Ropeway trip from Nihondaira to Kunozan Toshogu Shrine

One of the possible options to reach at the Toshogu shrine dedicated to the Tokugawa Ieyasu, the great emperor of Japan, is to ride a bus from JR Shizuoka station to the Kunozan Yamashita. As the name indicates, Kunozan yamashita bus stop is at the bottom of the hill Kunozan. From the bottom of the hill, 1159 steps goes to the shrine at the top of the hill. That would have been more adventurous, but it might be a too difficult task for children. Moreover, the aerial ropeway ride would be more exciting to the children.

Frequency of buses are not so good from JR Shizuoka station to the Nihondaira hill top from where the ropeway starts. As per the instruction from the tourist information center located near to the ticket gate of JR Shinkansen line, we boarded the bus at 9:27 AM. The bus fare is 550 Yen per adult. The bus fare can be paid inside the bus before getting down. Even if you don't know how to pay, the driver will help.

The bus journey takes around 35 minutes from JR Shizuoka station to the Nihondaira ropeway iriguchi (entrance station). There is a zoo in between JR Shizuoka station and Nihondaira hill top with approx. 800 varieties of animals. If time permits it is worth to get down and visit the zoo. We could see the entrance of Nihondaira gakuin university on the way to the hill. The road to the hill top is with many curves and zig-zag. Persons with trouble of vomiting during travel has to take care by keeping a towel or anti-vomit medications during the bus ride.

One day trip to Shizuoka by Shinkansen

Inside the Tokyo station, there are separate counters for the reservation and ‘today's booking’ of Shinkansen tickets. While spending 5 minutes in search of the counter for reservation, I approached the information center, which is near to the counters that sells tickets for today's travel.

Though Shinkansen ticket charges are expensive compared to the normal type of JR tickets, it is worth enjoying the luxury and speed. If we travel alone and does not matter when to start and when to come back home, JR or other freelance transportation methods may be the preferred choices. Elder daughter was insisting on travel to some place by Shinkansen and we decided to go to Shizuoka. We had decided to cover maximum spots of attractions in Shizuoka in one day with children. The ticket was reserved on the Hikari Shinkansen at 8:03 in the morning.

There are three types of Shinkansens based on the speed and number of stations they stop. The fastest is the Nozomi. Nozomi stops at very few stations (big cities) and runs faster than other shinkansens. It was the fastest train until we hear more higher speeds from China. The second fastest in Japan, the Hikari stops at limited number of stations. Since Shinkansen get more travelers from Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama stations, The Hikari Shinkansen stops at Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama on its way to Shizuoka being the third stop. It covers almost 180 kilometers in 73 minutes.

Rinkai Koen Tokyo sealife aquarium and diamond and flower ferris wheel

Though it was a sunny day, the Rinkai Koen was reasonably crowded. We preferred to visit there after the lunch. As the climate was not kind enough to allow for an outdoor walking we headed to the aquarium, which is known as Tokyo Sealife Aquarium.

Children enjoyed walking around inside the aquarium. We could see lot of tuna fishes and other sea creatures. The aquarium also have penguins and seabirds. At a specially made water tank, children can touch fishes with their hands.

Rinkai Koen’s Giant wheel, which is called the Diamond and Flower Ferris Wheel has been visible to us from our apartment. Ever since we shifted to the apartment in Edogawa-ku, we have been thinking of making a visit to Rinkai koen. The Diamond and Flower Ferris Wheel is believed to be the second tallest ferris wheel in Japan. Tokyo bay, Disneyland etc. are visible clearly from the top of the Ferris wheel. On a clear day, Mount Fuji can also be seen from the top.

Showa kinen koen – Tulip garden at Tachikawa

It took around two hours to reach at Showa kinen koen, popularly known as Tulip garden from higashi Ojima. The travel time is around one and a half hour to reach the garden from our place. One of our friends, who did recently visit this garden, suggested this as a place of must visit place around Tokyo. The photos shared in a social network forum looked stirring, something which drove us to the garden on the next week end.

