Saturday 17 January 2026

When we had arrived in Tokyo the previous afternoon it was a lovely 16 degrees, which was a nice change after some very cold temperatures, including down to minus 13 in Hakuba. Our Saturday in Tokyo was going to be another pleasant day and we were enjoying not having coats and beanies on!

There are always many to things to look at when wandering the streets of Tokyo. We are also glad that online maps help you navigate the metro and subway system as if you have to rely on the printed route maps and signs it’s a bit of a maze! The photo below shows the complicated array of different lines!

Meiji Shrine and ice sculptures…..

First on the agenda was a trip to Meiji shrine, another thing we hadn’t managed to do in our brief 2024 Tokyo visit. At this point of the trip we might have been ‘shrined out’ and we considered skipping it, but we were glad we went. Unlike some of the other shrines in the bigger cities, this Shinto shrine was in an oasis of forest, right in the middle of Tokyo. It’s surrounded by 70 hectares of forest, containing 120,000 trees. Right in the middle of a huge city, in the Shibuya district.

Meiji Shrine is a Shinto shrine, that is dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken. There are of course the obligatory Torii gates. There are also sake barrels along the main walking route to the shrine, just past the first Torii gate. They sit directly across from a parallel wall of donated French wine barrels. We had fun identifying regions of France we’d been to.

There were still plenty of people out and about today, but the crowds definitely weren’t as bad as they had been in the New Year’s week. It was a lovely Winter’s Saturday and it turns out that some of the crowds were to see the free ice sculpture display we happened across on the walk through the forest to the shrine.

The ice sculpture display had around 20 intricate sculptures carved out of ice. They were amazing, but melting fast in the somewhat warmer temperatures that had arrived for a couple of days. We weren’t sure how much longer some would last!

Once we reached the main complex of shrine buildings the there were plenty of people and there were also a large amount of security (and photographers) around the shrine.

We saw what looked like a wedding party coming out. The shrine is of great spiritual significance and apparently is a popular spot for traditional weddings. The wedding party had some great traditional outfits and must have been important given all the press journalists around.

We then thought we’d walk back out through the forest on a different path. The approximately 100,000 trees that make up Meiji Jingu’s forest were planted during the shrine’s construction and were donated from regions across the entire country.

It was a very pleasant walk through the forest area. It’s really easy to forget you are a mere few hundred metres from a densely populated city with millions of people.

Lunch in Harajuku…

We left the shrine and walked to nearby Harajuku, where Anto had found a ramen restaurant online that had food I could actually eat. Despite being only 11.30am there was already a line forming outside, but we were hungry and the line wasn’t too long so we joined it.

Lucky we got in early as by the time we left the line was 5 times as long. My vegan ramen was excellent and had actual vegetables (and flowers!). The kids had some rice bowls, Astrid some slippery noodles that were impossible to eat with chopsticks and Anto a non veggie ramen. This place was obviously trendy amongst the instagramers judging from the clientele and number of food photos happening.

Now with food on board we walked through Harajuku and it was crazy with crowds. We found the store selling the social media trend of rainbow cheese, but were happy to just look at that one, given we’d just eaten a pretty tasty lunch of real food 🙂

We happened to be in the street with a million animal cafes so saw owls, mini pigs, and capybaras through the window amongst the usual cat and dog cafes.

Shopping and Shibuya….

It was a bit of a shopping day so Astrid had found a jellycat shop she wanted to visit and use up a vast proportion of her spending money. Then it was off to a Mugiwara store for Soren to make more One Piece purchases.

We left Harajuku and did a bit of a walk towards our next stop, Shibuya. As we weren’t far from Shibuya scramble we went across the famous crossing again. We’ve done it about 5 times now, so it’s really not that exciting and is always busy. This time we actually needed to cross the street to get to the metro to our next stop Ginza so had to negotiate the crowds.

The kids still love the crossing. The bright signs and crowds add to the atmosphere but it’s always a challenge not to lose someone!

Ginza….

The kids were till continuing to collect their train station stamps at every opportunity. Almost 3 weeks into the trip, we were now on book 2 or 3 of stamps for each child.

Ginza, was predictably busy on a Saturday afternoon. We found the spot Soren had gotten himself lost in December 2024 and he did not manage to do that again….. if fact he hadn’t gotten lost at all yet on this trip!

The buildings in Ginza were looking pretty in the afternoon light and the main street was closed to traffic. This was presumably only happened on the weekends as every other time we’ve been here it’s been full of cars. So we had fun walking down the street and posing for some crossing photos while checking out all the lights.

The sun was starting to set and the building lights were starting to come on, so it was a lovely time to be wandering around.

It was now after 4pm and our next shopping stop was Uniqlo. The flagship store in Ginza is pretty fun. We’d visited in 2024 and despite hitting up several other Uniqlo’s during this trip, all over Japan, we were all keen to return to the flagship store. The store is 12 floors high so you spend most of the time going up and down escalators and around in circles. After doing many laps all over the store, all losing each other several times. We all added to our luggage when everyone found more things they had to have (including Hello Kitty purchases for Zinnia just to annoy Soren).

Our original plan was to go to Itoya, the large stationary store in Ginza, but our shopping mojo was wearing out and we had an early start the next day. Itoya was put back until Tuesday (much to Astrid’s disgust), so it was back outside to a now dark and well-lit up Ginza.

The Government Metropolitan Building light show…..

The kids really wanted to revisit the Government Metropolitan Building which we’d seen on our last visit. The observation deck (which is free) has amazing views but the main reason for the revisit was to check out the projections. The Government Metropolitan Building is in Shinjuku, so after another set of long metros, we found ourselves wandering that enormous station again and the exit to the building (which is an office building) was partially closed so we popped out a different spot to where we were expecting.

We eventually found the correct side of the correct building (there are 2 towers), and it feels like you are in a deserted business district until you find the right spot, and the projections are hard to miss!

The grass in the plaza area is surprisingly soft to lay on and there are always plenty of people watching the free ‘Tokyo Night & Light’ shows that runs on the half hour.

The show uses 40 projectors to project on a surface of almost 14,000 square metres.

Even though it was dark and not all that warm we all enjoyed laying on the grass and watching the amazing light show, resting our weary feet, with our many shopping purchases for the day strewn around.

Tonight’s show included some Pac Man and a plenty of other fun sequences. Soren might have been a bit tired though, he managed to fall asleep during the show. He was the one who was insisting on going again after we’d all enjoyed the 2024 visit to the show. He wasn’t super impressed when we woke him up and he realised he’d missed most of it!

Another convenience store dinner…..

It was now 7pm, and we had been out all day and caught about 47 metros, criss-crossing Tokyo again. Everyone voted to just find the nearest convenience store for dinner items. So it was another konbini dinner back at our apartment. It was almost 8pm by the time we got there, and we were glad to be back sitting down!

We again all racked up 25 – 30k steps for the day. Poor old Zinnia had done so much walking in Kyoto and Osaka that when we arrived in Hakuba she’d worn a hole in the sole of her sneakers. It wasn’t a problem while we were in the snow as she was either wearing her snow or ski boots but she was now wandering around Tokyo in her snow boots. The 16 degree temperatures today hadn’t been all that great for snow boots!

Up next….

A day trip to Hakone, with Pirate ships, Lake Ashi, ropeway rides above steaming thermal pits and amazing Mt Fuji views!