A day at Yoyogi Station, Tokyo! 🌲 Shinjuku Gyoen, Meiji Jingu, Yoyogi Park, Tokyo Cafes and more ☕️

Sandwiched between the big C-class bosses Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Shibuya, our COT, also known as the Chief Officer of Trees, Yoyogi Station, is often left unnoticed. Not his skills or wisdom, in fact most will agree that he triumphs over the others in both, but it's more due to his reserved, quiet nature and willingness to give others credit, even when they don't reciprocate. But as enthusiastic true leaders of the selfless and underappreciated COT, let's go and shine a light on all the wisdom and value he adds to the Yamanote Line Corporation. I've been really into my dried mangoes, so I'm just gonna eat this as a light snack before we head out. It's been really hot in Tokyo lately, I think it hit around 32 degrees yesterday, so it's been full-on summer. I think we skipped the breezy rainy season and just went straight to summer, so it's been really hard, but there are some benefits to this season, so I'm still trying to embrace it, which is why I've been craving these frozen mangoes and Japanese milk. I just washed my face and we're getting ready to head out for a run at Yoyogi Park and then maybe we'll get a coffee around Yoyogi Park and then head over to the Tokyo Gymnasium, which is around a 15-minute walk, maybe slightly more, and then do some workouts at the Tokyo Gymnasium because the gym, or maybe not the gym itself, but the Tokyo Gymnasium and the Olympic Stadium next to it is supposed to be quite famous for athletics, so we'll be at the home base of all these athletic people in the morning. So let's head on over for an active day in Yoyogi Park. Before we head over to Yoyogi Park, let's first pay tribute to the Yoyogi tree himself. Nestled within the many trees in the Meiji Shrine, the Yoyogi tree is said to have inspired this area to be called Yoyogi, which means generations and generations of trees. The Yoyogi tree that stands today is a replacement of the original tree. The original tree withered in the middle of the Meiji era and was then further destroyed by fire in the war in 1945. The current tree was replanted in 1950 after the war and now stands around 20 meters tall. Right outside of Yoyogi Park is a little shop called Little Nap Coffee Stand, where you can take out drinks ranging from lemonade to iced coffee. It is the perfect place to pick up a drink for your morning walk, so I ordered a lemonade to take with me on my walk to the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. Besides the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium that we are heading to, there is the Yoyogi National Stadium here as well, where the public can rent out the futsal fields and use the swimming pools available. The Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium was built in 1954 for the World Wrestling Championships and then was used in both the 1964 and 2020 Summer Olympics. They have two swimming pools, a gym, a track, and a studio that is open for the public to use. I've been trying to get stronger recently and have been adding some strength training to my days, so this was a great opportunity to test out my squats with real weights. Now that we are all refreshed from a great morning exercise, let's head over to a cafe to do some work. There is a puppet theater called Pook Theater which has been around since 1929 and they have a small homemade coffee shop right below it called Coffee Puncto. When you sit down on one of their tables inside, you also get a view of some of the puppets, drawings, and some wishes hung onto the trees. As a puppet theater based on free expression and anti-war ideals that started before the Second World War, they were apparently subject to scrutiny before and during the war and had to change its name many times. According to Japan's Ministry of the Environment, Shinjuku Kyoen was constructed on the site of a private mansion belonging to Lord Naito, a quote-unquote daimyo or a feudal lord of the Edo era. Completed in 1906 as an imperial garden, it was redesigned as a national garden after the Second World War and open to the public. Today, it is known as the popular hanami spot or a place to enjoy the presence of plants year-round. There are three main gardens in the park, the Japanese traditional garden, the French garden or formal garden, and the landscape garden. It is said to take around 53 minutes to get around the entire park, but since I kept on wandering into the smaller streets and sitting down to rest, eat, and drink, I spent a good three hours here. I'm just sitting here with my umbrella and my citrus yuzu citrus tea. It's so relaxing here. I don't think I can ever get up and move ever again. It also makes me not want to do any work because I'm so relaxed. It's very nice. It's not crowded at all because I think there's an entrance fee of 500 yen, so I don't think people think about going because there's just so many free parks available, but I definitely think this place is worth 500 yen because one, you get to escape the crowd and I saw a number of people do work at the Starbucks here because you get a really pretty view of the pond and it's not too crowded and you get wi-fi, so it's the perfect place to do work and then when you're done with your work, you can also just take a walk around the park, which sounds amazing. Yeah, it doesn't even feel like I'm in Tokyo anymore. The greenhouse garden in Shinjuku Gyoen was initially built in the 19th century to grow tropical and subtropical plants, including orchids, and played a pioneering role in Japanese greenhouse horticulture. It was rebuilt into the new greenhouse in 2012 and now serves as a conservation greenhouse, preserving and displaying endangered species. I'm walking to the tea house now and I'm super sweaty, but I'm really hungry so I'm very excited to be eating at the tea house. I decided to grab an onigiri set in a tea house called Rakute Tea House. The set came with two onigiris, miso soup, and some pickled vegetables and it was exactly what I needed to recharge the sodium that I had lost from all the sweat. Tokyo summers are hot, humid, and quite the season to survive through, but with a quick stop at a cute cafe, you'll soon feel ready to get back up and continue with your day. Flip Flip Coffee Supply was a cafe I just happened to stroll past as I was walking around exploring the Yoyogi area and I was drawn to the open-air, breezy-looking cafe, so I decided to do some work here. The owner of the cafe had the kindest smile and honestly, that itself was a selling point for me, but the matcha latte was also so refreshing and perfect. For dinner, let's head over to a teishoku restaurant called Tanbo. Located in just a three-minute walk from Yoyogi station, Tanbo specializes in traditional Japanese cuisine and I decided to try their overnight dried blowfish ohitsu-zen set, which was deliciously flavored with yuzu. I poured some of the tea onto the rice after and ate it as an ochazuke at the end. A long day in Tokyo needs to end with a nice cold drink at an izakaya, so let's head on over to Abuen. A small izakaya hidden away behind a small staircase of a building. With just a six-minute walk from Yoyogi station, you enter a world created to pat yourself on the back. They have karaage, my go-to izakaya dish that you can never really go wrong with, and I paired it with an ice cold bukon genmaicha. And that is it for our adventure today at Yoyogi station. Thank you for coming along with me again and itterasshai to all of your amazing adventures waiting for you tomorrow.