22 November 2024
The wrong airport
Narita shrines
The goal of the day was to waste as much time as possible and not get sweaty.
The best way to do this is to spend all day sitting on trains and looking at shrines.
My selection of shrine tourist area was Narita, yes right by the airport, but the wrong airport.
First I wandered around my hotel and had a couple of coffees before showering (again) and checking out at 11am, which was the latest possible time.
Then I spent 2 hours on the train to Narita, which involved a transfer.
The shrine area there is really good, some of the best shrines I have seen in Japan, so it was a worthwhile trip even if I was not just doing it to kill time.
Then I found a food court and that was exciting, but I opted for a bakery instead before going back to my hotel where I had left my bags, before immediately setting off for Haneda airport.
I was still too early.
I am actually typing this at the airport but will split it into two posts as I always do.
Here is Narita station, not the JR station, the other one, Keisei.
They have a dragon out the front of the JR station.
Now for the tourist street. It winds it's way down a hill. The traffic situation was horrendous, cars and trucks nearly running people over.
Trucks come down here!
OK that is enough of the tourist street, lets hit the shrines.
It looks fairly modest to begin with.
Nice light!
Every kind of shrine red ones, brown ones.
This is a different pagoda. There really is a lot to see here.
I hung out with this cat for a while.
A fully red tree! Finally, on my last day.
The lake area of the garden was great but the sun was in the wrong position for photos.
Have a bit more lake.
I exited via the rear of the garden and walked around some quiet streets and got to a huge shopping centre. Time for a late lunch.
A food court! But as I mentioned above, I was too early for dinner, so instead I had a sandwich and a muffin from a bakery. Now to go back to Tokyo, get my bags and continue on to Haneda.