After waking up at the Mercure, we visited the nearby Haneda-jinja, popular for aviation safety, before going further away to Gotokuji, a temple with thousands of Maneki-neko. We then came across a fantastic Mount Fuji view, had lunch, and checked out the new Azabudai Hills before dinner nearby. We ended the day by viewing winter illuminations at Roppongi and the Meguro River.
Morning
We woke up at the Mercure Tokyo Haneda Airport just in time for sunrise!
We had a decent view of Yokohama to the south. Identifiable buildings include the curved InterContinental Yokohama Grand, which we’ve never stayed at, though we have stayed at the nearby InterContinental Yokohama Pier 8 when was brand new during a visit in December, 2019. Also visible is the tallest building in Yokohama, the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which we’ve seen the last two days now from Enoshima and Mount Takao. Also visible is the huge Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris wheel.
Haneda-jinja
After heading out, we started to walk over to the nearby 羽田神社 Haneda-Jinja. This shrine has become a place to pray for aviation safety, though it predates human flight by 700 years or so. The shrine is described as originally being a place to pray for recovery from illnesses.
We stopped at a 7-Eleven for some onigiri as we don’t have breakfast included with our stay at the Mercure.
We passed by this little sculpture from a stoneworking business.
This is not the shrine we’re looking for! This is 自性院 Jisho-in, a Buddhist temple. This temple and the Haneda-jinja were originally the same temple but were split just after the Meiji Restoration when the government ordered Shinto and Buddhism to separate.
The entrance to the current Haneda-jinja is next door.
We walked around the small shrine for a bit. It was still pretty early and none of the shrine’s services were open yet. We would have to wait until 9am for the shrine’s shop to open and possibly the 御朱印 goshuin counter as well.
Buildings like these often contain “floats” for matsuri, or festivals.
We were able to peek inside through the glass to see it.
We were able to see a bit of Jisho-in over the wall.
This stone tablet was credited with curing a smallpox epidemic in Japan after a visit by the Shogun. The sign next to it explains in Japanese. The translation to English by Google Translate is a bit rough but mostly understandable:
Yakumo Shrine Monument (Smallpox God)
Recovery from illness, physical health
In the past, smallpox (natural illness) was the most frightening disease for children. People had a deep reverence for smallpox, and worshipped the smallpox god, believing that it was caused by the disease.
At Haneda Shrine, there is a "Monument of Thanks for Prayers for Curing Smallpox" on the right side of the main building, which commemorates the visit of Shogun Iesada in 1849 to pray for a cure for smallpox. As this visit cured an epidemic, he is also worshipped as a god of healing, and many worshippers come to pray for recovery from illness and good health. Having escaped earthquakes and war damage, the monument has retained its original appearance, but is now covered by a fence for protection.
The stone monument has the following inscribed on it:
Monument of Yakumo Shrine Kamata Umekido Temple Master Senzo Oji
Haneda Shrine grounds, Haneda Shrine office
After the fifteenth year of the rite, both men and women of the village parishioners must not get rid of the rash. Even if it is before the fifteenth night, it must be done safely. This is a blessing from the great god. Therefore, this tea ceremony is held to encourage each and every devout person to join the parishioners.
You can go to the shrine office and buy a talisman and a wooden stick for intermediate level.
Bunkyu 100th year New Year's Day revised
This is a memorial to locals who died during World War II.
We came across this scene beyond a stone torii at the southwest corner of the shrine grounds. The scene in the background represents Mount Fuji. The sign to the right of the torii explains, translated using Google:
This mound is commonly called "Haneda Fuji" and is said to have been built in the early Meiji period. Part of the mound is made of lava from Mount Fuji, and the path that resembles a mountain trail has stone markers. Some of the surrounding monuments, erected under the initiative of Fuji-ko devotees, are over three meters tall.
Ota City Cultural Properties
Fujizuka
A Fujizuka is an artificial hill modeled after Mount Fuji.
