaki tofu wrap and veg curry. Unfortunately as we poke around the shops (including another Ghibli merch shop and a strange shop where everything was the random price of 1,050 yen) the rain really starts to come down.

Waiting in the rain with Totoro

We persevere to another temple, Chion-in, which was very pretty and again set in stunning autumn forest. By mid-afternoon though, the rain is practically torrential and my feet are killing me from all the steep walking.

Chion-in temple

We walk back down into town and spotted a perfect little cafe on a corner which serves up a giant plate of hot apple and cinnamon waffles with ice cream, and a big mug of hot chocolate - exactly what was needed to save the afternoon from being a total washout.

Heavenly waffle!

We then get on a very packed bus back to the ryokan and hang out there for the rest of the afternoon, drying off and doing some more research. Sad to realise we only have 4 full days here as we have to leave first thing Friday for our flight. About 7ish the rain has died down a bit so we walk down to the station for dinner. There's an Isetan mall attached to the station with two floors of restaurants - it doesn't get much more Japanese than a restaurant within a mall within a station. There's a gigantic kitschy lit-up Christmas tree in the centre of the mall which seems a bit weird for a Buddhist country! We find Kyodofu Fujino, recommended in the guidebook, on the 11th floor. Everything on the menu is made from tofu or yuda (tofu skins), even the dessert, served with black sugar syrup. It's quite a novelty for me being able to eat everything on the table without worrying if it's veggie or not! Everything is unusual - especially an oddly rainbow coloured vegetable in with the pickles - but very tasty, with lots of textures and flavours. Also try whisked matcha tea for the first time; it's grassy and quite intense in flavour.

Dinner at Kyodofu Fujino

Matcha tea

Isetan has a lot of English- and veggie-friendly restaurants so we'll probably be going back there again. The place is pretty dead by the time we are done at about 9.30; Kyoto seems to turn in for the night a lot earlier than Tokyo. The streets are also so much quieter to an almost eerie degree; it definitely has a different feeling to Tokyo in general - a bit more rough and ready, not as immediately attractive.

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Day 10 - Tokyo to Kyoto

2009-11-09T09:55:00.011Z

We get up pretty early to finish packing, and check out of the hotel mid-morning. Get the metro to the main Tokyo station and swap our exchange orders for rail passes, which come in a snazzy shiny case with the Great Wave on. Have an early lunch of tasty bagels then board the shinkansen bullet train to Kyoto. It definitely rattles through the countryside pretty fast, and the scenery of towers, rolling into houses, into forest-covered mountains, is nice to watch.

Shiny JR Rail Pass

We're disorientated coming out of Kyoto station (into a very warm evening that feels like late summer), so hop into a taxi to get to the ryokan; the ride only takes about five minutes. The ryokan is on a quiet street and really pretty; the lady on reception shows us around and we have a welcome cup of tea in the communal lobby, looking onto their small garden area. The room is just the right mix of Japanese and Western comfort and decor.

Our ryokan in Kyoto

We head out again just as the sun is setting to have a quick look around the Nishi Hongan-ji temple across the road before it closes for the night. It's a world heritage site, and very beautiful and calm.

Nishi Hongan-ji temple

After that we walk up the Kawasura-dori to find a restaurant called Natural Kitchen which seemed to be veggie-friendly. We find it without much trouble but there's no English menu and the waitress looks confused at our attempts to explain 'vegetarian' so give up and head a little further north to the Nishiki food market, a covered-over street filled with market stalls during the day (closing up as we arrived) and a few small restaurants along its length. We hop into the first place we see with an English menu (it didn't even have an English name, though) but it turned out to be a good bet - huge, tasty bowls of udon noodles in soup, and a totally delicious side dish of fried sweet potatoes with sweetened butter dipping sauce. The decor is slightly kitschy with 60s beer advertising posters on the walls and huge sake bottles, and the crowd seem to be all locals.

