Day 7, Good Vibes, can be read here
Today felt like it was going to be a bit of a lesser day. Quite a few places on the list, but they were smaller. My feet hurt just thinking about this day.
Hie Shrine was down the street from my hotel, so that was the first stop of the day. It’s on a hill and I was not excited about all the steps leading up to it. There was an escalator next to it, but it looked off. Something I noticed in Japan is some of the escalators are off until you approach them, then they start going and that’s how this one was.
Between the hill and the trees, the shrine is basically hidden from street level. This was another nice calm place to start the day. They have a stairway that is lined with torii gates, which is one of the reasons I wanted to visit.
Zojo-ji Temple and Tokyo Tower were next on the agenda. They’re across the street from each other, so really easy to hit at the same time. Zojo-ji was first. The shrines I’d visited previously were all Shinto and this is a Buddhist temple; so it was a bit different. The grounds are pretty big; there’s some nice paths to walk in the back. There’s lots of these cute little statues wearing red knitted hats. Then you learn they are meant to honor the memory of unborn children. After reading that, the whole place felt a little more somber.
As I walked towards Tokyo Tower I came across a little park called Momiji Valley. This was a pleasant surprise with a small creek and a little waterfall right at the base of Tokyo Tower. That little bit of nature with the tower in the back was great.
At the bottom of Tokyo Tower there’s a small building with some souvenir stores and a game center, and if you go to the roof, you can get a unique view of the tower. Instead of going up the tower, I went to the roof, since the one thing you can’t see when you go to the top of these famous observation towers is the tower itself. The other reason I didn’t go to the top of Tokyo Tower is because there was another spot nearby that I had in mind.
When I left, I walked over to Azabudai Hills to go to the Azabudai Hills Sky Lobby. The Sky Lobby used to be free, but now you have to order a drink and pay the small cover charge at the cafe up there. That’s fine, I had to get breakfast anyway, why not get it with a view. When I got there, the Sky Lobby was closed that day for a private event. That kind of killed two things I had planned, because I was waiting for the Hard Rock to open so I wouldn’t have to trek back this way. I sat down to plan my next move and there was a security robot patrolling the lobby.
There was a little cafe in the building so I could get some breakfast. I got a sandwich that was just ciabatta, cream cheese, tomato, and onion. For some reason when I saw it on display, in my mind I thought “that’s kind of different”, but when I ate it, I realized it was just a bagel on different bread. It was simple but good. Then it was time for the Hard Rock to open, so I walked there to get my souvenirs.
The Tamiya Plamodel Factory was the next stop. I’m bad at building models, but this store was great. Besides the models and R/C cars, they’ve got all the tools you would need to put kits together and what seemed like every part you could need to repair an R/C car. There’s even a room in the back where you can build your car and test it. Before the trip, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to resist buying a model kit. The only question was if I’d buy a car, a Gundam, or both. I went with a Honda CRX model.
I wanted to go to the Spark Gallery store that was around the corner, but they had a sign on their door saying they were closed for the weekend. I was striking out today. I had another toy store to visit, so I walked on over to Hakuhinkan Toy Park. This toy store was similar to Kiddy Land, but they had a greater selection of collectible figures.
Nissan Crossing was up the street, so I figured I would go there, see some cars, and relax at the cafe for a bit. The cafe is popular for most people because you can order a latte and get a picture of a car “printed” in the foam on top. I was there because they had a drink named Midnight Purple, which is named after an iconic Nissan car color. I also wanted to see if they had some cool cars on display. The drink was good; the cars were okay. I was hoping they’d have an old race car, or something rare from the vault like a 400R. I got to sit and rest for a bit though.
For a few years now, one of my lens caps has had a slightly loose spring. It doesn’t fall off but it’s not as secure as I’d like. I only interact with it when I’m shooting; so when I’m travelling or at an event and I never remember to buy a new one when I’m home. Luckily, there was a Sony store in the floors above Nissan Crossing, so I was finally in a position to actually remember I need a new lens cap and to do something about it. It was time to get some food, so I started walking to one of the places on my list. On the way, I passed a little cream puff shop, so why not get dessert first.
Age.3 is a viral sandwich shop that sells these fried sandwiches. When I got to the shop the line didn’t look too bad, but because the shop is small, the line continued across the street and down a bit. It was one of the foods I wanted to try so I decided to wait. The wait ended up being about an hour. I got the basic whipped cream and a potato salad one. Potato salad sandwich was a first for me, but it was great; top 10 food of the trip. The whipped cream was also good. I would say it was worth the wait and the internet was right about this place too.
There was another diecast store I wanted to check out in the area. I really liked II Ado Toy Company. It’s a small store, but they have a good selection of used cars. I was able to find a couple diecast of some old cars.
It was time to start heading to my planned sunset location, Toyosu Gururi Park because it was going to take a bit of time to get there. As I was riding the train I could see the sky starting to darken. From the train station, it was a bit of a walk to the end of the park where the view I wanted was. When I finally made my way to that point it started raining. I had brought the umbrella today since I had been caught without it yesterday. There were a couple of other places in this part of the city that I was hoping to visit after taking pictures depending on the time; but with the rain killing the sunset photos I figured I should just go now, so it wasn’t a total bust coming all the way out here. It was so windy I had to put the strap on my umbrella to keep it from flying away.
I had to walk a pretty good distance to catch a bus towards A-Pit Super Autobacs, then walk some more. When I got there, there were some nice cars in the parking lot and in the parking garage there were about 5 or 6 Skylines with people standing near them. At first, I thought I came across a small car meet, but people started coming out of the store and talking with the drivers and then they left, and I realized they were probably one of those Japanese car tours that you can book online. It did buoy me some after all of the walking I’d done recently.
The store itself is a great place for car enthusiasts. There’s pretty much everything you need for a car there, but there’s also clothes, stickers, magazines, and art that are all car related. If you go upstairs and you can buy tuning parts from a variety of brands. It’s a fun store to visit.
By now it was too late to make it to Toys R Us before they closed, but I could go see the life-size Unicorn Gundam at Diver City. That was super impressive to see. It’s a 60-foot giant robot how could it not be. There’s a Gundam store right next to it, and I went in, but I only purchased a keychain. So the answer to the model question was in fact car. Every so often there’s a little show that happens and it was starting right as I was leaving the store.
I’d been going pretty hard so far this past week and still had two weeks to go. I had been averaging about 10 miles a day and today I did 14. It had caught up with me by this point. My legs, my calves, every step was painful. I had seen TikToks of people recommending pain patches cause their feet had started hurting on their Tokyo trips, so I knew those existed. My plan was to go back to the hotel and do some research and find a pharmacy. As I got to the train station to head back, there were some stores there and one of them was a pharmacy. They had a display right when I walked in the door that had a picture of a grimacing foot, so I knew that’s what I needed. I bought those and some pain relief patches and headed back to the room.
I got back to the room and rested for like an hour before needing to get some dinner. I wanted sushi, and there were a few places nearby, but despite it being 10 pm they were all busy and I didn’t want to wait. I just grabbed McDonald’s and ate in the room. I had to try the ebi filet-o, a shrimp burger. It was good and had big chunks of shrimp in it. Definitely an interesting food to try.
I applied my pain relief patches and went to sleep. Hope these work.
Day 9, Unfortunately I couldn’t go to Daikoku, continues here.