Visit to Shibuya, Asakusa and the Skytree!

Yesterday I went with a friend to Shibuya to meet a pen-pal from Chiba for the first time to have a day out in Tokyo.

Shibuya at daytime

We met at Tsutaya, a music and dvd shop (pictured) and then went upstairs to the Starbucks (also pictured) famous for overlooking the busiest crossing in the world - Shibuya Crossing.

View from Tsutaya Starbucks - Shibuya

The crossing wasn't too busy as it was early morning on a Saturday, but this crossing is well-known for being cram-packed!

We pondered where we would like to go for the day over our drinks using a Tokyo guide magazine. And eventually decided to start with Shibuya 109 - a department store in Shibuya that was only a short walk away.

Shibuya 109 is a popular department store for young women in Japan. Inside were lots of women's fashion shops and makeup shops. The clothes shops inside 109 have a variety of fashion trends, there were so many cute clothes! I wanted to buy so many things but 109 is not particularly cheap! The store pictured above is called Liz Lisa and has lots of pretty clothes inside! If only I was rich! There are also some food shops inside for when you get the shopping hunger pangs! The shop assistants were all dressed up in their shop's style and looked so cute.
Although Shibuya 109 only has women's fashion there is also 109MEN'S nearby for the fashion-conscious man.

After looking around Shibuya 109 we went to another department store and looked at more clothes. There were some really nice bikinis in both Shibuya 109 and the second department store that I might check out again in the future. Bikinis with skirt bottoms seem to be popular at the moment and look really adorable. They also had swimming thongs that you could buy to go under a swimming skirt or some more fuller bottoms to give a layered look. Some bikinis even came with matching hairbands and you could buy wedge heeled flip-flops for the beach! I was surprised how fashion-conscious all the swimwear was.

We started to get hungry so we headed for the food court in the second department store. We took a while to decide but finally chose a really nice restaurant where you ate in a little private area with a door that you could close. We all decided on the same meal set in the end, it was quite expensive but you got a lot of food in one set. Pictured above is everything included in the meal set, water and tea was also free. The set included a salad with dressing, mushrooms, kimchi, soup, soy sauce with wasabi, beef with rice and for dessert an almond jelly. The meat was juicy and tender, it was a good meal and would definitely eat it again. 

After eating we went to Asakusa, it seemed quite touristy as there were quite a few foreigners and people selling maps. We went to see the Sensouji temple which is surrounded by many touristy stalls selling Japanese food and souvenirs. Before we went to see the temple we stopped at one of the shops to have an Ice cream. There were so many flavours to chose from varying from more common flavours such as chocolate and vanilla to some more unusual flavours like purple potato and soba flavour.

White peach soft ice cream

There were so many snacks I wanted to try but I will have to wait until next time!

At the temple we each payed 100 yen (around 63p) to get a mikuji. You pay through a slot on the counter then shake a tin which contains numbered sticks upside-down until one falls out. You then look up the number on that stick on the numbered draws in front of you and take one sheet from the drawer (not forgetting to replace the stick). I got a regular fortune (chuu kichi 中吉) and my friends got a small fortune and a curse! If you get a curse then you fold up your fortune and tie it to a metal wire on a special stand (pictured below)

We then went further in to see the main shrine where people where queuing up to pray.

 After spending some time in Asakusa we walked all the way to the Tokyo Skytree - it was pretty far! I feel like I have been getting a lot of exercise since I arrived in Japan!!

By the time we got to the Skytree it was already getting dark! We arrived around 7pm but you couldn't buy a ticket straight away, when we arrived we were given a slip with a half-hour time slot in which to come back and buy tickets. This is done because the sky tree is such a popular destination. While we waited for our time-slot we had a look around the many shops near the sky tree and shared an ice-cream at the Cold Stone Creamery. At the Stone Cold Creamery they have many different flavours of ice-cream which could be combined with other flavours and additional nibbles like sponge cake pieces, crumbled Oreos and sprinkles. The servers also sing while making the ice-cream, they seemed to have a different song for each flavour!

When our time-slot came we still had to queue for ages until we could even buy tickets! It was quite expensive around 2000 yen (roughly £12) to go up half-way but the view when you got there was amazing. It was particularly pretty as it was night-time so you could see all the lights of Tokyo twinkling against the dark scenery.

When we were finished looking at the sights and taking photos we had a quick look in the gift shops and then decided to head home. We had been walking all day so I was glad to head back to give my feet a well-deserved rest.


Overall I had a really amazing day, I was glad to finally meet my pen-pal and we were able to  pack in so many things going from Shibuya to Asakusa and finishing at the Skytree before returning to Shinjuku, what a day!

I only hope that my pen pal will be able to come and visit again soon!