Exploring Asakusa and Akihabara, Tokyo 🇯🇵 Sensoji Temple, Nakamise Shopping Street / Nishi V

Good morning from Tokyo, me and my wet hair. We arrived yesterday and we had quite a productive day zero. That's what I like to call it on the itinerary. We did a lot more than we anticipated including a bit of shopping but this morning we are off to explore the more traditional side of Tokyo. So we're off to Akasuka and Akibara. We're going to start off at Sensoji temple and we need to find some food because I always forget that in this part of the world breakfast isn't really a thing. We don't have it included as part of our hotel stay so we thought we would just have like an early lunch or something. There's a lot of street food in that area so we'll go and explore and I'll take you with me. But first let me just show you our hotel room. It is a mess but I'll try not to show you everything on the floor but look at how incredible this mural is. We're staying at Park Hotel Tokyo and we've booked a king artist room so each of their king and queen artist rooms are designed by different local artists which I think is really cool. I'm going to show you the view from the window as well so we've got a really nice sort of corner view. They do recommend keeping the blinds down because there's window cleaners every single day. So the hotel reception starts on the 25th floor. We're on top of the I forgot the name of the building but there's a building downstairs and it's very artsy so I'll show you around the lobby as well and then when we come back hopefully the maid will have made up the room. It'll be slightly tidier and I'll show you the room properly because when we arrived yesterday at 7am they very kindly let us check into our room early. They'd actually booked us in for the night before which is so nice of them as we managed to just dump our stuff, had a 20 minute power nap and just went straight out so I will show you the room a little bit later on. I'll show you what I'm wearing, my outfit of the day. I don't really wear dresses so this feels a bit weird but I had to buy a couple of bits for Tokyo because you can't really wear sleeveless tops here or anything showing cleavage. They're quite modest in the way that they dress and I did notice yesterday I had a vest top on and I got a few looks. I think you can as a tourist but also we're going to a temple today so I wanted to be respectful so I've got some trainers on and just this like red stripy dress but we're off out to explore and my hair will dry in seconds because Tokyo in July is incredibly hot and humid. We were really struggling yesterday and it was only 29 degrees. It's going to be 35 degrees but it feels like it's over 40 because of the humidity so yeah wish us luck. Not sure why I decided to put makeup on this morning but it's only a little bit, that's not going to last very long but let's go and explore Jess. This is magnetic so you just stick it on the back of your door. Oh don't need to do it. Tells them to clean the room, very nice. The room we're staying in it's called N and it's by Mariko Kobayashi and obviously this is a different artist that's designed this room. I think this entire floor is the same. They also have a Japanese angel, that's really cool. They did actually email me to ask my top three choices for a room which was very nice and I now can't remember what I said but oh look this one's cute. Anyway yeah we're on the 31st floor and there's also a gallery here which I didn't really understand but there's signs everywhere because this whole hotel is very artsy. You can buy lots of artwork here and so I assume that's what this gallery is for here as well. People are really funny about being filmed here, I think it's like illegal maybe, I don't understand, to get faces in so I have to try and put my camera away but yeah. Oh my god look at these converse, I didn't see this yesterday. I don't understand what this is These converse are really cool. Oh you can buy them! Wabi-sabi which I've heard of. Wabi-sabi is something to do with like embracing things that are imperfect. I think the Japanese are really into that, like if you've heard of kintsugi which is the art of like, you know if you've got like a bowl or something that cracks, instead of like super gluing it together and making it look like that crack wasn't there, they highlight it in gold like paint because the imperfect is perfect. I'm not explaining this very well but I think that's what wabi-sabi is. Anyway we are now going to make a move, it's still relatively early but the day doesn't start until a lot later here like we're googling breakfast places and they open at 11am so we're just going to see what happens but I do have a couple of recommendations for vegan restaurants in Akatsuki, in Akibara or Atsuka, I've forgotten how to say it already. So this is the main lobby and there's like a whiskey bar there, there's breakfast in that corner the views from here are really nice, you can also purchase like beer and wine here. Yeah so I wouldn't say the hotel's huge because the building looks massive but there's not that many floors and let me show you the views here. Down to the ground floor in the lift and oh my god you can feel the heat already, there's no air conditioning here, it is so hot I can't even begin to explain to you how humid it is. We knew that this would be the case but we actually booked this trip about 10 days before we flew out so we haven't had a ton of time to plan it which is fine because I think I've got that kind of down but yeah this we always do this I think it's the same thing about Korea, just life circumstances and just getting leave at the last minute means that sometimes we do travel at the drop of a hat so I wouldn't have ordinarily chosen July. Every so often I see a car I just think of like the Tokyo Drift but you have to kind of go that way but the way you cross roads here is really tricky and of course you're not allowed to jaywalk, I say this in every video and somebody always comments saying yeah you can't jaywalk anywhere, news flashed you can in the UK, it's not illegal so we find it really strange when we have to wait for ages. Okay so it's really tricky, you've got to look out for the line that you're going to because even this station's huge. I remember from yesterday yeah Asakusa line A so we have to go around here we just came down five sets of stairs by the way this is what I mean like it's they're huge I think their stations are like the size of like zone one that's each station so when you use a train here you have to look at google maps and it will tell you which exit to come out of oh it's looking at information that's really cool come on Jess show them how it's done also by the way guys I'm famous here everything says Nishi on it but I googled it and it means west so yeah I could be like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's children like west northwest no what are you doing initially you are famous your name seems to be everywhere um we're going to Asakusa down there okay so the google maps will also tell you which carriage you need to be on so I think ours said eight this one says five that's six we need to be in that carriage for the easiest exit shall we walk this way Jess