Starting around the An'ei era (1772-1781) in the middle of the Edo period, Fuji-ko, a group of volunteers who worship Mt. Fuji, were the main constituencies for the construction of these shrines in various locations, mainly in the Kanto region. In many cases, they are built in places where you can actually see Mt. Fuji, and there is a custom of a Fuji-ko member selecting one to worship at the opening of the mountain.
This shows his sincere and devout faith.
The mountain opening ceremony, which is held every year on July 1st, was temporarily discontinued, but was resumed in 2013 when Mount Fuji was designated a World Heritage Site.
Designated on February 2, 1974
Ota Ward Board of Education
We ended up sitting on a bench for a few minutes as the staff had put them out in front of the shrine. Soon, the visitor services opened. We got a 747 絵馬 ema as well as a goshuin. We kept the ema as a souvenir rather than writing a wish on it and then placing it out to be eventually burned.
After our visit, we headed to 大鳥居駅 Otorii Station, once again passing by the stoneworking business.
We decided take a look at the station’s west entrance as we hadn’t been there yet. The station has an actual above-ground station building here along with an elevator.
Gotoku-ji
We decided to visit 大谿山 豪徳寺 Daikeizan Gotoku-ji next. This temple is in a part of Tokyo that we haven’t been to yet and probably could be considered as being a bit off the beaten path. To get there by train requires generally requires taking 4 different trains, though its possible to do it using just 3. The most obvious route is to go from Otorii to 品川駅 Shinagawa Station on the 京急空港線 Keikyu Airport Line, then take the 山手線 Yamanote Line to 渋谷駅 Shibuya Station, then the 田園都市線 Den-en-Toshi Line or 半蔵門線 Hanzomon Line to 三軒茶屋駅 Sangenjaya Station, and finally the 世田谷線 Setagaya Line to 宮の坂駅 Miyanosaka Station.
Our first time at Sangenjaya Station. We passed by this outdoor space on the way to the Setagaya Line.
After arriving at Miyanosaka Station, we walked just a few minutes to the southern entrance to Gotoku-ji.
We walked down a narrow tree lined driveway to approach the temple’s gate.
It is actually possible to bypass the tree lined driveway as there is a road right in front of the temple’s gate. The sign to the right of the gate provides a description of Gotoku-ji in English:
The Kotokuin temple that stood on this site from 1480 was made a protector temple of Edo when Setagaya became part of the Hikone domain in 1633. The name Gotokuji, associated with the posthumous name of the daimyo Ii Naotaka, dates from 1659. Gotokuji is a temple of grand buildings, as befits the burial ground of the Ii daimyo line.
The burial ground preserves the Edo-period pattern for daimyo family tombs, and is the largest national historic site in the Edo (Tokyo) area. Gotokuji is the preeminent ancient temple in Setagaya, with a Main Hall, stone lanterns and Bell Tower dating from the 17th century. On the extensive grounds are the Lecture Hall, Patriarchs Hall, Shoin, Shofukuden, Three Storied Pagoda, Jizo Hall, Shugetsuen garden, and the Ii family tombs.
Legend holds that while hunting with falcons, the daimyo Ii Naotaka was saved from a lightning bolt when the abbot's pet cat Tama beckoned him into Gotokuji. This is the origin of the lucky "beckoning cat" or maneki-neko statue, which is very popular as a charm for home safety, business success, or fulfillment of prayers.
The temple grounds are quite large (about 50,000 square meters). There are numerous trees and flowering plants to be enjoyed through the seasons, including plum and cherry trees, peonies, azaleas, hydrangea, and maples that go red in autumn. Other highlights are the path from the Sekimon Gate to the Main Gate, and the interior of the woodland where there are many birds.
We walked onto the temple grounds and began taking a look at the buildings.
