Tokyo; Sunday, 20 April, 2025

As I was trying to squeeze quite a bit into my last day in Japan I had an early breakfast and then, after checking out of the hotel, headed over to the station to pick up the train to my first stop of the day the Temple complex at Meiji Jingu.

Meiji Jingu is a large temple complex that is located within woodland, but all in the heart of the city. What’s more amazing is that in the woods you could easily believe you were out in the countryside, yet just half a mile away is Shinjuku station, the worlds busiest railway station that has about 3 million people pass through it each day!

I spent several hours wandering around both the temple and the attached gardens, which included a spectacular set of rhododendron trees in full bloom that had been shaped into a tunnel that you walked through, almost totally enveloped in blossom.

I stopped off at the forest café complex for some Dango and a maccha ice cream before heading back towards the station and catching the train round to Shinjuku station itself to see that chaos that is the worlds busiest station for myself. Even on a Sunday afternoon it was easy to believe that 3 million people were at the station at that very moment.

I found a small restaurant, which appeared to be using the same kiosk and a similar menu to my favourite diner in Kyoto, so I decided that was a good enough sign to stop here for lunch, which turned out to be a good choice.

With lunch completed I was rapidly running out of time in Tokyo so I headed back over to the Asakusa area and went for a walk alongside the Sumida River, taking in the views downstream to the centre of the city and some of the best views of the Tokyo Skytree. I crossed over the river on the pedestrian only Sakurabashi Bridge before walking back over to the station complex at the Tokyo Skytree and picking up the metro back to the hotel where I grabbed my bags and then headed back to Kinshicho station where I picked up the train out towards Narita airport.

I could have headed back into the centre of town and taken the Narita Express, but by the time I’d doubled back it would only have saved me about 20 minutes, but cost quite a bit more than the 1,400¥ I paid for the 90 minute slow ride out to the airport.

I had a smooth journey through the airport and onto the plane which despite starting boarding late left on time and a little before 23:30 we took off and headed Northeast out over Japan and into the Pacific.

Just before the seatbelt signs were switched off the clock struck midnight and we flew into Monday, though a couple of hours later at around 04:00 we flew over the international dateline and everything immediately flipped back to 05:00 on Sunday morning.

I managed to sleep through the whole of my second Sunday 20th April, waking up after quite a decent sleep around 8am Tokyo time feeling refreshed. At this point we had just crossed the north pole and were headed for the top of Svalbard. As I would later work out I should perhaps have gone back to bed as it was only 2am in Helsinki, and only just midnight in London. Monday was about to be a very long day.