Another foreign arrival in Tokyo just before I leave as she is taking my place! A pretty good friend of mine now although we didn't see eye-to-eye in the very beginning. I will need her advice so much when I move to Singapore.
She brought the rain with her and also really wanted to take me to the Atago Shrine (lucky for her, I hadn't heard of it or been there yet!) so on our only weekend together, we set off despite the rain and it was a short 4 km walk from our apartment. Thank to google maps, we managed to get to the top of the shrine without having to do the stairs which is ironic as we wanted to go to specifically climb the stairs! So it is said that the 'success steps' (which is around 100 really steep but not super steep stairs) will enable the person who climbs it success if they get to the very top without stopping - or something along those lines. After Mount Mitake and Fuji-san, this was seriously a piece of cake but still fun.
It was even better because we got to feed the koi that were in the pond at the top of the shrine and see a traditional Japanese wedding complete with traditional instruments. Steph then proceeded to ask one of the really cute wedding party members/helpers (?) where the lifts were so that we didn't have to walk all the way back down (definitely do not walk back down the steps, it will erase all the luck you gained by walking up).
We had brunch in nearby and newly opened Toranomon Hills which has its own mascot that looks like Doraemon (easy to see the similarities here...). And it felt like an Australian brunch - smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel with a ginger soda. Was perfect.
