It was one of the best days we’d had in a while, on the weekend anyway, so it was off to Harajuku for me for the next station on the JR Yamanote Line which is 1 stop or roughly 2 minutes from home so it doesn’t get much easier than this week.
A quiet Saturday night meant i was up and into it early, hoping to have a good look around and get plenty of pictures.
Harajuku on a Sunday is busy at the best of times, a Sunday with weather around 25 degs is definitely enough to gaurantee anyone tossing it up, would make it out.
Harajuku is a must for any tourist visiting Japan. It’s a great mix of cheap stalls and shops in Takeshita Dori to the expensive brand names and boutique stores along and around Omotesando Dori and into Aoyama.
It’s a place i’d been many a time but mostly i’ve stayed on the beaten track so this time i was determined to get a bit further a field and see what else Harajuku had on offer.
Over the bridge and you’ll find one of the more famous and popular shrines in Japan, Meiji Jingu.
I didn’t get in to Meiji Jingu this time, i’ve done the walk many times before and will no doubt do it again, next time i have a few overseas visitors i’d imagine.
So onward I push on my journey to cover all 29 stops on the JR Yamanote Line with today’s trip taking me to Hamamatsucho.
After 23 minutes from my home station Yoyogi only to find i’d actually used this station several times to connect with the Monorail to go to Haneda Airport. I’d usually take the Toei Oedo Subway and change at Daimon, now i know i’ve realised how much easier it would be to use the JR line instead … the connection is much easier when you have luggage.
The ride past Hamamatsucho was the original inspiration for me to visit all 29 stops on the JR Yamanote Line. I can’t remember where it was i was going, but on route through this station i saw scenes i hadn’t previously seen so today i was off to explore in greater detail.
Right next door to the station was the Kyu-Shiba Rikyu Gardens and for 150 yen you can spend all day there if you like.
“The focal point of the garden is the large pond, Sensui, which like Hama Rikyu’s pond still is, was once filled with seawater from Edo Bay by means of a inlet, that can still be seen.
Nowadays the lake is freshwater and contains a number of islands, rock formations and massive carp” - Japan Visitor
This week on the 29 stops of the JR Yamanote Line i visited Gotanda, this was the first time i’d been to Gotanda and exactly the reason behind visiting all 29 stops, to go to places i ordinarily wouldn’t have thought to visit.
Gotanda (五反田, Gotanda) is described as a busy but unfashionable neighborhood in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, Japan. The name “Gotanda” can be literally translated as “a (rice) paddy of half-hectare’s size”. The district straddles the Meguro river, and is located between the Meguro and Ōsaki stations on the JR Yamanote Line.
“The JR loop severs the neighbourhood into two districts. Higashi (East) Gotanda lies inside the Yamanote loop, while Nishi (West) Gotanda is outside the loop. Nishi-Gotanda is largely residential, with moderately-sized apartment buildings close to the JR station and quiet leafy streets in the outlying reaches.
Higashi-Gotanda is home to Seisen University, NTT East Kanto Hospital, several temples and shrines and as many office towers like a mid-sized North American city.
Higashi-Gotanda also has a substantial number of hotels, including some of the famed capsule hotel style. Some of the buildings making up the sprawling world headquarters of Sony are found along the eastern edge of Higashi-Gotanda.”