Finally, a sign of why we trekked out here to this temple! A maneki-neko! There are supposed to be more here though…
Finallly! More cats! This display shows seven different sizes of maneki-neko! As well as a really fantastic looking maneki-neko and dragon ema! Right now, it is still the year of the dragon. The Japanese no longer use the lunar year so the year of the snake will begin soon on January 1st.
So many cats! This is more maneki-neko than we’ve seen ever!
We continued on past the maneki-neko, reaching the central part of the temple grounds. This building is the temple’s Main Hall. It looks like a modern construction with a traditional appearance.
Ahead, we saw many people in front of one of the temple buildings. This building contains the temple’s shop where visitors can buy maneki-neko! There is a limit of one per visitor. There are two queues, one for credit card purchases and the other much shorter line for cash only. We went to the cash only line and bought a medium sized cat and a smaller cat. They also sell the usual temple items such as ema and お守り omamori. Unfortunately, they did not have any maneki-neko ema available.
We walked around the temple grounds a bit more on our way out.
We returned to Miyanosaka Station to head to our next destination. We didn’t photograph the trains on this line earlier but they’re a bit different from the typical Tokyo trains. There was an example of an older one next to the platform.
The Setagaya Line uses light rail vehicles. It is described by Wikipedia as legally being considered a tram line as it was part of a tram system that formerly operated on streets.
Our train has arrived! There is supposed to be a maneki-neko themed train, unfortunately, we didn’t see it.
Setagaya-Daita
We took the Setagaya Line north to 豪徳寺駅 Gotokuji Station where we changed to the 小田急小田原線 Odakyu Odawara Line. We took the train two stops to the east and got off at 世田谷代田駅 Setagaya-Daita Station.
This map was just outside of the station. The map depicts Mount Fuji right by where we are. Really?
Yes, really! It turns out that the plaza on the west side of the station building is at a higher elevation than everything to the west, thus giving us a beautiful view of Mount Fuji in the background with a very urban Japanese scene in the foreground. This was extremely unexpected!
After enjoying the view, we started to walk to the east along a path that is essentially above the Odakyu Odawara Line, which is underground here.
We soon reached the reason why we came here, 白髭のシュークリーム工房 Shiro-Hige’s Cream Puff Factory! I’ve had this place marked on Google Maps for a very long time. While we’ve been fairly close before, we’ve never actually visited until now!
The main product being sold here are these kawaii Totoro cream puffs! One was chestnut and the other strawberry. The exteriors were a bit hard but a nice creamy interior.
These two small stickers were provided with our cream puffs.
We passed by a small shrine as we continued walking to the east.
This small park provided a nice resting place.
We continued on…
We reached a larger park that was rather long and narrow.
The sign identifies this grassy area as the Shimokita Nohara Open Space. It seemed a bit like a community garden. It turns out this area was recently redeveloped by the Odakyu Electric Railway in 2022 after the railway was moved underground in 2013.
The view from the east end of this park, looking to the west, unfortunately does not provide a view of Mount Fuji.
Shimokita
As we continued walking to the east, we arrived at 下北沢駅 Shimo-Kitazawa Station, the next stop on the Odakyu Odawara Line. This neighborhood, formally 下北沢 Shimokitazawa but also referred to as simply Shimokita, has a lively district just south of the station with many restaurants and shops. We’ve been here before. We decided to have lunch here before continuing on.
We weren’t sure what we wanted to eat so decided to walk around a bit and check out some restaurants. We came across Baseball Mario, which seems like it might actually be a sporting goods store.
And, we also saw a Don Quijote store. We just visited our first Don Quijote in Guam, although they use the Don Don Donki branding there.
We were a bit surprised to see Route 29! Japan apparently does have a National Route 29 but the US style shield logo makes us think this could be the US Route 29 that runs through Maryland and Virginia on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. This Route 29 storefront is apparently a yakiniku restaurant!
Is the coffee good at the Maldives?
