Time to go back to Japan! After experiencing Japan in the depths of winter in February we wanted to visit in the height of summer. Not just for the fun of it, but in celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary and to relive our honeymoon back in 2013. We were flying from Heathrow in England to Haneda in Tokyo, which at the time was 14 hour flight. We were slightly concerned as Typhoon Lan (typhoon 7) was heading towards the mainland!

We landed a little early and got through immigration quickly, I hadn’t eaten at all on the plane due to travel sickness, so I was keen to get to our hotel and get food. Instead of using the free bus to go to terminal 1, and then the free bus to our hotel we caught a taxi for the short drive to Hotel JAL City in Ota-ku near the airport. We checked in, ordered Uber eats and then popped across to the local conbini to get some drinks.

After filling out bellies we wanted to stretch our legs after such a long journey, and wanted to revisit the Fushimi shrine that we had seen the morning of our last day in Tokyo in February. This time it was a very different vibe thanks to the summer rains and loud cicada that were in the area. I had really missed the sound of cicada as it had been 10 years since I’ve been in Japan in the summer, and we don’t have them in the UK. (See poor quality night video below for cicada ambience).

After seeing the shrine we walked to the original location of the Anamori Inari Shrine, which is by the bay with a direct view of the airport. All that remains now is a large torii which currently is asking for peace for the world, and particularly for Ukraine.

By this time it was 10pm so we headed back to our hotel to get well needed rest.