Showa kinen garden can be reached from Shinjuku by taking JR-Chuo line that goes to Tachikawa. It takes around 38 minutes to reach Tachikawa station from Shinjuku. It is possible to walk to the Showa kinen garden from Tachikawa station. It takes around 15 minutes by walk, if you enjoy walking, but we took another option of boarding JR-Ome train that goes to the Nishi-Tachikawa.

Showa kinen koen is just 3 minutes walk from Nishi Tachikawa station. It is better to go to Nishi Tachikawa by taking JR-Ome line when going with a stroller. The entry fee is 400 Yen for adults and 80 yen for kids above 6 years old. It is a negligible amount considering the fun and enjoyment that the landscapes of Showa kinen koen impart to us. On 29th of April, Showa day, the entry is free to the garden.

There was an event of international flower show on the day of our visit to the garden. The entrance of the garden itself is well maintained and pleasing. Entering to the garden premise we can directly head towards the lake premise and have a boating for a while or it can be put aside to the end of the tour in the garden.

After taking our lunch at the lawn near to the lake, we headed towards the Tulip garden, which is the center of attraction of Showa kinen koen. The area of the park is around 163 hectares of land and is one of the attractive spots in Tokyo metropolitan area. Sight seeing is the major activity of adults while children can enjoy playing in garden and children’s forest. There are numerous spots for children to enjoy and make their day memorable one.

Walking through the garden viewing the beautiful flowering plants enjoying the harmony and tranquility of nature gives a sense of unification with mother earth. We saw some of the visitors to the park enjoy reading books under the shadow of the tree; some of them have a barbecue.

Bird watching is another recreation for some of the visitors while some enjoy cycling. Some of the visitors enjoy jogging and some enjoy boating. Children would love to play in the open ground and in the children’s forest. Our children enjoyed playing in the net.

Photos are powerful than the words written. The photos posted here will convey the beauty of Showa kinen koen. I have shared more photos in facebook, orkut and Flixya, which is a photos, videos and blog sharing and social networking site.

There was a booth inside the garden displaying and selling bonsai plants. Bonsai is one of the most attractive things for me in Japan. Before coming to Japan, I have tried to make bonsai trees by reading books, but failed to do so. At least for me, Bonsai is almost a synonym to Japan. It was a surprise to us to see bonsai sakura and orange trees. We took permission to take photographs and put them in this blog from the shop owner.

The artificial beaches made for children are also very attractive spots for kids to give a feeling of visiting the real sea shores. They can play with water without the fear of getting drowned.

While walking back to the garden gate at 6 P.M we were thinking of another day when we can make our second trip to the garden.

Mount Naeba exploration on new year day

The snow, like white cotton balls continued falling down and piling up making our way difficult to go through. Though the car was provided with snow tyres, we were a bit skeptic to reach our destination by seeing the heavy snow fall all along the road to Mount Naeba.

The New year’s first day was memorable, not only in the mere meaning of just seeing a different place, but also by pushing a car to escape from the ice-trap where we spent around forty minutes and finally got help from the rescue team.

It was just the start of our exploration of Mount Naeba and we were on our way to the parking space in front of Prince Hotel Naeba. The journey was started at 7:00 AM from Higashi Ojima and we were happy with the hope that we can reach by 10:30AM at the destination and can enjoy the trip to Mount Kagura from Mount Naeba ski resorts.

All of us, lived most of our lives in tropical climate were thrilled to play with snow. We have seen snow fall in Tokyo, but not enough snow that we have seen in the websites of ski-resorts. The prime motivation to select a place like Mount Naeba was to make a different experience on the New Year’s Day itself. Change is the slogan in air now a days as we hear it from every corner. Let it be politics or personal life, change is a must to make the things lively.