We decided to have lunch at Marugame Seimen. Marugame is a Japanese udon chain that has expanded globally. The Hawaii location at Waikiki is fantastic! The London Waterloo Station location, not so much. We wanted to try it out in Japan to see how it is here and how authentic the Waikiki location is. Japan before the pandemic was a huge Japanese tourist destination and thus had many authentic Japanese restaurants and businesses.
Although the menu was overall pretty different from Waikiki, the overall store concept, styling, and food quality was similar if not almost identical. The nikutama is pretty much identical to what is available at Waikiki except with a smaller portion size.
The clam is pretty different though. There is nothing like this on the menu at Waikiki. Overall, it was a good lunch. Marugame is never particularly well rated in Japan, though compared to most udon options available in America it is outstanding.
We also got some tempura, which is pretty similar to what is served in Waikiki.
This little sheet is sort of like a mini-newsletter for the restaurant.
Azabudai Hills
We decided to head next to 麻布台ヒルズ Azabudai Hills, the newest development by Mori, the developer of the nearby 六本木ヒルズ Roppongi Hills and 虎ノ門ヒルズ Toranomon Hills. There are a number of ways to get to Azabudai Hills, most of which require changing trains once.
Our reason for going to Azabudai Hills was to try % ΔRΔBICΔ, or just % ARABICA if you want to avoid letters that are not part of the English alphabet, as we had our favorite coffee ever at their location in Seoul. Their main shop is in Kyoto but they have two new locations at Azabudai Hills.
We arrived at 神谷町駅 Kamiyacho Station on the 日比谷線 Hibiya Line. After exiting the station, we found ourselves near this very modern looking building, part of the Azabudai Hills.
We also had a view of the 東京タワー Tokyo Tower!
We went up these steps to ascend above one of the buildings that we unfortunately didn’t photograph from street level.
This higher perspective let us see more of the Tokyo Tower’s lower structure but unfortunately it was now partly behind a building across the street.
This area was a bit weird as there was basically no one around.
We continued on to try and find one of the two % ARABICA locations here.
We walked by 大養寺 Daiyo-ji, a modern looking temple built recently in 2023. There isn’t much about this temple in English but the Japanese Wikipedia page indicates that it has been around in some form since 1611. It seems like the temple possibly was defunct but has recently been rebuilt when Azabudai Hills was built?
Also of interest to Rurouni Kenshin fans, apparently Saito Hajime worked at a police station next to this temple for two years. This is also from Wikipedia so, of course, it may not be accurate!
A very new looking torii and shrine next to the temple.
We once again saw the Tokyo Tower.
We crossed the street and reached the Azabudai Hills Market. From here, we could again see the top of the Tokyo Tower but also an interesting pyramid with two silver rings atop it. This building is a temple of the 霊友会釈迦殿 Reiyukai Shakaden, a new Buddhist movement founded in 1919.
We reached a park-like area with an artificial stream and waterfall.
This area is the Central Plaza. A Christmas market was held here which ended on Christmas. They seem to be in the final stages of cleaning the area up.
An interesting canopy above!
We walked upstairs for a better view of the area as well as to enter the building. We think % ARABICA is inside here!
And indeed, after taking the escalator up to reach the 4th floor, we saw it across from us!
Luckily, while it was busy, it wasn’t too busy. Not like the insane queue that we saw when we first saw this coffee shop in Kyoto last year!
The decor here is similar to what we saw in Seoul.
We got a hot Kyoto Latte and a cold Caffe Latte. Both were very good though unlike the location in Seoul there was no choice of beans. The coffee we had in Seoul was better, almost certainly because of the bean selection. Still, the flavor here was pretty good and better than what we typically can make at home.
The other location was probably very near where we first arrived here at Azabudai Hills. % ARABICA does sell whole beans. We wanted to buy the beans we had in Seoul, which we remember as being from Indonesia. They had something that sounded like it might be the same thing but unfortunately they didn’t have any in stock.
