Tokyo Biennale 2025 inspired ride

Posted on by kymdt

Wednesday’s ride was inspired by the Tokyo Biennale.

Held every two years, the Tokyo Biennale is an international art festival that sets the city of Tokyo as its main stage. The festival aims to dig deep into the city, as it is created together with the area’s local citizens, as well as a wide variety of artists and creators from around the world. The theme of the Tokyo Biennale 2025 is “Wander for wonder.”

It was a loop route of about 20km that started and finished at our hotel in Suidobashi. We took in the sights of Tokyo Dome, Hongo, Ueno, Akihabara, Bakurocho, Nihonbashi, Kanda and Ochanomizu.

The first part of the ride involved visiting Tokyo Dome and then travelling through some small streets with traditional scenes of Tokyo life ending at a Yayoiken a chain store that did provide a lovely breakfast.

We continued on through Tokyo University through some more back streets towards Ueno Park adjacent to Yanaka Cemetery. We stopped of for some matcha and wagashi before arriving at Toeizan Kan’ei-Ji Temple. One of the two main sites for the biennale. There is usually some obvious parking for bikes. But this time it wasn’t so obvious. We negotiated with the biennale staff, who negotiated with temple staff for us. We ended up parking our bikes out the front entrance!

We then headed through Ueno Park towards the second of the two main venues. Etoile Kaito Living Building. This involved 6 floors of art in an abandoned department store building. But my stomach was grumbling for lunch so en-route we stopped off for a quick bite from a food truck.

A bit of holiday fatigue was setting in towards the end of the day. So not so many photographs of us weaving through the busy entertainment district of Kanda. But, I can show the Comfort Stand in Ochanomizu where we had our first coffee of the day and some cheesecake.

Once again credits to the Social Media Manager for the most excellent photos.

If you’d like to do this ride you have until 14 December!

Yoyogi to Higashi-Nakano via Shimokitazawa

Posted on by kymdt

Horray for wi-fi on a plane. I planned this route on the way to Japan high in the sky JL52. I was using Strava to plan this route – but is quite surprising that a premium paid product is almost useless for route planning in Japan. I typed in Tokyo as a location and it kindly offers suggestions of restaurants in the United States. In any case, I persisted using a combination of Google Maps (very useful for street view) and Strava to plan this route. The goal was to start and finish at trains stations along to Sobu line – the line that is literally only a few steps from our hotel.

You can get this route from https://www.strava.com/routes/3419161344007497190

The route includes a the opportunity for many good coffees! We had one from Little Nap Coffee Stand, a ride around Yoyogi Park, Blue Lug (if it’s open!), Planet of Curry, some vintage shopping, great back street riding in some interesting areas, and a afternoon tea at Petite Patisseries Yuki. If you had more time you could add a ride through/to the old Olympics site, visit Harajuku and cat street and Nakano Broadway.

Here are some photos to whet your appetite. I have to credit these photos to our most excellent Social Media Manager!

What you experience when cycling…

Posted on by helenhmk

Watching Japanese movies, TV and anime often there there shots of train crossings.. so on our ride to breakfast this was perfect timing…

… additionally if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like cycling through Yoyogi Park… here is the view from the cycle path..

Riding to traditional breakfast near Yoyogi park

Posted on by kymdt

Tokyo is a big city.. but many of the big cities within a city are actually quite close. Where we stay is about 3km from Tokyo Station and Marunouchi and just over 5km to Shinjuku. After many trips not actually getting to Shimokitazawa, known for its vintage fashion (and perhaps curry shops), we had planned an 18km route from Yoyogi Station to Higashi-Nakano station via Shimokitazawa. Both of those locations were on our local train line.

In the morning, instead of catching the train we decided to use the old “Compass” mode of Beeline with a single location plotted. That location was Tanbo a rice specialty shopping that indeed is closed during harvest time. Not too many wrong turns and few spots that demanded riding on the path.

It was certainly worth it. The rice was great and the toppings grilled salmon, pickles, egg and some nori were top notch. The MISO soup! WOW! Helen loves a good Japanese breakfast and is now trying to rearrange our holiday to visit again!

Just in case…

Posted on by kymdt

you thought this was looking like Weekend at Bernies – the rumours are not true. I am indeed alive and well in Tokyo. I too am enjoying the posts by the most excellent social media manager.

This picture is from an excellent little spot we happened across this morning. A wonderful breakfast with very yummmy rice.

If you are in the area then Tanbo Yoyogi Main Store 田んぼ 代々木本店 is the place to go.

New Language alert!

Posted on by helenhmk

While wandering the shops I saw this sign… ‘throwket’ seems to be the perfect spring/autumn accessory.

I do love you Japan. Apologies to the store for taking a photo when I should not have 🙇‍♀️

Great day with friends

Posted on by helenhmk

We met up with our Tokyo friends near Tsukiji station, and happened across the Analogue Market. It featured records, cassettes tapes (yes you read that right), and a variety of second hand products, from kitchen wares, fabric, children toys, handmade ceramics… and of course food vans. While they did look appealing as we had planned to eat sushi… we kept on walking.

We wandered around to the Tsukiji outside market until we found a sushi place which looked good. The old Tsukiji Market moved to Toyasu… but the outer market still remains and there are large number of people visiting to experience some of the best seafood in the world (okay I’m probably biased).

… then we went to a croissant place called Tony Bake, from Sapporo, but is only in Tokyo for 100 days. Luckily our friends son is a karate competitor with their son… so an order was placed in advance, as the shop is open until they sell out each day.

We took them to a park, grabbed a coffee from Blue Bottle (in Toyasu) and enjoyed in the nearest park… and yes it was damn good .. but I really didn’t expect it to be anything but good!

After wandering around their local shopping place… we decided to look at the view of Mt Fuji from the 36th floor of a hotel. The weather today was around 19 degrees… and windy.. but the view was fantastic! 🗻

Dinner was had at a local beef restaurant… where the beef is cooked in an oven at 400 degrees and placed on a hot plate. It comes delivered to the table with the paper around the plate, and they pour sauce over the top in front of you it sizzles, and you hold up a large napkin to stop it from getting you in the face. It was a great experience and very tasty.

Afterwards we all enjoyed a tasty dessert… and Kym and Gaku’s are the ones with the message on the plate with he cartoon characters- かわいい　😍

It really was a fabulous day, and great to spend it with our long time friends. We appreciated the time spent with us (our very bad Japanese) and we hope to see you again!

Walked 17,231 steps

Plan B

Posted on by helenhmk

It’s always good to have a plan B – especially as today it is Cultural Day in Japan, which is a public holiday and opening times vary.

Dinner view..

Posted on by helenhmk

We are now on the Romancercar train back to Tokyo.. we followed our friends lead and turned the seat around. It was worth it so we could have a view of Mt Fuji as we ate our bento. Everyone wants to see Mt Fuji!