{"id":3,"date":"2007-01-07T00:34:40","date_gmt":"2007-01-07T09:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/a-cubed.info\/blog\/?p=3"},"modified":"2007-01-07T01:53:53","modified_gmt":"2007-01-07T10:53:53","slug":"tourist-in-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/?p=3","title":{"rendered":"Tourist in Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was finally over my jetlag today enough to think about going out on my own and seeing some of Tokyo’s attractions. In preparation for Tuesday 9th, my first real working day here (Monday is a public holiday), I took the train from the guest house where I’m staying through to Ochanomizu<\/a> station, which is the nearest one to Meiji University. Ikuta station on the private Odakyu line is five minutes walk from the guest house. Ikuta is in Kawasaki city, a South-Western suburb of Tokyo. To get to Ochanomizu, I use the Odakyu line to get to Shinjuku (the busiest train station in the world) by going one stop on the first train that stops at Ikuta (the local, section semi-express and semi-express trains) then get on the express train (the rapid express doesn’t stop at Mukougaoka-Yuuen) for the rest of the journey (seven stops instead of 18). Then I have to pass through a ticket barrier on the JR local rail lines. Think Paris with not just the Metro and RER but with Metro and RER and some private lines attached to each type. It’s not that complicated but it’s a bit fiddly. I now know how much the standard journey I’m making will cost (430 yen each way). Unfortunately, there’s far less financial benefit in getting passes on the local Tokyo trains than in London, although I’ll be looking into it anyway. The money may not be much difference, but at least it’ll be less hassle than buying a ticket every time.
\n Anyway, I made it into Ochanomizu without mishap. Figured out the platforms and route at Shinjuku, so it shouldn’t be too bad when I do it “for real” later on. First I headed over into the “book shopping” area. This is a bit like Charing Cross Road in London. A mix of new and secondhand bookstores. I went into one of the larger new book stores and found the English language section. I got some useful Kanji flashcards covering JLPT levels 3 and 4. I’ve done 4 (I get the results in March) but I plan to do 3 this coming December and it’s cumulative, so it’ll be useful to re-inforce those as well. I also got a copy of “Talking about Japan: Q&A”, which I’ve looked through before on the Nippon 2007 table. It’s a pretty wide-ranging explanation of a lot of elements of Japanese culture. Practical things for everything from funeral customs to the basics of the tax system.<\/p>\n

After that I headed down to the Eastern Gardens of the Imperial Palace, which aren’t too far away. This garden includes a number of old buildings and ruins from the Shogunate era. I’ve taken a bunch of photos and I’ve uploaded them on the gallery<\/a> of this site.<\/p>\n

\n

I walked partway back along the train route and popped into the Yasukuni-Jinja shrine on the way. There was a New Year festival going on. There’s a few more photos of the shrine, including a couple of the gates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was finally over my jetlag today enough to think about going out on my own and seeing some of Tokyo’s attractions. In preparation for Tuesday 9th, my first real working day here (Monday is a public holiday), I took the train from the guest house where I’m staying through to Ochanomizu station, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.a-cubed.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}