This is the view that we walked up for just before finding % ARABICA.
There seemed to be less of interest in the other direction.
The door that we entered from and just exited from to get back out here.
This building above is the Mori JP Tower, now the tallest building in Japan, though its only about half as tall as the Tokyo Skytree.
We went back inside to take a look around as earlier we went straight for % ARABICA. The interior is pretty modern in appearance, particularly this section where we entered which has escalators going to each floor.
We decided to walk over to Roppongi, getting dinner on the way. We needed to go to the west to do so. We ended up in this underground passageway that was completely devoid of people!
We reached these stairs which led up to street level.
Roppongi
We walked to the west along a street that leads to Roppongi Station. We had this view of the Tokyo Tower to the east.
We passed by the Big Iowa BBQ, complete with American flags. We’ve never really considered Iowa to be much of a barbeque place.
One of the buildings that we walked by had this kind of wavy water feature out front.
This art installation was on the side of the building behind the waves. We decided to sit here a bit and wait for 鰻の成瀬 Naruse Unagi to open at 5pm. We did go scout it out first and discovered that it was indeed not open yet. This seemed like a better place to wait for 30 minutes.
We noticed that the building across from us had a small room with that seemed like a robot TV show host. Then, we noticed real people in a large ground floor room doing an actual TV show! It looked like some sort of news show. It was actually for ボートレース BOAT RACE, which is exactly what it sounds like! This seems to be a Japanese boat racing competition. The building behind us, the one with the wavy water feature out front, actually has the BOAT RACE logo on the second floor window.
There is a short segment of what they were filming on their YouTube channel!
We headed over to Naruse Unagi a few minutes early.
We both got the same thing, the “super deluxe” which has the best of the three grades of eel available. It was very good, though not the best that we’ve had. The pricing was really helped by the current strength of USD vs. JPY!
On our way to Roppongi Hills, we stopped at Yelo, a かき氷 kakigori (shave ice) shop that I’ve been to before years ago. We got mango and royal milk tea, which comes with a mascarpone cheese cap. The snow in both was fantastic! The mango had milk ice while the tea flavor seemed to be tea based ice.
We continued walking to reach Roppongi Hills. We arrived at the north side of the development. There were some illuminated trees here, though it wasn’t much.
We continued into Roppongi Hills and had this view of the Tokyo Tower. The very tall skyscraper to the left is the Mori JP Tower. We decided to head to an overpass that we’ve been to before which has fantastic views of illuminated trees below.
We found the overpass we were looking for! The view was definitely pretty good! We last saw this exact view in December, 2019, when we walked around the area for the winter illumination.
The view in the opposite direction doesn’t have a noticeable landmark like the Tokyo Tower! And as we’ve noticed already on this trip, there seems to be an unusual amount of trees with leaves still remaining.
There weren’t too many people around.
We decided to head somewhere new, passing by this art installation titled Quiet Arrival on our way to depart. The sign indicates that it was placed here two days ago and will remain until January 7th. It provides brief description in English:
An object that expresses the arrival and light of a new year in a tranquil setting. The image evokes the hope and possibility hidden within a peaceful beginning, as well as the feeling of the dawn light slowly illuminating the horizon and the beginning of a new experience.
The QR code on the sign leads to the Instagram page of the artist, 宇田 陽子 Yoko Uda.
We headed down into Roppongi Station.
Meguro River
We decided to head over to the Meguro River as while we’ve seen the illuminations there during Sakura season, we’ve never seen the winter illuminations. It is supposed to be in a different section of the river, around 五反田駅 Gotanda Station. So, we headed to Gotanda! There are various ways to get there by train, all of which require changing trains once. Generally though the trip takes less than 20 minutes.
We weren’t really sure exactly where the illuminations would be along the river after arriving at Gotanda. We walked to the 大崎橋 Osaki Bridge and looked to the east. We saw some illuminated trees, though mostly a bit further away.
