1 week in Tokyo - Day 1: 祭り(matsuri)

Hello, I am one of the friends of Miss Happy Feet! Just call me Jeanne. 

Invited by Miss Happy Feet, I am going to write on Tokyo Trip. My friend, Jane, just came to Tokyo last week, and I will write on the days I spent with her in centre of Tokyo.

Day 1: 祭り(matsuri, which means festival)

Jane reached Narita at 0845 and took Keisei Skyliner to Nippori station and we met there. When we arrived at the Minami-senju station, there was a group of people walking around the roundabout with traditional costumes and a sacred palanquin. I think they were pracitising.

After checking-in to Juyoh Hotel (most of the staff can speak English well) and eating my bento (lunch box) for her, we went to a Hydrangea Festival at Hakusan Shrine. There were many different colours of hydrangea, but I like blue hydrangea the most 

entrance to the shrine

hydrangeas

There were only half of the hydrangea in the garden bloom. Don’t you find the half-bloom hydrangea looks like butterfly stopping on the flower? And I found it cute when it is yet to bloom.

Then, we went to Kyu-Furukawa Garden for Rose Festival. And another sad case T^T, not even one third of the rose plant bloomed. We just took a stroll in this big garden, and when we were going to have a try for traditional tea ceremony in the tearoom, it was closed right we reached there.

I hope this is my house 

the tearoom at the very corner of the garden

Then, we went to Akihabara, the heaven for Anime and Manga Lovers, with a lot of duty-free shop. It seemed like the street was closed for passengers until 1700 and we could walk freely on the road. Our main purpose here is go to maid café. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the maids, except we pay for taking one instant shot with the maid we chosen and that maid will write something cute on that photo before passing to us. Another funny thing is, they asked us to read a spell together so that the food will be tastier XD. I purposely ordered Omurice (Omelette with fried rice) because I want them to draw the picture in front of me. When I asked for Gudetama, the maid was shocked and immediately went to get her phone for reference.

Main street of Akihabara

Gudetama Omurice

At night, we went to Torigoe Shrine Annual Festival. It was so crowded and we saw many police there. After standing there for 30 minutes, we still didn’t know what was going on. We were aggressively pushed by the crowd when they were moving, until I was so frightened and started imagining if I will died of crowd crush. So, in the end, we just left without knowing what was really going on.

A big troop of Police

Can you see the Portable Shrine in the centre of the crowd?

So, apparently, we only went to 3 festivals and maid cafe today. There is always some flower festival in Japan, check it out when you come if you are interested in flowers ;)