Mount Naeba ski-resort is around 220km away from Tokyo. The day was clear when we started from Tokyo and on the way we could see Mount Fuji clearly. Mount Fuji is visible on a clear day from Tokyo also. As we were approaching to the mountain ranges near to Mount Naeba we could see the snow fall and on the middle of the way we stopped for a while to take snaps of the snow filled paddy fields and river.

Contrary to our expectations, on 1st January 2010, there was heavy snow fall and wind at the resorts. With our broken Japanese, when we approached the information counter, we were informed that the world’s longest dragondola, which is 5.5 kms from Naeba valleys to Tashiro area of Kagura ski resorts is closed due to heavy snow wind. It is dangerous to ride on the dragondola when there is a heavy wind. He informed that the ropeway operation is under red alert.

However, we could ride on the dragondola 2 which is around 1.7 kms from the slope of Mount Naeba to its peak. Fully clad with winter protection cloths, we could reach to the destination point of dragondola 2. That was an amazing and unforgettable experience to play with snow. The snow was piling up on branches of trees. They have already shed their leaves before the winter season. Now they got snow flowers!. The scene down to the valleys while we ride on the ropeway was impressive with bunches of snow sticking to the tree branches looked like trees with white flowers.

There were skiers coming down to the slope of the mountain playing with their children. At the top, we played with snow literally dipping ourselves inside the snow piles.

The resort and the surrounding areas of Prince Hotel Resorts are fully provided with all kinds of facilities to make the trip comfortable and strain-free, except the natural obstructions happen unpredictably.

It was around 5:30 PM when we decided to return back from the snow mountains. Restarting the car itself took another half an hour as the whole parking area was filled with snow and most of the cars were covered with ice. Everything looked white at the parking area. Struggling to restart the car, finally we could make our way to Tokyo with memories of an extraordinary experience.

Planning of the trip to Mount Naeba was much easier with the help of the website maintained by Prince Hotels & Resorts. We could make our plan well with the guidelines given in this website. Thanks to the website owner too for making this New Year celebration a memorable and impressive one. The link to the website is here; http://www.princehotels.co.jp/ski/naeba-e/index.html

A free visit to Ueno zoological park, Tokyo

The weather was suitable for an outing today with moderate cold and sun. It helped us not to change our previous plan to visit Ueno zoological park. The drive to visit the zoo was our daughter’s demand to see the animal characters which she had imagined while hearing bed-time stories.

For us, telling Panchatantra stories to children is a way of imparting moral values too. Children imbibe social values and importance of team work, social life etc through stories of animals. Originally written by Vishnusharma centuries ago, Panchatantra stories are very popular in India even today. Bed time stories help children to grow their visualization and imagination process, thereby help to ignite their hidden passions for creativity.

To our surprise, when we reached at the gate by exiting through JR-line, it was written in big red words that the “ADMISSION IS FREE”. Good! In English too. Once more I confirmed by asking the staff at the gate of Ueno zoo that admission is free today. In fact we were unaware of this fact. I have read in some of the Japan tour website that admission to the zoo on the foundation day of the zoo, probably on March of every year, on Greenery day and on October 1st etc are free, but never expected to be free today. The ticket fare for an adult is 600 Japanese yen on normal days.

There really are a lot to see in Ueno zoological park. It is one of the favored tourist spots in Tokyo and foreigners also prefer to visit on their short visit to Tokyo. If we search for some of the must see places in Tokyo, name of Ueno zoo also will appear in the search results. I got the same when I did a google search last year to make a list of places to see in Tokyo.

Ueno zoological park is wide and the exact geographical details may be available at the zoo official website. We entered the Ueno zoo through the Main gate which comes from the JR Ueno station. Right at the entrance, we can see Pandas. On the right side of the entrance we can see a variety of pheasants and pigeons including Japanese pigeon. The red panda is one of the famous attractions of Ueno zoo. Unfortunately the Panda region of the park is missing the giant panda. There we could see a notice that the giant panda was died on April 2008.