Restaurant on Nishiki Market

Tasty udon soup for dinner

it's still early when we finish so we pop round the corner to a ramen bar that the guidebook said has a hidden bar behind it. We get buzzed into the bar and greeted by a guy who looked pretty creepy - until I realise it's Hallowe'en night and he's dressed like Michael Jackson! Entirely appropriate that he looked creepy, then, and MJ was on the stereo too. We drink umeshu plum wine and are vaguely amused at another customer ordering Strongbow, served in a champagne glass, and chatting to the barman about this strange exotic 'apple cider' from England. It's a cute little place so we might go back, and also eat at the ramen restaurant which looked tasty.

Bar Kura

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Day 9 - Shinjuku, Harajuku

2009-11-09T09:55:00.010Z

Our last full day in Tokyo! Just as we're almost able to navigate Shinjuku Station and generally know our way around, we have to leave tomorrow. First thing we have to do today is find me a new suitcase, because the wheel snapped off mine on the way to the hotel on our first day. They all appear to be ridiculously expensive in the department stores; we're talking up to Y58,000 (£400+). Finally find one in Tokyu Hands for Y10,000 - it's a bit too small but has four fully-functioning wheels so it will do. Dump the case back in our room then go down to Shinjuku Gyoen gardens - only 300m or so from our hotel. It's a bright sunny day again and it's very pretty with the autumn leaves just changing colour. There's a traditional tea house in the centre, an English rose garden, lakes with ducks and turtles - lots of nice photo ops.

Shinjuku Gyoen Gardens

We have lunch just outside the gardens at Aureole, a health food cafe - starter salad, tasty wholewheat pizza and chocolate cake for dessert for around 6 quid. A great thing about eating out here is the 'set' lunch and dinner deals, which are often great value and contain lots of little dishes, which is a nice way to eat. I also love that you're given free iced water everywhere without having to ask, and a little wet towel to freshen up - wish London restaurants did this.

Next, metro down to Harajuku for final shopping - but first call, another cat cafe we spotted advertised outside the metro station the other night. The Cha Ma Mo cafe is smaller than the Ikebukuro one, and you aren't allowed to pick the cats up - but they are friendlier and more playful than the ones at Nekobukuro so it's more fun. I played with a sweet tabby and stroked a gorgeous sleeping seal-point Birman. They even have an adorable cream Scottish Fold but he's curled up in his basket.

Cha Ma Mo cat cafe

We wander out and around the bits of Harajuku we missed last time. Walk down the fairly tacky Takeshita Dori, only finding a good sock shop at the end, then go back to Kiddyland for a few more cute things, and to the souvenir shop Oriental Bazaar which has a surprisingly tasteful and good-value selection of gifts.

Takeshita Dori

Sock shop on Takeshita Dori

Find ourselves in classy Omotesando which has all the designer shops of little interest to us, but the MOMA design shop is perched above Chanel and contains a cool Moleskine exhibition, including a paper-cut Tord Boontje piece - really nice.

Store in Omotesando

MOMA Design Store, Omotesando

For dinner we go to a restaurant recommended in the guidebook called Crayon House, which is healthy mostly-vegetarian food, and attached to a health food store. The food wasn't that great but the place has a nice feel, with lots of kids in there in the early evening. Say goodbye to crazy night-time Shinjuku on the way back to the hotel, then attempt the un-fun task of trying to fit all my purchases into a too-small new case...

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Day 7 - Akihabara, Odaiba, Harajuku

2009-11-09T09:54:00.010Z

Retro gaming in Super Potato

First call today back to Akihabara, in the light of day this time, to seek out the gamer shops we missed. Find Aso Bit Hobby just south of the station which has a good selection of stuff ranging from cute (I buy yet more stationery) to mega geeky. Then go to Mandarake which stocks all sorts of vintage toy figures, including some amusing neon dinosaurs for about 100 quid each. After much searching (we were just on the wrong street all along), we find Super Potato, stuffed full of old SNES etc games. The top floor has a small selection of vintage arcade machines including Pac Man and some Nintendo stuff.