it's so nice but we've just found this and then head off to the temple it's lovely and air-conditioned in here too which is very much needed in fact yesterday I bought a uv umbrella from Uniqlo and I paid a little bit extra for the one that also has a heat barrier and it really works I mean nothing really helps that much in this heat but you can't get really loud cute so this is my this is my acai bowl on the left they hand draw stuff from the lids just got a little onigiri on his and it says thank you and that's his greek yogurt bowl and I guess that's maple syrup it's really cute so this is the temple all the way here you have to walk through like a big shopping street and then walk through this gate um it's very busy as you can see and we're just heading to the temple now I'm just inside Senso-ji temple and I have to say it's not as um big as I thought it would be but I think we've been to a lot of like buddhist temples so we kind of have seen some like really great ones this one's very very busy though and you can pay 100 yen to shake that box that you probably can't see it now but there's some sticks in that box you keep shaking it until the stick falls out that stick gives you a number so you open the numbered cabinet door that corresponds to that number and it tells you your fortune I think Jas might have just filmed a clip of me doing it so when you get a bad fortune what you have to do is you have to tie the piece of paper to a thing over there um I'll just take you here and show you so you this is if you drew a bad fortune please tie it to a rack we um burn fortunes here Jas hasn't done his yet so he's about to did it fall out what's your number 65 65 so where is 65 on the left it goes back there other side's English fortune but finally what you'll be suffering from disease and get depreciated by the people and new employment are medium fortune okay so that's not a good fortune so I think you should tie that up to the rack okay because they burn it put that back well I'll put it back in here yeah inside the box yeah that's not a good fortune is it no this is fortune if you want to uh pause the screen to read it yeah you tie it to that rack left the temple and now we're going back down towards I think this is called namakase shopping street we did actually walk down it on the way and as you can see it is so heaving I've got my umbrella with me which is doing a really good job actually of blocking the heat but um I will say it's actually a little bit windy which is so nice and in the shade it's actually quite bearable but there's just been a lot of sun today so it's been um incredibly hot but you walk down the middle of the street Jas right on the side yeah I really really really want some mochi or daifuku as it's also called here we saw a couple of vendors selling it earlier but we weren't hungry enough so we're gonna like skip lunch but just get some street food I think eighth floor of this uh tourist information building that we found and they've got a small like viewing deck up here so it's quite crowded as you can see and then the views are actually better from the glass I don't know if this will be blurry when you come to view the footage but that's the temple street that leads all the way up to sensoji temple we've just tried a whole bunch of street food down there and most of it was actually excellent this might sound really weird but apparently their socks that they sell here are really good quality so I'm buying two pairs on the right of these lined socks which are basically crew socks like sportswear which I think are really cool um oh there's also these I didn't see and then Jas is buying some of the short ones he got the last um pair of green called jalapeno and then he's buying marigold sorry this color but apparently their clothes are like really good quality which is so weird for a convenience store but look when in Rome we might as well just buy them I don't know what this is oh a hand towel I like the um polka dot one jalapeno nachos is what it's called yeah but they do like sunglasses shorts camisoles boxes t-shirts like so many different things here and they also do a wind resistant umbrella and an all-weather slim umbrella too sorry you can't see there you go going to akibara we've just come down a million flights of stairs and we're taking the ginza line so we'll go back up again I don't understand this whole like stair system that they have but there we go yeah and we're about to have our first proper meal we found this really cool place that does vegan ramen I think it's called soup curry it's in akibara and you have to order while you wait in the queue and I had two options in the vegan ramen um one was with soy sauce one was with garlic oil so I've still got the garlic oil and I've got a lemon soda but let me show you around so jass got a um hot and spicy pork ramen right yeah mine's a vegan one in garlic oil so exciting and you also get little you get um ground sesame seeds hot pickled greens red pickled ginger spice our roasted sesame seeds garlic you get loads of things there jass I mean that was the best ramen this place is like I'm so full that was the best ramen I've ever eaten in my life it was so good and we got so many extras I asked for extra vegan char siu, jass got extra noodles and an extra egg and literally our meal cost like less than 20 quid it was such a good find we're now going to go to uh don kyoto which I keep walking past because you can't really see it from the ground floor the signs are all the way up at the top so we need to go back on ourselves and cross the road but we're in akibara this road was open up until 6 p.m as in for pedestrians to walk along and now it's open to cars so we need to actually cross the road properly that's where we're going actually that's don kyoto um it's also called donkey in taiwan which I didn't realize but it has been such a long day like I don't even think we've walked 10 000 steps but this heat has been such a killer we're both completely shattered so we've just popped into a 7-eleven we don't really see many of those here actually um we've spent a long time in akibara went to donkyoto which wasn't that impressive um I don't know what it is I thought it was quite expensive unless I was working things out wrong but we didn't buy anything um we just went in for some ice cream there wasn't a lot of choice actually but I found these little like it's like a little chocolate box so little bits of ice cream covered in chocolates we're just gonna eat these outside the 7-eleven because you can't walk and eat here I'm gonna get a taxi back to the hotel it's probably like gone 9 p.m now but we are so tired it's so weird like I don't think we've done 10,000 steps but our feet really hurt and that's not normal anyway um I'm gonna end this video here so thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one before I go I just had to show you my ice cream it's so cool it's like six little ice cream filled chocolates and they're actually really rich I'm kind of done I just wanted a little bit of something cold so I'm gonna make jass eat it even though he's got his haagen-dazs oh he bought a couple of t-shirts from uniclo but yeah um I'm just not an ice cream fan I just want something cold