We walked to show elephants and monkeys. On the way, we could see the Thai pavilion, which was donated by Royal Thai government. Elephant forest section is one of the popular sections of the zoo. For us, we have seen many elephants in the past and elephants are part of the social life for people hail from Kerala. The elephants at Ueno zoo could not bring any nostalgia to me!

There are Japanese cranes and birds on the left side of the entrance. After taking our lunch we proceeded towards the mono-rail that goes to the West Garden. The monorail starts from East garden. Ueno zoo has two areas. One is West garden and the second one is East Garden. This separation is easier to make plan for visitors according to their preference to see animals.

The main attractions on the West garden are Kangaroos, Vivarium, Giraffe, Okapis, Alligators, Snakes, Frogs, Turtles, Penguins, Rhinoceroses, Zebra (which is one of the favorite characters in my daughter’s bed-time stories), Hippopotamuses and Flamingos etc. It was an eye-catching scene flamingos stand on single foot.

The attractions in the East garden are Lion, Tiger, Gorilla, Lama, Polar bear, varieties of birds apart from the elephants, pandas and monkeys.

The zoo is well maintained by the staff and rest rooms are located at the right places for the convenience of visitors. Food items are also available at major junctions and enough numbers of benches and tables are also properly set. Ueno zoo, with cafeteria, free rest rooms, rental strollers, baby stations, nursery room, first aid station etc., is an ideal place for outing with kids.

I strongly recommend visit Ueno zoo if you are making a trip to Tokyo with or without your family. It is a place to see in Tokyo.

Respecting the nature is a traditional way of Japanese culture!

Enjoy the nature and tradition just 50 minutes from Shinjuku station!

This is the advertisement caption on which I get something to stare while riding on Toei Shinjuku trains to and from Higashi Ojima on weekdays. Most often this advertisement shown on the Toei Shinjuku line trains or Keio line trains that goes to Keio-tama center is the one that has caption in English. Indeed, advertized to attract foreigners, Mount Takao is a place to visit especially during the season of color change of leaves on November second week.

By repeatedly seeing the advertisement inside the trains, we decided to make a trip to Mount Takao today. We are just back from Mount Takao, which is just one and half an hour away from our house at Higashi Ojima.

The ideal visiting season is November when the trees change the colors. Mount Takao looks gorgeous with trees bearing colored leaves in a varying mix of red, yellow, green, pink, orange, dark brown and grey. The winter is near and the trees will prepare themselves to shed the leaves. During autumn season, maple leaves change color which is known as momiji in Japanese. もみじ momiji is romantic season in Japan and we could see many young couples making their trip to the top of mount Takao.

Mount Takao is 599 meters tall in the city of HachiOji. HachiOji is in Tokyo prefecture and for me HachiOji is particularly important as one of the initial visitors to this blog Mr. Hashimoto was from this place. Mount Takao is a popular hiking spot for Tokyo people.

To reach Takao-san, take a keio line train that goes to Kitano and then change to Keio Takao line to reach Takaosanguchi. Alternatively, from Shinjuku, we will get express train to Takaosanguchi. Pasmo or suica card holders do not need to buy separate tickets to reach Takaosanguchi.

From the basement of Mount Takao known as Takaosanguchi, where the Keio trains stops, we need to walk around 5 minutes to reach the cable car station. We had two option to reach at the top of Mount Takao. One is by using Cable car and another one is by lift chair. Lift chair will be an open air atmosphere and as we were with small kids and strollers did not opt to use. Cable car was pulled by giant high strength ropes that was operated from the station at the top of the mount Takao. The cable car have two cars and the travelers are well controlled by the staff at the entrance. The round trip by cable car costs 900 Japanese yen for adults and for children below 6 years old it is free.

It took around 3 and half minutes to reach the station at the top of Mount Takao. We could see the Tokyo city far away with skyscrapers looking like match boxes piled one over one. The observatory hall built on the mountain has telescopes that operate by inserting 100 Yen to view the far away places.