After a sandwich for lunch, we get the Yamanote line down to Shimbashi and change onto a private rail line out to Odaiba, an area built up on Toyko's south bay. The train going there runs on raised tracks over the roads and feels very futuristic, especially with the mirrored skyscrapers towering over. This area feels downright weird - a gorgeous beach and clearly very expensive development, but all quite eerily quiet (apart from a few schoolchildren who shout 'hello' to us). The view of the bridge from the beach just as the sun was about to set is gorgeous.

Odaiba beach

We'd come down mainly to check out Joypolis, an indoor Sega amusement park, which turns out to be fun in a surreal kind of way. We go on a G-force ride that flings us in 720-degree circles and a 'wing ride' in a panoramic cinema, complete with wind effects and rumbling - all fairly gentle going as rides go, but enough to flip my stomach a bit. We also get our photos done in one of those silly booths where you pick a kitschy theme and scribble things on it; the machine was all in Japanese and a bit manic but we somehow get the photos eventually.

We look around the rest of the development which contains a 1960s-themed retro arcade with some more cool vintage games, and a few tacky sweet and souvenir shops. Decide against spending dinner there too as the whole place is a bit too odd and getting a bit sickly by this time. We get the Yamanote line back to Harajuku, admiring the lit-up skyline on the ride, and have a huge Mexican dinner in a surprisingly authentic-feeling place (table-side mariachi band and all) up the Meiji-dori.

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Day 8 - Marunouchi - Modern Art Museum, Imperial Palace

2009-11-09T09:54:00.009Z

Bright and sizzling hot day. We take a quick metro over to the central Marunouchi area which houses lots of museums and the Imperial Palace Gardens (the mysterious palace itself is closed to the public). There's a brass band playing in the gardens and a very pretty area with a little waterfall and a koi lake.

We have lunch in the art museum's cafe - I have an odd combo of steamed bun and potato wedges (only veggie options on the menu) and a delicious chocolate cake. We buy a joint ticket for the main art gallery, the special exhibition and the nearby craft museum for Y840 - museums here are cheap, like in London. The special exhibition - mainly installation works by Kawaguchi Tatsuo - is a bit pretentious for me but the main gallery has a interesting selection of modern Japanese artists as well as some international names including Paul Klee and Frida Kahlo. The craft museum is pretty dull - there's only so many glazed ceramic tea bowls you can look at in one day - so we gave it a cursory look and leave pretty quickly.

Our legs are also protesting due to a week's heavy walking, so we go back to the hotel to do dull things like laundry and planning the next week - tomorrow is our last full day in Tokyo before heading to Kyoto, and today marks halfway through our whole trip. It feels like we've been here quite a while already and weirdly, despite not understanding a tenth of what's going on, I feel quite at home here. I think it's the politeness and quite English-style reserve of the people that feels comfortable and familiar. It's a bit like London with the lights and people ramped up to ten, but the litter and rudeness at zero. Things like the pavement drinks vending machines (even serving alcohol) that are ubiquitous here just wouldn't work in London because they'd get abused and vandalised, but people here have a respect for law and order that seems to make the society run a lot smoother, and I appreciate that.

Pavement-side eating in Shinjuku

We stay local for dinner, heading over to Nishi-(west)Shinjuku, the businessy area with tons of skyscrapers, hoping to find a restaurant from the Bento site. Unfortunately the whole restaurant floor of the building has nothing in English and is full of slightly rowdy salarymen celebrating the near-end of week. We go back down to the street and find a little Sri Lankan place called Court Lodge instead. Tasty curries, not so good roti bread (it would be hard to top Sansar's naan anyway). The nicest part was the homemade chutneys and sauces, which you can buy in their restaurant and online. We have a wander round the streets afterwards, finding the Shinjuku branch of Sekaido craft store - more stickers bought.

