Hello everyone!
Welcome to part 2 of the final days of my 2024 November trip to Japan aka my days in Tokyo, returning to the capital of the country after a 5 year gap.
Continuing from the last post, I woke up early to experience Tokyo with barely any tourists around, as I did in Osaka, Kyoto and Fukuoka. It was great to experience the temples of Asakusa as I missed checking them on my first arrival the day before. Only downside of going to this beautiful area early, I was too early to get a goushin and I totally forgot about it on my way back at the end of the day.
Something I was able to see that I wouldn’t be able to see later in the day until the evening was the beautiful designs the area had on their shop shutters, how amazing!
I did see Tokyo Skytree from a distance, I wish I checked out the tower as I did in the other cities as I went to Tokyo tower in 2019 but for some reason I didn’t.
Why was I going out this early? Aside from checking out the area of Tokyo I was staying in, I wanted to check out Tokyo Big Sight.
Why? It’s just a convention centre, a big one at that? Anime, I have been seeing this building in anime and manga since the 90s, I just wanted to see it in person as I did with the Metropolitan building the day before.
The big sight wasn’t the only reason I travelled to the area, there was the Small Worlds Tokyo miniature museum! This is a place I’ve been looking forward to checking out since the start of the trip.
There were soooooo many things to take pictures of within the museum that I could have been there for ages,
As you can see in the featured image for this post, there was Neon Genesis displays that I so had to check out, I was so happy to come across them.
Something that was nearby was this machine that you could get yourself turned into a miniature figurine, as mentioned in a previous post, if it wasn’t for spending a lot of money on the One Piece statue tour in Fukuoka, I would have paid for this. But it was good to see anyway.
On the way out of the museum, you were able to see the behind the scenes on how things were made, how cool is that?!
I bought a few things from the gift shop, then it was a bus ride to Akihabara, somewhere I visited in 2019 but wanted to check it out again for some items I was looking forward to buying. In 2019 I did check out a maid cafe, was I going to do it again?
Nah not worth the money, it was an experience but not something I wanted to repeat.
Honestly didn’t spend that long in Akihabara, not sure why I didn’t check out similiar places in Osaka, Fukuoka & Kyoto too. I think I just wanted to do a certain amount of things throughout the morning then rest in the evening, so I just focused on some gacha machines and only a few shops such as the one shown above.
One floor of the giant shop, had this and it nearly scared the crap out of me, I dislike realistic porcelain dolls.
Here is what I got from the area, had to mindful of what I bought due to slowly running out of room in my large suitcase (the flight back to the uk had less luggage than on the way and I didn’t really have the money to send a suitcase back so only had my large suitcase, cabin & my expensive designer backpack) so the Lum figure did have to come out of the box..
The theme regarding the return to Tokyo was ticking things I wanted to see & do off my bucket list, the following day ticked off another one.
I was going on a tour to Mt Fuji!
There were a lot of tour meet-up spots at this amazing LOVE statue, there is even a lego set I’m getting soon as part of a birthday gift.
It wasn’t a massive tour group due to the size of the coach which was cute, just me, the tour guide, the driver and like 8/9 (?) other people, so like the One Piece statue tour it wasn’t crowded for us.
The tour gave us a nice view of the countryside outside of Tokyo, we had a small break before our first stop of some grape picking, the grapes were rather nice.
Speaking of food, a nice lunch was provided too!
We stopped near a lake which would normally provide you with a cracking view of Fuji but oh well.
After that we went on the Mt Fuji Ropeway, which was beautiful & an amazing experience. Similar to the lake, the mountain was blocked by clouds again.
The views that you would nearly see Fuji from a distance was hidden by the clouds, the theme of the tour haha.
With all the bad luck of not seeing the mountain, the tour guide & driver took us to Mt Fuji’s 5th station and wow we were rewarded from all the waiting.
We honestly got there at a cracking time, as minutes later, the view was blocked again!!
With that, it ended my 2 week holiday in Japan on a high.
How as my journey back to the UK?
Long, just as long as it was waiting for the flight to Japan in the first place.
My flight to the UK involved a flight to South Korea first which was 1.30am on Saturday (originally 7.30pm but this left me with an hour to transfer flights, at a unknown airport I didn’t want to risk it so managed to get it changed).
I wanted to sleep for most of the day as I know I wouldn’t sleep on the plane (from previous experiences of trying to do so in a cramped economy, I can assure you the next time I come back to Japan i’m paying for business or first class) and saw online that there were capsule hotels at Haneda Airport and didn’t have to worry about carrying my luggage there was my large suitcase and cabin were going to get delivered there to avoid the hassle (which other tourists should do, my advice that is, not sure why I said that like Yoda).
So the following day I checked out in the morning and got the train to Haneda without any issue.
The issue came when I arrived at Haneda, you know those Capsule Hotels that I just mentioned? Just for the month of November of that year, they were closed as they were getting done up.
I couldn’t go back to my Asakusa hotel as I checked out and there were no available hotels/motels/capsule hotels nearby, this was around 11.30am, I couldn’t check in until 11.30pm.
Trying to sleep at Haneda airport was a pain that I barely got anything, I was mainly working off the energy to get home to keep me awake, I had to be careful sleeping as I had my luggage with me and I was wearing a skirt and there seats and benches around. I even slept on a bench laying my body the long way for a bit but just couldn’t.
Couldn’t sleep in departues and by the time I got on the plane to South Korea, I was even more sleep deprived which didn’t help as I was put near the emergency exit, I HAD TO SIT ON MY HANDS AS THAT FORBIDDEN HANDLE LOOKED SOOOOO TEMPTING.
My saving grace was the aiport had a nap area, first I had to sleep on the floor but an hour or two later I managed to get a bed with a phone charger. This room was like 12 or so beds with not a lot of privacy but I honestly didn’t care, as it was a connecting flight for me I didn’t have my large suitcase.
There were showers near the nap zone, they were free and with all the planning I did, I didn’t plan on having any South Korea currency.
After a while, my flight back to the UK was ready and with that a 14 hour (yes longer than the first flight) which involved nearly any sleep again (mainly due to the noise). I arrived back to Heathrow without any issues, well the plane was delayed actually stopping so it had to flight around in circles before landing but apart from that nothing and got a drive home from my brother and his misses to be.
I think I slept for a very long time when I eventually got into my own bed.
See above on what I bought throughout the two weeks.
My first time travelling outside the UK to the other side of the world by myself, it went great. A few mishaps involving the airports but I put that down to me not researching that much into it.
One thing I will make sure when I do return to Japan as I want to return to get inspired by temples for writing (this for the last book of my upcoming trilogy way into the future) is to pay for first class or business on the plane if it’s a long journey, when you are tall like me, those long flights are a killer.
With that my Meg in Japan blog series is at a end, thanks for reading.
Megan
Megan Leyman 
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