We started to walk to the east on the north side of the Meguro River, the same side as Gotanda Station.
Our previous visit to the Meguro River was further to the west. We’ve never walked by the river here before. But, we ended up doing the same thing as last time, photographing both directions from each bridge! The bridge names presented under the photos are mostly from OpenStreetMap and the photos will be facing west on top, and east on the bottom. West is where we’ve been and east is where we are going.
We passed through this underpass on the south side of the Meguro River that goes under the JR Lines, which includes the Yamanote Line here. The tunnel has been decorated by children’s art!
There seems to be a denser and more regular concentration of trees on the east side of the tracks.
Some of the bridges, like the next one, are illuminated.
There is a small park here by the tracks, the 光の滝公園 Hikari no Taki (Waterfall of Light) Park, which includes this “volcano”. This is the kind of place that is actually a bit creepy at night because there is almost no one around. But Japan is an extremely safe place compared to the US so no big deal.
A typical section of the path. The main branches of the trees are illuminated, but not necessarily in their entirety.
Many of the trees have signs indicating what are probably donors. In this case, it is Sanrio!
We skipped this next illuminated bridge to the east. It helpfully has its name, the 鈴懸歩道橋 Suzukake Foot Bridge, written on the side!
We found this pedestrian overpass kind of humorous. The stairs extend way out before turning back with a long flat section, making it longer than necessary. How did they end up with this design instead of a more compact structure?
This nearby property on the other side of the street had illuminated foliage.
The west view from this next bridge shows the illuminated pedestrian overpass as well as the Suzukake Foot Bridge beyond. To the east, we see illuminated trees up to and beyond the next bridge.
The next bridge to the east is pretty far away. We can still see illuminated trees out by that bridge.
This section has a pedestrian path between the river and the trees. There are seats as well for resting!
This is probably a pretty nice place for a stroll when there are leaves on the trees and the weather is nice. We didn’t encounter many other people here at all today.
This sign, with the cutely drawn cat and dog, says to clean up after your pets. The sign indicates 品川区 Shinagawa-ku as the entire path that we’ve walked this evening by the Meguro River is in Shinagawa. Interestingly, Shinagawa Station is not in Shinagawa.
This bridge, which carries the Yamate-dori over the Meguro River, is a rather wide bridge with wide pedestrian sidewalks on either side. This bridge marks the end of the illuminated section of the Meguro River.
There were a few reasonable directions to go in after we reached the end of the illuminated section of the river. We could have walked to the west to reach 大崎駅 Osaki Station, which has frequent service on the Yamanote Line. We could have walked north to 北品川駅 Kitashinagawa Station, which is on the Keikyu Line. We decided to walk to the east along the Meguro River to reach 新馬場駅 Shimbamba Station, also on the Keikyu Line.
The view of the river to the east was actually blocked by a wall by the river. We ended up walking along the sidewalk on the other side of the road as it felt a bit more spacious. We walked by this dinosaur as the road curved away from the river.
It turns out that the entrance to Shimbamba Station was extremely hard to find. We saw signs indicating it was here in this area but no actual signs directing us to an entrance. The station is elevated by quite a bit with no real visible access from the direction that we arrived from. We ended up walking south along a major road that runs parallel to the station. We then saw some people with luggage walking down the street so we were thinking they were going to take the train so we continued in that direction. After walking for a bit, we realized they probably just arrived on a train so we turned around to find an entrance on the north side of the station.
We did find an entrance on the very north side of the elevated station platform. From the platform, there definitely is an entrance on the south end, we just never found it from street level.
Shimbamba is only served by local trains. Every other variety of train passes by without stopping. Eventually a train going south did arrive though. The way the Keikyu Line trains operate here, to get to Otorii, it generally makes sense just to get on the first southbound train and then either ride it to Otorii if it is going to Haneda or get off at 京急蒲田駅 Keikyu-Kamata Station to transfer to a Haneda bound train.