Day 6 - Nippori, Yanaka, Ueno, Roppongi

2009-11-09T09:53:00.018Z

Sunny and warm again, hurrah. We get the Yamanote line (this train line is amazing and seems to go everywhere we've needed to get to in Tokyo) up to Nippori, also known as Texile Town for its amount of fabric shops. Since I already bought some stuff in Okadaya yesterday, we just head to the big and supposedly best store, Tomato, helpfully guided by an American woman also going there. It definitely has every kind of fabric you could need, with an especially nice array of jerseys and knits - if they had fabric stores like this in London, I'd definitely make all my own clothes. The character fabric was a bit more expensive than Okadaya, but they have great remnants bins and a whole floor of American quilting squares on the top floor at only Y130 each. I buy a few remnant pieces and some printed tape.

Yanaka - old town

Walking the other way from Nippori station, we take a wander through Yanaka, Tokyo's old town. It's a calm relief after the craziness of the rest of Tokyo, and there's a pretty shrine literally every five paces. We follow Yanaka's backstreets all the way down to Ueno where the National Museum is; have lunch then look round the small but well-stocked museum.

Statue in the National Museum

Kimono in the National Museum

We walk down through Ueno Park as dusk falls and admire as the pretty lanterns painted with ukiyo-e patterns light up down the sides of the path. There's also a shrine of some sort guarded by 3 cats! It's a bit jarring to see all the neons of Ueno again after Yanaka and the park, but we reach it just at sunset so the light is gorgeous. I'd heard there's a big market in the area but it must have been closing up just as we arrived; there wasn't much else to see.

Lamp in Ueno Park

Sunset in Ueno

We'd planned to go to Super Deluxe, a venue/bar/art space, in the evening, so hop on a train to Roppongi. Looking around for dinner we find the restaurant Gonpachi, which we'd read about in the guidebook as a semi-legendary place which apparently inspired the restaurant scene in Kill Bill (and the ex-Japanese president took George W Bush there some years ago). It's usually essential to book a reservation, but luckily on a Tuesday they fit us in on the kitchen-facing counter. It's in a beautiful refurbished warehouse building filled with lanterns and as you walk in the waiter announces your arrival and all the staff and chefs shout a greeting. Our waiter speaks excellent English and finds me some vegetarian food on the large tapas-style menu - tasty grilled tofu skewers and freshly-made soba noodles. Josh has Kobe beef skewers and proclaimed it definitely worth the money; the rice cooked in a boiling hot stone pot, flavoured with mustard leaves, is excellent too. One of the dishes I order turns up slightly late so I get a free green tea ice cream afterwards.

Gonpachi restaurant

We are still a bit early for Super Deluxe so get a beer in a pub over the road - made a mistake ordering imported Belgian beer because including the cover charge it's about 6 quid for a bottle of Hoegaarden - it did include a plate of cheese to nibble on, though. We head back up the road to Super Deluxe, which is a cool underground venue; they even brew their own ale on site. The crowd is young, international and design-y looking.

Live bands at Superdeluxe

The live bands are not my thing in the slightest - mostly weird noise-jazz - but there are some cool visuals done live by 3 people moving various objects and lights under the projectors. We last for 3 bands before the place gets really smoky (you can still smoke inside most venues in Tokyo, but not on the street, oddly) so we duck out and head back.

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Day 5 - Ikebururo & Shinjuku

2009-11-09T09:53:00.017Z

It's forecast to bucket with rain all day, and it isn't wrong, so we head to the gigantic (ironically-named) Sunshine City mall in Ikebukuro. The mall itself is a bit of a letdown, not my kind of shops (with a few exceptions - a Ghibli souvenir shop and Hello Kitty goodies) but we have a decent Naples-style pizza for lunch - the Japanese seem to like their Italian food and do it pretty well. Need cheering up after getting so wet in the rain, so head straight to the cat cafe at the top of Tokyu Hands. We pay Y1000 for both of us to get in, and coo over all the sweetie cats for a while. It's kind of more fun as a photo op than a cat-tastic experience though, as the kitties weren't particularly cuddly or playful and just made me miss my kitty back home.

