Dream Of Visiting Japan? This Is My Experience

After an adventurous few days in Kyoto it was time to visit Hiroshima, I took the bullet train which isn't shy of a two hour journey. The Shinkansen railway is nothing short of excellent, it puts Virgin Trains to shame, a six hour journey on a Virgin train would be a two hour journey on a Japanese bullet train. To give some clarity on how to acquire a Shinkansen ticket, you cannot purchase online, you can simply buy it on a machine at the station right next to the gate and if you feel it will be busy you can buy it days in advance and pay on the machine.

Arriving in Hiroshima and taking a walk through the streets it is obvious that the atomic bombing of the city was detrimental. Every single building in sight looked like it was built forty years ago or newer. Almost everywhere there are memorials dedicated to those who were killed from the bombing. It was obligatory for me to visit the Peace Park and the museum. The museum is something that you must visit as it will give you an understand of the horrors of nuclear annihilation. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people were murdered in a matter of minutes and those who survived had their lives shook up. The museum also has a part about nuclear weapons in general, it sickens me that the UK still has nuclear weapons and there had been many more nuclear weapons detonated for the purpose of testing which has caused suffering to many people.

By the riverside near to the Peace Park there is a derelict building that was a bank before the bomb was dropped and now stands as a reminder what happened. It is said that many people wanted the building scrapped because it gave people bad memories but ultimately it was decided to be preserved as a way to remember what atomic bombs can do.














The next day I went to Miyajima island, this place is very simple, it has loads of Buddhist and Shinto sites to take a look at. The main area has many places to eat some authentic Japanese food and buy souvenirs which is mostly tourist tat. What you have to try on a trip to Japan is okonomiyaki which is a savoury pancake and it is not something that you will find in your local Japanese restaurant. I have to say it tastes nice but it is not the best.

The main thing that Miyajima is known for is the floating torii gate which is in the water and has stood there for hundreds of years. This gate survived the effects of the bombing but has been restored every so often and is currently under repair.

What I'd say about Hiroshima is that I'd recommend staying there for just one or two days as there isn't much else to see apart from Miyajima and the Peace Park. In the city centre there's plenty of places to get curry and ramen and arcades but there's nothing else that's super interesting. I spent the next day taking a breather but I wish I had took a visit to an onsen. Which is a traditional Japanese hot spring and something that I missed out on. If you're on a trip to Japan and feeling knackered this seems like the perfect thing to do. However, Hiroshima also has the castle which was rebuilt after the war due the original being destroyed and Shukkeien which is just another Japanese garden. 

Let me talk about arcades in Japan, it's quite a culture shock. Almost every arcade in Japan feels like it has exactly the same games no matter where you go. It's interesting the first time but the novelty wears off. The Mario Kart  and the taiko drum games are fun to play but the machines aren't in English. If you go in the evenings the place is frequented by middle-aged businessmen smoking cigarettes after a stressful day of work. This is something you'd only see in Japan and you'd normally expect the clientele of an arcade to be teenagers or younger.

Tokyo

Before I went on the bullet train to head to Tokyo I spent some time at the train station, Japanese train stations are great places to be as there are plenty of places to get something to eat or take onto the train. What I must say about Japanese snacks is that they aren't as extravagant as you might expect. Every convenience store almost feels like they sell the same things and it can be quite hard to search for things like strawberry Kit Kat or peach flavoured Coca Cola. There is much more of a variety in convenience stores in other parts of Asia. As I was waiting for my train to arrive I went into the convenience store at the platform to buy some mini Oreo, Pocky and a bottle of green tea. The train from Hiroshima to Tokyo takes about five hours and that's half the time it takes to drive. The Shinkansen is truly a marvel to behold as it's the polar opposite of what trains are in the UK - on time, fast, relaxing, spacious etc.

What you must know about Tokyo is that it's probably the most expensive part of Japan. If you're a backpacker the best and most affordable accommodation is in a capsule hotel. I stayed in a cheap place for my last destination after continuous travel after five months. My accommodation was like a floor with about ten people in one room with the bunk beds right next to each other in a row. It really did feel like I was sleeping in a morgue and images of these places on the internet look like they're from a horror film. There was no lock but I never even got robbed or worried about it. Because this is an experience yet it is rather unpleasant, I'd recommend staying in Tokyo for about three days as you can see all the best of the city in that time.

What I'd say about Tokyo is that there's a lot of cool experiences you can have here but this city is also full of gormless tourist traps. What I must mention is that if you want to visit the Ghibli museum you must get your ticket a month in advance, I didn't know about this and missed the opportunity to pay a visit. 

After dropping my backpack into my shoebox bed, I took the metro over to the Tokyo Imperial Palace which feels more like a park as there is it is a green space you walk through. After that, I went to the Tokyo Tower. I'd say this is the best place to get a breathtaking view of the city in which there are skyscrapers as far as the eye can see. Furthermore, at the Tokyo Tower ground floor there are a number of shops which sell so many different interesting souvenirs and even samurai swords.