Walking further through the forest, enjoying the nature and tradition as the advertisement says, we could see many sculptures on the way to Yakuoin Buddhist temple. The temple built with the traditional Buddhist style have influence of Chinese architecture.

Though not so far away from busy Tokyo city, Mount Takao is rich in wildlife with more than 1200 species of plants, bushes and diverse species of insects, birds and animals.

The temples in Japan as per my experience goes is a mix of Buddhist and Shinto cultures and almost all of them I have visited have Buddha and other Shinto Gods. The Gods co-exist in good harmony in all the temples. We could see many Gods in the temple and too many sculptures of Buddha everywhere on the way to the temple. We learned that visitors to Yakuoin temple pray to mountain Gods (tengu) for their better future and good fortune.

One of the photo shown in the advertisement inside the trains is of such a God having long nose with an angry face. We could see many statues of Gods with long nose and another with a crow beak in the Yakuoin temple premise.

It was 5 in the evening, but was dark when we got inside the cable car to come down to Takaosanguchi. The journey was too memorable and all of us enjoyed, with plans of revisiting as we could not cover all of the attractions on the top of Mount Takao. Probably we need one more day to plan the journey properly.

Mount Takao, Takaosan as Japanese people say with respect, is one of the best examples of traditional Japanese culture of respecting nature and living things equally. Behind all those sculptures, the shapes we saw on the way to Yakuoin temple, the customs being followed in the temple, we could realize that it is a tradition in Japan to respect the nature!

What are the places to see in Tokyo? – places to visit in and around Tokyo

Tokyo is an incredible place to visit! This is what I read in many sites when I searched for ‘Places to see in Tokyo’ in google and Yahoo. It is almost 10 days since my brother landed in Japan. We visited around 15 places in and around Tokyo. The visiting schedule is hectic and he has 3 more days in Japan.

I asked some of my friends for their recommendations. Most of them suggested places like Tokyo Tower, Yokohama China Town, Kamakura, Asakusa Sensoji temple, Ginza, Harajuku Meiji Jingu Shinto shrine, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Mount Fuji, Five lakes, Hakone, Akihabara Electric city, Odaiba, Ueno Gardens and Zoological park etc. We could complete our schedules one by one except the Mount Fuji Trip. There is no point in travelling all the way to Mount Fuji only to view the mountain. Mount Fuji is open for climbing on July and August.

A first time visitor will definitely get excited by seeing Tokyo and its surroundings. The technological development Japan could achieve is amazing and significant. A short time visitor will be interested to watch the Japanese discipline and obedience to the law. The pin-drop silence at many of the crowded railway stations is another noticeable thing in Japan that a first time visitor will get astonished. Japanese people are silent due to the disciplined nature at public places like railway stations and bus-stops. They are even silent inside the train also. Most of the times we later realize people talking inside train and public places are foreigners!

Visiting Japan itself is an experience for foreigners! Probably we can not see a place like this at any other part of the world except here! Let me confirm once more that Japanese people are unique! We have many things to learn from Japan. The places we visited are not many, but everywhere we could observe some of the common things like discipline, silence, Obedience, Politeness, Smiling faces etc.

Today, we are planning to go to Imperial Palace. Tokyo Imperial palace is a great place to visit in Tokyo and it is the residence of Japan royal family. Imperial palace was built during the 250 years long Tokugawa Shoguns rule at the center of Tokyo as a fortress for protection. East Gardens of the Imperial palace is open to public daily except on Mondays, Fridays and on national holidays and this is the only par to the palace that is open for visit. For a visit to the imperial palace, we need to book in advance. If you plan your visit to Imperial palace click on this link and book in advance. Imperial Household Agency Homepage

Now, I can suggest some of the places to visit in Tokyo during your short trip next time.