After we go to the Sega arcade over the road to have another go on the Guitar Hero-style drumming game we played the other day, and find a new fun game where you have to build with real lego-type bricks in front of the screen to make the characters move. Find a nice washi paper shop on the way back and buy a few gifts, then pop into yet another branch of Loft (in the Seibu mall above the station) for more cute stickers and stationery.

Back in Shinjuku the rain has let up a little so we go to find the fabric store Okadaya, behind the train station. It has a great selection of cute fabrics for reasonable prices; I get 3 metres of various patterned fabrics for about 15 quid. Go back to the hotel briefly to dry off, but it's raining hard again when we set out for dinner. Try but fail to find a gyoza (dumpling) place recommended online so settle for an average but overpriced Chinese place in the Isetan mall. Console myself with Pocky from the 7-11 on the way back and spend the evening planning the next few days - halfway through our time in Tokyo now.

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Day 4 - Asakusa & Akihabara

2009-11-08T21:48:00.009Z

We take a break from shopping today and head to Asakusa, home of the Senso-ji temple, the oldest temple remaining in Tokyo (WW2 bombs take out most of them). It's teeming with people so it's a bit hard to appreciate the famous entrance gate with its huge red paper lantern. We then get stopped by three Japanese university students who ask if they can show us around and practice their English. We walk with them up to the temple - they didn't really know too much about the area but it's nice to chat to them and they help Josh pick a good fortune reading from the temple entrance. The temple is covered in scaffolding so not much to admire, and inside is dark and crowded. We said bye to the girls and tried to find somewhere good for lunch - fail and end up in a Mos burger chain, the first dodgy meal of the trip. Hopefully the temple areas in Kyoto will be better and less crowded than this one.

Our Japanese 'tour guides'

Akihabara

We then hop on the metro to Akihabara, known as Electronics Town. It's pretty manic, streets packed with mostly men and shops selling computers and cameras, retro arcades, and weird 'maid' cafes where you're served by girls in costume. We fail to find Super Potato, the retro game store mecca, instead going to an arcade which is on top of a 6-flooor Don Quixote store - which sells everything from toiletries to cosplay Halloween costumes - pretty odd. The arcade isn't as nice as the Kichijoji one, a bit dank and smoky.

For dinner we stop off the metro at Ebisu, a rather chi-chi part of town, to find Chibo, an okonomiyaki (Japanese omelette) restaurant recommended in the guidebook. It's on the 38th floor of Yebisu Garden Place, an expensive-looking development of shops and restaurants all done out in a slightly kitschy European style. We get a fast lift up to the 38th floor that makes my ears pop, and admire the amazing views of night-time Tokyo while we wait for our table.

Dinner at Chibo

Yebisu Garden Place

It's pretty busy so we don't get a table with a grill-your-own hotplate (or at the bar where the chef cooks right in front of you), but the food is still excellent - a bowl of fresh tofu, plain but delicious, grilled spinach, asparagus and cheese, and mains of onokomiyaki - mine stuffed with cheese and kimchi which made for a tasty rich yet sour mix - which the waitress skilfully squirted with a mayonnaise topping. Extremely decadent and delicious, and very good value given the gorgeous setting. Afterwards we take more photos and get a glass lift down to the ground - awesome view on the way.

View from Yebisu Garden Place

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Day 3 - Kichijoji & Studio Ghibli

2009-11-08T21:03:00.011Z

Josh's birthday, and the day we'd pre-booked tickets for the Studio Ghibli animation museum. We get the metro out to Kichijoji because I'd heard there are a couple of good shops and eateries there. Right opposite the station is a large network of covered-over streets of market-cum-shops selling not very exciting things like toiletries and homeware. Happily stumble across another branch of Loft and duck in for more cute stationery. Also spot a Namco videogame arcade on the basement floor, noted for later. We find a great little restaurant for lunch called Japanese Vegetable Kitchen, which felt very Zen with its white walls and dark wood surfaces. Ate steamed and fried veggies accompanied by a tray of rice, pickles and miso soup and unlimited free roobois tea for something like £7 a head; left feeling very refreshed. The owner is lovely too with excellent English. Japanese hospitality in restaurants is friendlier than anywhere I've ever been; you get a million hellos on the way in and goodbyes and bows on the way out, and as a veggie they did their best to find me something suitable to eat almost everywhere we went.

