Adventure to the land of the rising sun, Japan - Part 2

So this is part 2 of my adventure in Japan for 2 weeks, if you want to read part 1 you can here.

These are a few other places that I recommend if you are visiting Tokyo.

Ikebukuro, one of the districts in Tokyo it offers plenty of entertainment and shopping. One place we visited was the Sanrio Gift Gate store which I happened to spot just passing by in the street. Being a kawaii (cute) fan I had to take a look. If you love kawaii things, and Hello Kitty then you will love this store, it offers lots of cute accessories featuring Hello Kitty & other Sanrio characters, it is only a short walk from the station so be sure to stop off here.

Another cool place we visited in Ikebukuro was a cat cafe. This is a cafe that has different breeds of cats in it. So if you are a big cat fan, like me and want to go for a cup of tea or drink this is the place to go.

It was on the 5th floor of a building but is pretty big inside so the cats have lots of space to run about. You pay for a 1 hour visit and you can buy a drink such as tea, or a soft drink, have a rest and play with the cats, though most of them were sleeping when we were visiting. This probably depends on the time of day you make your visit. They are such lovely cats. There was about 18 cats. This isn't far away from the Pokemon Centre which was the next place we visited.

Also in this building there is a really cool girls gamer store, if you are a girl and you are into anime style games it's worth a visit I really enjoyed browsing the games and merchandise.

Some of the cute cats in the Cat cafe.

Girls Gamer Store, lots of merchandise for anime fans.

The Pokemon Centre in the Sunshine centre, which is a big shopping mall. If you are a Pokemon fan you have to visit this store when you come to Tokyo, it's a Pokemon fans dream. I used to be a big Pokemon fan back in the day, so I thought it would be a cool place to go visit while in Ikebukuro. I bought myself some stationary and a Pikachu Plush, it was such a cute Pikachu. Any Pokemon fan will love this store.

Animate, There is many of these scattered about all over Tokyo, I must have gone in a few. This one just over the road from the Pokemon centre. As I said in Part 1 I spent quite a bit in these shops. Great place for Anime fans! You have to visit these.

Animate just across from the Pokemon Centre

Another district to visit is Shinjuku, if you love looking at sky scrappers you should take a visit to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, where you can go up to Observation decks for free and see an outstanding view of Tokyo, it's really stunning to see. I highly recommend this, we went up in the evening when all the buildings were lit up. It was amazing, you can see the Tokyo Tower in the distance.

We also visited the Robot restaurant, which is a big tourist attraction. Pretty odd but we went for the experience and enjoyed it. So you get to watch battling robots and people putting on a show for you it's a bit like a RPG story, it's very brightly coloured. The show lasts approx 90 mins, and you can buy tickets on the website, it costs 8,000 yen per person, you can also buy drinks and food in there too.

Shinjuki has many shops and resturants, lots being anime stores, which I loved looking around. One building has a Godzilla on top of it. So thats the end of part 2. Thanks for reading and there will be more soon!

Can you see Godzilla?

Streets of Shinjiku

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Adventure to the land of the rising sun, Japan

So in November 2015 I went to the land of the rising sun, Japan for two weeks. It was a dream come true I have wanted to go to this country for so many years. This blog is about what I visited and what I recommend to others visiting Japan.

We flew from London Gatwick to Tokyo Narita with Turkish Airlines. Their flights are very nice you get some lovely food and travel bag with slippers, toothbrush, socks plus a pillow and blanket. Our flight was around 18 hours long, we had to change in Istanbul and wait a few hours for our connecting flight. This is my longest flight ever so far.

Once we arrived in Tokyo Narita airport we had to sort out our Japan rail pass tickets, I really recommend if you are travelling to Japan to get one of these, they are great and you can travel on all the JR Lines, and JR buses, you can even use it on certain Shinkansen's (bullet train's). After we had sorted that out we took the airport train to the city centre and made our way to our first hotel which was in Asakusa.

The hotel was called Mystays Asakusa and was about 20 minute walk from the station. It was a nice basic hotel, good value for money if you are looking for budget hotels. Because of the time different which was 9 hours ahead, it was evening in Tokyo and we was pretty jet lagged so we didn't really do much else that evening.

Day one and the adventure could now begin. The first place we set off to was Senso-ji an ancient Buddhist temple and Tokyo's oldest. It was only a short walk from our hotel and while walking along the streets of Tokyo we saw many vending machines, so I had to try them out and bought my first drink. I really like these vending machines much nicer looking than English ones.

Once we got to the temple there was many people around and it was only early morning, so if you want to go and visit here maybe go early as I'm guessing it gets busy later on in the afternoon. The outer gate is huge everyone was getting there photo taken by it. I really like the colours red and green it really makes it stand out.  As you walk through the outer gate there is a shopping street which is over 200 meters long selling all sorts of souvenirs from folding fans, Japanese snacks, keyrings, toys, yukata's and t-shirts, this is a great place to buy some gifts to take home with you. I recommend this.

As you get to the front of the temple there is the main hall and a five storied pagoda, you could pray and give some money. Lots of people were doing this. If you are into temples, photography, or history it's worth having a look at this amazing place.

You can also get here by going to Asasuka station it's only a few steps from.

Outer gate

Shops selling Japanese goods

Main hall

Main hall

Another place we visited that day was Ueno park, which is a large public park in central Tokyo. The park grounds have a few temples in it, and is famous for its museums which includes the National science museum, Tokyo National Museum, National Museum for Western Art, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. It also has the Ueno Zoo in it.
We didn't visit any of these but did have a nice walk about and had a look at some of the temples. There are many cherry blossom trees in this park but sadly since it was winter when we visited there wasn't any in bloom. These will be in bloom between late March and early April, so if you are a fan of these trees that would be the best time to visit Japan, not in the winter. The park is still nice in the winter months it has a fountain at the front of the park and still had a number of people visiting.

