Welcome to the second part of my Tokyo trip. As you will see there are quite a few images in this post despite being only 2 days so let’s get into it.
All Around Akihabara and Back
For the first day back in Tokyo after our trip to Fujisan we decided to go to Akihabara as I wanted to visit the Owl Cafe.
On the way there I got a quick snack from the Family Mart then quickly headed to the owl cafe so we didn’t miss our booking. Below are a few images I took on the way there.
Once we got there, we went inside once our booking started and I was quite surprised. As soon as you get in you’ll see Owl’s sitting everywhere and at first I thought they were fake as they sit so still but I eventually realized they were are all real.
How the session works is you get to pick an owl then have your photo taken by the staff (image directly below so not taken by me or with my camera). After that you can go sit down and have different Owl’s sit on your shoulder if you like.
For me I just wanted one owl which is the one in the bottom left called “Turtle” which was also on my shoulder in the photo they took.
I liked Turtle so much that I actually had him on my shoulder for 45 minutes and didn’t try any other owls. I was glad I did though as pretty much every other person there had the owl poop on them whereas my loyal Turtle didn’t poop on me!
In fact he kept cuddling up against my head. Even if I moved my head a bit to the side, he’d get closer and lean against it. After this point, Owls have officially become my favorite birds with Turtle being the figure head.
Atfer this was done we went to have a look around the rest of Akihabara which you can see in images below.
Visiting Yodobashi was a huge highlight for me as I got to to see cameras/lenses that I had never previously seen in person before. I could have spent an entire day browsing around this store and I’m not someone who enjoys shopping.
After this we went back to Shinjuku so my wife could shop.
I was quite tired so I didn’t do too much shooting that night and just opted to find a spot to sit and wait while catching up on my podcasts. Above is one image you can see I took from that night on Godzilla Road.
It was quite funny as despite staying there for for nearly 4 days, we didn’t know about this street and were walking to Shinjuku station a very long way each time. After this we of course ensured to use this much more straight forward and faster way.
teamLab Planets and Asakusa
The next day we went to teamLab Planets which was interesting to say the least.
Below is a image from outside the facility before we went in. The line was quite long but it didn’t take too long to get in.
I did take more images than the two above but most were of my wife and I so nothing I felt like editing/posting. For me personally, I would never go to teamLab’s again. A little fact about me is I absolutely hate feet. I think they’re disgusting and if I could choose, everyone would wear shoes and feet would never be seen.
When you go to teamLab’s, they make you walk around barefoot which was bad enough as all you could smell was people’s stinky feet. The worst part is people go into the toilets barefoot then put on these shared flip flops to walk around this section of the exhibit which is one of the most unhygienic things I can image.
All I can say is if you don’t like smelling feet and don’t want to put yourself at risk of catching foot fungus, please avoid teamLab’s Planet.
Off to Asakusa
After this we made our way to Asakusa as there were several places my wife wanted to see here. Once we got off the train, we made our way to the main attractions my wife wanted to see.
Below are images I took around there.
I got quite a few shots I was happy with while in Asakusa. The one two photos up titled “Asakusa Streets” is my personal favorite and after I took it, I knew I would love it.
Sadly I had left my FE PZ 16-35mm back at the hotel on that day and it would have really come in handy for a few of those images considering how big the buildings were. Regardless I made the 35GM work hence why I love that focal length so much.
The Last Night in Tokyo
As this was our last night for the first round of Tokyo, there was a very important location I wanted to visit still.
As you can see below that location was Shibuya Crossing. I knew for somewhere like this, the wider the better so I took my 16-35mm with me.
This was a pretty fun location to visit and although it’s a big cross, I imagined it was much larger in my mind.
In terms of location, the image was taken at the top level of MAGNET by SHIBUYA109. There’s a small restaurant/bar type of place and if you buy a drink which is fairly cheap, you can stay there as long as you like and take pictures.
Luckily there wasn’t too many people up there so we managed to get a shot from the edge. I had to shoot through glass and didn’t have a lens skirt with me but thankfully the reflections were barely noticable.
After that we just shopped around Shibuya for a bit then headed back to Shinjuku. Around there I had my 85mm with me, so I used that for some street shots with the above image being my favorite.
It was a fun last day in Tokyo and I had already decided it was my favorite location.
Off to Osaka
As I usually had to carry my luggage on the Shinkansen it was hard to take photos of them (especially with how fast they pull up/take off) but there is something I wanted to say about the trains.
I love how clean they are, especially compared to Sydney. When I do ride the trains here, I never sit down as they are very smelly and dirty but in Japan they are so clean, I was pretty much always sitting on them. There was even one time I fell asleep, then my wife and her sister couldn’t wake me up and we nearly missed our stop because of it.
Because of how much I enjoyed the trains, I thought I would take the above image before we left Tokyo as I had something to show how nice they are inside.
That brings this post to an end so if you’d like to be notified of future posts, please subscribe using the form below.
Leave a Reply