1. Tokyo Tower

2. Mount Fuji

3. Hakone – Gora – Sounzan – Togendai – Ashi Lake trip

4. Odaiba

5. Kamakura

6. Ueno

7. Shinjuku

8. Shibuya for shopping

9. Akihabara Electric city

10. Yokohama China Town

11. Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea

12. Asakusa Sensoji Temple

13. Harajuku

14. Tokyo Imperial Palace

15. Ginza

The list goes without ending here with just 15 places, but I have just listed some of the major attractions in and around Tokyo, which we have visited with the advices of our friends. Just do searches in google or yahoo. They will give you more insights about the places to visit in Tokyo. However, I think, the above places in Tokyo cover a good trip to Tokyo.

Tokyo is a unique and wonderful tourist destination. Tokyo is not only to be read, but also a place to be experienced by walking and riding throughout the length and breadth. It is curious to learn how the ancient Japanese culture transforms slowly to modern technological advancements.

Reflections of exotic stones, greenery and Japanese history in a pond

Her tears fell in to the pacific and there arose a group of islands called Japan. There are many myths associated with old Japanese culture. The Goddess behind the creation of Japan may be a myth, but when I read the pamphlet distributed at the entrance gate of Kiyosumi gardens, I recollected the mythical story.

The artistic and beautiful stones laid around the pond in the Kiyosumi gardens were being collected from all over Japan. Thus while stepping on each stone, I could feel that I walk all around Japan! It is an imaginative feeling I shared with my family when we visited the Kiyosumi gardens on a Sunday.

Kiyosumi gardens located near to the Sumidagawa river in the Shitamachi area of Tokyo is very near to Monzen Nackacho. The Kiyosumi gardens is just a few minutes walk from the Kiyosumi shirakawa station in the Toei Oedo line. For us coming from Higashi Ojima, there is one transfer from Toei Shinjuku line to Toei Oedo line at Morishita.

There were groups of people lead by a guide, but we opted to be independent as understanding Japanese was still on the half way for all of us. The pond has three islands and a building where we saw some people practicing meditation. It reminded us of the Buddhist monasteries at some remote village. But the information written on the English leaflet says the building is a tea ceremony space architecture.

Rainwater is used for pond at present, but in old days water from Sumidagawa river was brought into the gardens. Thanks to the Iwasaki family who took the pain to collect all those beautiful stones from all over the Japan and brought them here in this part of Japan by steamships. Those exotic stones now decorate the pond and the surroundings. For that reason the Kiyosumi gardens may look like a stone garden. The tea ceremony building mentioned earlier is known as Ryotei in Japanese. Ryotei was builit as a guesthouse for the visit of British military personality Lord Kichener.

My kids could enjoy the fishes and the tortoises and the ducks in the pond. There were pigeons as well sitting on the stones. We walked towards the Ryotei building stepping on the stones laid in the pond. We could see a big stone monument in which a poem was inscribed. Sitting on a nearby chair we could recognize that the poem tells about a frog who jumped into an old pond. The monument stone was originally located on the banks of Sumidagawa, but was moved to the Kiyosumi gardens when the protection walls were constructed along the Sumidagawa river bank.

The shallow parts of the pond have stepping stone pathways that looked amazing for my kids. They enjoyed the scene of fishes and tortoises while crossing the pond and found the reflections of trees in the water. After walking a while we took rest and gave food to our kids. The climate was ideal for an outing with family with low sun but clear sky.

The tallest hill in Kiyosumi gardens is known as Fuji-san, resembling the name of Fuji mountain. There were Crape myrtle flowers in the garden. We were not tired after walking one round around the pond. On our way back to the exit gate which also the entrance gate, we could meet warm-heated Japanese people greeting while passing on the way. The garden was built by a business magnate Kinokuniya Bunzaemon, who lived in the Edo period.


The entrance ticket charge is JPY 150 per adult and for children, admission is free. It is a place recommended to be visited in Tokyo and which is worth to visit as we can recollect some part of the history of Japan while walking through a typical Japanese garden. Kiyosumi gardens is designated as “Scenic Park” by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The pond inside the Kiyosumi gardens reflects the history of Japan along the with the reflections of the exotic stones and the trees.