Kameido Tenjin Shrine, Kinshicho

By this time, it was pushing 3:30 pm, and there was one more place that I had wanted to visit, Kameido Tenjin Shrine to the north and east of where I was (though basically everything in Tokyo is north of Odaiba), but it was about an hour away from me by train. There was a Kameido Tenjin Wisteria Festival going on there, but the event page for it had said that although the temple was open 24/7, the actual festival portion would be closing at 5 pm. And although I could get there before 5 pm, I figured whatever festival stalls there were there, as well as the goshuin office, would usually start closing up by 4:30 pm. I decided to try anyway though.

The train ride was long and stressful, it was packed and the blisters in my feet were acting up again, but we made it there somehow. I got to the shrine at 4:40 pm:

But alas about 2/3 of the festival stores were already closed. I was craving for some kakigoori (shaved ice) after all the food I had eaten that day, but I had been unwilling to shell out the 700-1100 yen for them at the stalls in Odaiba, and none of those stalls were left open here. Oh well.

There was a monkey tamer and her monkey still performing tricks for their audience though:

And the temple stamp office was still open, so i even got a handpainted goshuin for my troubles (and 500 yen). Furthermore, they even gave me some free candy.

I realized at this point that I had forgotten to put a picture of the Nezu Shrine one in my Day 2 post, so I went back and put that in too.

Kameido Tenjin Shrine was laid out in a rather interesting manner, as the area before the actual shrine buildings was a large square area with ponds in the middle, and bridges and pathways cutting between the ponds, as though dividing a very large pond into several smaller ones in a slightly haphazard fashion. And then around the outside of that was a walkway which was half-filled with stalls. There were trellises everywhere and wisteria growing on bushes and railings and on the trellises, and it looked like this:

It was quite pretty. Oh, and quite free. There were a fair number of people walking about even though it was relatively far from the nearest station, and even though most of the stalls had closed and the temple itself was winding down for the day.

I hobbled around the temple once and then started to make my way back toward the station. Pulling myself past several restaurants and food places along the way, I contemplated having dinner in a food court in one of the malls but instead ended up at a roadside restaurant called Keirin Ramen. I had their stir-fried chicken and bamboo shoots set meal there.

It was kind of a seedy place, but the food was good. Satisfied, I continued stumbling my way back toward the station, passing a large park along the way where kids, teenagers, and even parents were hanging out, skateboarding, playing soccer, monkeying around on a large playground, and more.

I looooved this place, even though it was odd in that it was in the shadow of some tall office towers and malls right next to it as well. This place was called Kinshi Park, and it had such a chill and relaxing atmosphere, especially when some music broke out over the loudspeakers at 5:30 pm for about a minute or so. There were lots of local families hanging out here, chatting to each other or watching over their children, and I just loved the community feeling that I got from it.

But I needed to pull myself away and stagger home, and so I did, passing a big donut that was about as broken as I was:

Oddly it was only about 230 yen to get home to Higasho-Jujo Station from here, even though it involved a train transfer, and I crawled home safely, took an amazing shower, and swore never to leave again.

As a sidenote, while I had put 5,000 yen into my Pasmo transit card from Kyoto when I had arrived here, along with the 200-something yen that it already had on it, that balance was virtually used up by transit and miscellaneous purchases (like the 700 yen gyoza ticket) by the time I arrived back at Higashi-Jujo station, and I emerged from the day’s conflict with 95 yen left on my card. I had a second card with me though, the Suica card from my first trip to Japan back in 2022, and I popped that into the machine and found that it still had 477 yen left. I put another 2,000 yen on it and now am rocking that card instead, trying to see how low it can get before the end of the trip. It would be nice to completely empty either one or the other card. Of course, since I swore never to leave again, I’m not sure where I’m going to use it exactly since my room does not have a transit machine.