Fountain in Ueno Park

Temple in Ueno park

Crow in the park

One of the temples

the streets of Akihabara

After the park we walked some more and found our way to Akihabara one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Japan for. This place is an anime fans heaven, the place is full of anime and game stores, there is art work all over the shop walls, the streets are full of geek's, and there is people dressed as maids trying to get you to visit their maid cafe's which is one place we decided to check out for an experience.

So we picked the Maidreamin cafe, which seems to be the most popular one for tourists as there is quiet a lot of them in the streets of Akihabara. They give you some cat and bunny ears to wear while we enjoyed a small meal. I had omelette rice, the maids are very friendly and kind they decorate your food with cute little drawings.

I think you are meant to interact with them, we didn't really know what to do but we was watching this group of Japanese boys that had come into the cafe and they were dancing and singing with the maids. After the food they put on a little show for you, sing to you and take your photo. It's a good experience if you want to visit one of these places though it can be quiet expensive, you pay for the entertainment.

Maidreamin Cafe, omelette rice.

Animate an anime store, is another place in Akihabara I went, there is a lot of these stores about. These are amazing completely full of anime goods, you'll get a headache from looking at it all and trying to take it all in I know I did. I bought so many items in these stores I must have spent over £100. Another one of my favourite places I went and I'm so happy I looked up where this was before, is the Kotobukiya store which has on the second floor the Tales of store. If you are a Tales of series fan you will absolutely love this store. It's got so many Tales items in it from plushies, pillows, keystraps, wallscrolls, figures, books.

Well I hope you enjoyed the first part of this blog about Japan, there will be more in part 2. Thanks for reading.

Kotobukiya store, where the Tales of Store is.

Tales of store

Tales of store

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Return to Italy - Rome, Naples, and Sorrento Part 3

So here we are at Part 3 (Part 1 or Part 2 here) of this exciting adventure travelling around parts of Italy, as I said in the last post we went back to Naples to get our boat over to Sorrento. While we was in Naples we had a look around the market, It was very busy and crowded down little side streets.

We had to go to the Port of Naples to get our boat. There was so many huge cruise boats docked here waiting to go back off. Our boat didn't really take that long to go over to Sorrento around about 30 minutes. You got a nice view of Vesuvius while travelling along.

Port of Naples

Mount Vesuvius, the boat had dirty windows 

Once we got over to Sorrento, I was amazed at all the stray cats again. There was so many of them just sitting around near the dock of Sorrento, they even had a little bed. It was so cute, some of them even was hopping on and on buses.

We made our way up to the top and to our hotel. Sorrento is so pretty and clean, unlike Naples. All the Christmas decorations are up so that was nice we got to see that. Our hotel was along by a row of shops, right next door to a supermarket.

This hotel was called Hotel Sorrento City, it was lovely and clean, with friendly staff, we got breakfast and free Wifi.

Hotel Sorrento City

So while we were staying in Sorrento, we went and visited a few places, Capri being one. We had to get a ferry over to the island which only took about 30 minutes. After having a walk about we did one of the many boat trips they have on the port, this was a private boat trip just for the two of us which cost about €80 - €90 Euros after you tip the man doing the trip. He drove us around about half the island showing us some of the history and special places. I do recommend doing this if you enjoy boat trips, I very much enjoyed every minute of it.

Map of Capri

Another one of the days spent in Sorrento, we traveled to a place called Positano. This time we got a bus there it went around the coast, this was a really enjoyable journey also seeing the sights on the bendy cliff roads. Once in Positano we had a wonder about the shops and town. This is another wonderful place to visit if going to Italy the scenery is beautiful.

I also went for a swim in the sea here, I couldn't believe how warm the sea was for November time. I'm pretty sure this place would be very crowded in the summer time, so going in the November time was great we had the beach pretty much all to ourselves. There was some more stray cats here too.

After spending a good few hours here we hopped back on the bus and decided to carry on to the next town which was Laurito, we went down this really steep stair way which lead to a small pier at the bottom where you could do fishing I believe. Another pretty place, so many pretty places I really want to go back to Italy again.

More stray cats found in Laurito

 We returned back to Sorrento on the bus, only to find all the Christmas lights had been turned on, how lucky was we to get to see this. What lovely decorations, this town was lit up beautifully.

 We have now come to our last day, returning back to Naples to get our flight back to London. We decided to make two more stops on the way back before returning to Naples and that was Pompei and Herculaneum. Anyone that is staying near Naples, needs to visit Pompei and Herculaneum the places are amazing.

Ancient Pompeii is really huge to walk around and I was having trouble walking about at this point from walking about so many places I had got blisters so I was in a bit of pain, but I did want to see all this history so I put up with the pain. There is so much to see here, from houses to temples, baths to theaters the ruins were great. I really enjoyed my time seeing these places. The price wasn't a bad price either, you can buy tickets to visit both the ruins.

Pompei ruins

Walls of Pompei building

 Herculaneum, is smaller to walk around than Pompei but still worth the visit, you have to walk down this long path to get into the ruins again this has got ruins of houses, temples and all sorts.

Ancient Ruins of Herculaneum.

flying back, view of Naples City from above.

Well that's about it! It's over I hope you enjoyed the read the photos and got some use out of reading this three part blog, Do let me know what you think. I am still new to writing this things, but I hope it's been of some use even if you did just used it to view the photos. Thanks for reading and do follow if you enjoy these posts! Aimee

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