Since we had the luxury of time, we took to the streets with our camera and maps.  We saw a lot of pretty and interesting places and things.  I would just like to share what we found on our two weeks in Tokyo.

The first place we stayed at in Tokyo was in the Arakawa area and we normally had to take the Nippori-Toneri Liner to get around.  We decided to walk around the Nishi Nippori all the way to Nippori.  Nishi Nippori has a small pretty park which is uphill.  Behind the park is actually a cemetery.  We tried to avoid it and tried to the temple town of Nippori.  One of our turns to find a temple called Tenno-ji led us to a cemetery.  I wanted to avoid it but decided against it.  If you are in Tokyo during cherry blossom season, please visit the Yanaka Cemetery.  It is really pretty despite the fact that it is a cemetery.  It is like a whole city on it’s own.  There is a ruin of a Five Story Pagoda which was burned down in an act of arson-suicide.  I wanted to check out the whole section for the Tokugawa clan but it was getting dark so we gave it a miss.

Since this time around we didn’t get a JR pass because we were staying around almost a month and would not be moving as much as the first few visits to Japan, we saw some posters inside the Tokyo Metro station showing some Tokyo Top trends and on the cover was a very pretty establishment that sells flowers.  We searched online for the location and found it to be near Hiroo station (広尾駅 Hiroo-eki).  It is called Fleur Universelle.  It was really picture perfect and the meals were reasonably priced.  The food looked really pretty and tasted really good.  

If you like Ueno and Akihabara, try walking from Ueno to Okachimachi then further down to Akihabara.  Ueno has all the small shops and Ueno park.  Okachimachi is also a shopping district. Try to walk following the rail tracks.  Under the railway there are a couple of interesting group of shops.  One is called the 2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan and the other is called Chabara Aki-Oka Marche.  The first one is a group of stores offering artisanal goods.  We had fun looking at all of their handmade crafts.  Chabara on the other hand, offers artisanal edible goods.  We really loved the honey, tea and the cup ramen that we bought from there.

The Yuraku Concourse is also interesting if you are planning to walk from Ginza to Hibiya to avoid having to transfer a few trains to get to Harajuku.  It is underneath the tracks and the walls are old and covered with old movie posters which looked really pretty and nostalgic.

The walk from Omote-sando to Harajuku and then onwards to Shibuya is quite lively.  You get to see the luxury of finer things from Omote-sando, the cool-weird fashion of Harajuku and the lights of Shibuya.

We checked our map and found out that the Imperial Palace should be within walking distance.  The pretty Tokyo Station, Takashimaya Nihonbashi and the roads leading to it are very picturesque that we almost never found the famous Nijubashi because we keep on getting distracted by the pretty trees and buildings.  It is quite a really grand and humongous place in the crowded Tokyo where everything is small and built for small buildings.

There might be other great walks out there in Tokyo.  Hope I can share more the next time we take a walk in Tokyo.

The photos were taken using Sony A7 and Nokia Lumia 1020.