Family vacation experience in Tokyo
Tours and travel has always been a passion of mine. I have been so taken with events and a busy job schedule and when I finally got an opportunity for a short vacation, I automatically opted to fly out and sample some of the best attractions in Japan. Some of the executives working at our construction firm have been to Tokyo on holiday and they came back with plausible reviews about this exotic capital city of Japan.
On arrival, I noticed something peculiar about the city of Tokyo. For starters, unlike many capitals and major cities that I have had the privilege of visiting, Tokyo lacks a distinct city centre. In its stead, Tokyo has numerous districts each having a number of distinctive attractions. These districts have many different attractions suited for different people. This diversity of attractions is what has endeared families to Tokyo. It is a great city to vacation in either as an individual, couple, group or family.
In this particular vacation, I was accompanied by my wife and our three year old daughter. We had taken time to study our guide book and we had already marked out some of the “must-visit” spots in Tokyo. Our first start was Ginza and Aoyama, two famous fashion districts of Tokyo. We visited Harajuku to sample some of the best in fashion. My wife and daughter enjoyed watching the young girls who adorned some cute outfits. I bought my wife a cute dinner dress and also bought my little princess a cute outfit.
After visiting the fashion district, we had an opportunity to relax at the Yoyogi Park where we got entertained by the magicians and impressionists at the park. My daughter got her face painted and she really enjoyed it. We decided to take a roller coaster ride together. This was an awesome experience for us; it allowed us to bond. We then bought some cotton candy and ice cream and we got back to our hotel suite for dinner.
We opted to spend our second day of tourism away from modernity. We wanted to retreat to a quiet country side. So we packed some snacks and refreshments and off we went to the train station. We boarded the train to Kamakura where we found nicely manicured gardens. Our timing was ideal, we visited Kamakura in spring. The blooming flowers and chirruping birds made the visit very interesting. We had fun just sitting under the tree watching the birds and the bees as they collected nectar and pollen. There were several families having their picnics at the garden at this time. The place was cool and calm and we had a nice time bonding with our baby girl. We then decided to visit one of the shrines. We were received by a monk who took us around the shrine explaining to us what the different symbols on the shrine’s walls meant. It was a nice learning experience for my wife, who happens to be a religious studies professor.
During our stay in Tokyo, we realized that the public transport was very easy to understand and the rail pass we had bought was of good value. We used this pass for travelling to different districts in Tokyo. We decided to spend our third and second last day visiting a museum in Tokyo. We realized that we were spoilt for choice because Tokyo had several museums. Among these were five museums of international acclaim: Ghibli Museum, Edo-Tokyo Museum, Ramen Museum, Yushukan Museum and Tokyo National Museum. Ur tour guide suggested that we visit the Ghibli Museum and we all obliged. The museum visit was awesome. We were informed by the English guide working at the museum that the whole museum was the brainchild of two awesome artists in Japan. Miyazaki and Takahata are internationally renowned for their animations. Our daughter got to enjoy some of the best animations that were made by the duo. We opted to buy some animation videos with English subtitles for our little princess. We enjoyed the different artistic works on display at the museum.
On our last day in Japan, we opted to stroll around the city. Unlike some of the cities that we have visited before, Tokyo has some of the most breathtaking high rises and skyscrapers in the world. In this prefecture in Japan, we had an opportunity to see the mammoth structures that appear to defy gravity. Just looking at the skyscrapers we could see that some of their tops appeared to tower above the clouds. This was indeed one vacation that we will never forget and we look forward to going back again and again.