Goodies for sale in Loft

Lunch at the Japanese Vegetable Kitchen

The Ghibli museum is housed in Kichijoji Park so we take a nice walk through it, spotting a pretty lake and temple in the middle (and lots of huge colourful spiders in their webs). Get a bit lost but find the museum eventually. Sadly no photos are allowed inside but it's really charming. The first room contains stunning 3d dioramas and zoetrope type animations set off by strobe lights; hard to explain exactly but the effect is amazing. It also has a huge intricate film projector running slides of Ghibli films. Upstairs are some rooms designed to look like Ghibli's workshop, packed with books and paint pots and the walls covered in half-finished sketches. There's a room dedicated to the new film (all the notices are in Japanese only so we didn't get what it's called) with more sweet interactive animatronics. You can then take a spiral staircase up to the roof where there's a giant metal robot sculpture. Finally we watch a short animation that's exclusive to the museum. Even if you aren't particularly a Ghibli fan (I haven't seen any of the films all the way through) it's a really lovely and captivating museum.

Ghibli Museum

We walk back to Kichijoji afterwards to check out the Namco arcade. It has tons of grab machines full of cute characters (I won two cute tubby kitten toys) as well as Mario Kart, Guitar Hero and Street Fighter. We wasted several Y100 coins and an hour or so having a good play. Some of the Japanese kids are amazing to watch on the dance machines, they go so fast, they must spend their lives practicing. There are also Guitar Hero style games involving big drums and DJ turntables which the kids play amazingly fast.

Kitten toys

Playing Mario Kart

It starts to rain as we head back, so we decamp to the hotel to pick up umbrellas and decide to stay local for dinner, heading up to a Nepalese restaurant called Sansar as recommended on the Bento website. We find it down a little side street (almost missed it, it's very small). The owners are Nepalese and are very friendly; we talked in patchy English about where we came from and about how popular their food is with locals (Japanese like it mild, apparently). We both go for set meals, and the plentiful food is awesome - an unusual mix that tasted like both Thai and Indian, not too spicy but full of flavour. The bread in particular is absolutely amazing - naan like melty, buttery croissants - I'd walk back to Tokyo for more! We are the only people in there on a Saturday night; if it was in London I'd be tempted to go weekly.

Click here for all photos from this day on Flickr

Day 2 - Shibuya & Harajuku

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We get the metro down to Shibuya for some shopping. Initially get a bit lost on the walkways over the busy roads but eventually stumble across 109, a totally insane mall for teenage girls; little boutiques over 7 floors with obnoxious pop music blasting out of every one and dolled-up teenagers browsing. It's pretty manic and tacky, but fun to see. Then we find the Loft store - a bit like John Lewis but way cooler - it stocks homeware, kitchenware, stationery, even a good selection of moleskines and Lomo cameras. I'm restrained and only buy a cute teapot with Russian doll cups stacked on top, but will probably come back later on for more.

Loft is attached to a few other malls, including Movida, which houses American fashion label Opening Ceremony, and a branch of Muji on the ground floor. After a nice lunch of Vietnamese sandwiches and pink lemonade in the basement cafe we have a poke around Opening Ceremony - it's lovely, each floor differently themed and beautifully designed, but a bit expensive. We exit onto the street and find a small branch of Graniph, the design t-shirt shop, but it's too small to have any good stuff. Then we walk up to Tokyu Hands, another department store that sells everything from plumbing supplies to pet outfits, knitting yarn and suitcases. Have a quick look around but getting pretty tired by this point; have a quick coffee then head to Harajuku.