I then went to the samurai museum, this is a must-visit for Japanese history buffs as you can look at samurai armour and the history of the samurai. You can even witness practitioners of the way of the sword. After looking through the museum, I thought why not buy a sword as a souvenir. As UK customs works, it's illegal to import a samurai sword unless it is shorter than 50CM but nonetheless I think it makes for a great decoration and a stark reminder of the time I spent in Japan.

I then went over to Ueno to visit the Japan national museum which covers the history of Japan but it is not the most exciting place to visit in Tokyo. The shopping area around Ueno feels a bit off and a massive tourist trap this is the problem of Tokyo I was talking about.

A place which is lauded by people who have visited Japan is the Pokémon centre, there is an outlet in every big city in Japan. Unless you are a huge fan of Pokémon you might not want to visit this place as it is not much more than a crowded tourist trap which sells overpriced Pokémon merchandise.

I met with Japan's biggest Jambo, my friend who is both a Hearts fan and a fan of the Japanese club Omiya Ardija. It was a great experience to go to see Omiya play Gifu in which Omiya scored a last minute winner. The atmosphere of a Japanese football match feels very civil and completely different from a Scottish match. After the match I was able go onto the pitch, something that could never be done at Tynecastle.

I even got to visit the training facilities of Omiya Ardija in which I got to see some of the players. I even got to meet Juanma who used to play for Hearts and is now doing well in Japan.

After that I visited the railway museum in Saitama. If you go to Japan it's an interesting place to go to but there is also a railway museum which I missed out on visiting in Kyoto. The railway museum is interesting in that you can go inside all the different kinds of trains which roll around Japan. It's interesting to see all the different kinds of Shinkansen trains which have been innovated over the years.

 Then I went to the Tokyo Skytree, this place is incredible but is overcrowded with tourists. You can get some incredible views of Tokyo and even Mount Fuji at the top of the tower. The ticket queue was a forty minute wait and once I got to the observation deck it was overcrowded. On the ground floor of the place there is lots to see with shops you can buy Nintendo and anime merchandise and even a McDonald's.

The next day I walked through the Tsukiji Fish Market, this place is one of the most famous sites in Japan and it is one of the most iconic sites in Tokyo. It sounds like a place that would be another one of those tourist traps but it is actually quite a tasteful experience. You can see huge exotic fish for sale and I had some sashimi sushi for lunch and some ice cream for desert. 

 

After that I headed into the metro to go over to Asakusa, Tokyo's biggest tourist area, it has Nakamise shopping street, a huge area dedicated to souvenir shops and along the way is Sensoji Temple. This place is not that amazing as the shops don't sell anything too unique and the Sensoji Temple is literally nothing compared to some of the marvels you can see in Kyoto. 

I then headed over to Shibuya on the metro, Shibuya is one of the most famous areas in Tokyo, you will surely have seen pictures of the walkway before as it is one of the busiest places in the world. There is a huge variety of places to eat like pizza and burger places but I wanted a Japanese curry. In Japan there are many restaurants where you order your food on a machine and this is the impression of Japan that most people in the west have. Japan has many things that make it look like it's in the future like advanced toilets, robots and a super-efficient railway. Shibuya doesn't have that much to make it special but it has lots of shopping facilities and even one of the few HMVs outside of the UK. On the road you can see groups of people on go-karts as part of a tour in which they can do Mario Kart in real life. Shibuya station is also where the legendary Hachiko waited for his owner everyday and there is a statue in his memory.

The next day I took a look at the Meiji shrine which is a Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji. If I'll be honest I'd say it's nothing more than a forest with some Torii gates in it and not much else. The area around it is very good for shopping and it is near where Shinjuku is.

Then I went to Akihabara, this area is famous for originally being where all the electronics businesses set up shop and has now become the central area for anime, video games and all of that sort of thing. I'd say you might want to give this place a miss if you're not super into video games and anime as it's a bit tacky and weird. There are literally massive shops dedicated to floors of all kinds of random things, from airsoft recreations of Soviet weapons that will break the bank, to anime action figures to racey pictures of women. There is also the AKB48 café a place dedicated to the Japanese pop group and of course women hired to hand out fliers for maid cafes on the street. I find the idea of going to a maid cafe as not my thing and completely bizarre. 

I spent my last full day in Tokyo going back to Ueno park to look at the science museum as I was told that the original Hachiko was there and it is genuinely a good museum like the natural museum in London. It's nowhere near as big as the one in London but has just enough to spend an hour there. Ueno also has a really good zoo with polar bears, lions, gorillas and even pandas. 

I spent the last evening of my adventure with my local friend who showed me his favourite izakaya, an izakaya is a restaurant/pub dedicated to beer, sake and Japanese food. It is where Japanese people tend to go after work and you can have some really great fish and chicken dishes you would struggle to find outside of Japan.

In conclusion, Japan is not the best country I've been to but I definitely have had some incredible experiences. If you want to go to Japan don't put your expectations as super high as there is a lot that may put down your experience such as tourist traps, sporadic weather and how expensive it is.