Harajuku at dusk

Harajuku shops

The main street into Harajuku is lined with cool shops; I buy a T-shirt in the much larger and better-stocked Graniph store and two pairs of jeans in the Uniqlo UT concept store, which is stylishly white with LED lights. At the main crossing is La Foret, a gorgeous mall full of boutiques from Japanese and international designers (there's even a Topshop with somewhat inflated prices).

Bead shop display inside La Foret

Knitwear on display in La Foret

Also on this road is the American store Forever 21 but it's totally packed with girls and hard to navigate. At the crossing intersection we find Kiddyland, a huge toy shop, each floor dedicated to a different character - Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Studio Ghibli, etc - tons of cute stuff.

Entrance to Kiddyland

Hello Kitty floor of Kiddyland

We veer off the main street onto a back alley and find lots more cool shops, more street labels and some vintage. Have a quick beer in a nice little bar then find a great place for dinner - Cafe Ratia, which claims to be health food but the deep-fried tofu and chicken didn't seem that healthy - really tasty and good value, though, with lovely balsamic-glazed veggies and good bruschetta for a starters.

Click here for all photos from this day on Flickr

FAQ

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Some of the questions I've been emailed, about generally getting on as a visitor to Japan. Feel free to ask a question if yours isn't answered.

Is the rail pass worth the money? How else do you travel around?

For us, the 7 day rail pass just about paid for itself, based on the price of the same trips with a ticket bought on the day. We used it to get from Tokyo to Kyoto and back again, a daytrip from Kyoto to Nara, and the trip from central Tokyo to Narita airport. It was quite handy having it all pre-paid (although the thought of losing it was worrying as it can't be replaced) and the only restriction is it can't be used on the very fastest (Hikari) class of bullet trains.

At the same time as ordering our rail pass (from www.insidejapantours.com), we also got a Pasmo subway card pre-loaded with £20 of credit. These work like a London Oyster and each journey is about £1. You can buy the Pasmo cards at subway stations out there too. There's also a different prepay card called Suica which covers more local train routes if you're exploring further afield.

Transport in Kyoto is more expensive and erratic. A daily bus pass is Y500 (£3) but it can often be tricky to find the right stop for where you want to go and information is mostly Japanese only (try to pick up an English map). We only got the subway once; it's not as expansive as Tokyo's. Taxis are affordable but the drivers can struggle with navigating due to the odd addressing system - even with the street address written in Japanese and a map, our driver struggled to find our hotel from the station, ten minutes away. A good option might be to hire bikes; there are lots of places to do it, although we didn't get round to it. Central Kyoto is a bit sprawling and not particularly attractive to walk around but once you're out in the hills it's lovely to wander around.

Did you pay with cash or cards? Can you withdraw money?

We exchanged a load of money (a few hundred pounds each) at Heathrow and took cash for the day out each day, leaving the rest in the hotel safe. Japan is very low in street crime so it's pretty safe to carry cash around. Most of the bigger restaurants and shops do accept cards but some smaller ones were cash only. I withdrew some extra cash from a Citibank in Tokyo and was charged around £5 to do so.

Is food/shopping very expensive?

The cost of eating out was pretty comparable to London, with a range of higher class and cheaper places. Cheap options are the millions of counter-service bars scattered all over the place (but unreliable for vegetarians), ranging up to more expensive international food like Italian. Restaurants in shopping malls tend to be more expensive and classy than ones on the street.

Really good value are the set lunches you find in a lot of cafes which are often around Y1000 (£6) for a main meal, starter/side and drink, or bento style with lots of small dishes. You can also pick up cheap hot snacks from the 7-11 convenience stores.

Drinking is pretty expensive, especially imported beers, but you save a bit because beer is usually served in half-pints rather than full pints. Quite a lot of bars have a cover charge if you're just drinking, which can be Y300-1000.

Did you get by not speaking any Japanese?

Mostly fine. Both of the places we stayed had staff with excellent English and most public transport staff speak a little English too. The Tokyo subway is bilingual in announcements and information. We tended to pick restaurants that had English menus displayed outside because that gave them a good chance of having English-speaking staff (an unfortunate necessity for vegetarians).