My concept of biking across the Yamanote Line method again in 2009 was truly impressed by a former colleague of mine who did all of it on foot over two days together with a capsule resort in a single day on the halfway level. I used to be by no means too fascinated with repeating that so settled for doing it by bicycle. Quick ahead a couple of decade and a half although and I’d modified my thoughts. Nicely, type of!
Needing some unique Sunday morning canine strolling concepts, my spouse and I made a decision to stroll around the well-known inexperienced prepare line which passes by way of most of Tokyo’s city centres in a loop. I ought to level out that our little six-year-old chihuahua would do a mixture of strolling and being carried both in my arms or in his backpack.
The 35-kilometre route for the entire line was damaged down into 5 components. Station numbering was added in 2016 for the good thing about vacationers and employees too when giving instructions in English. We determined to do it in ascending numerical order moving into an anticlockwise course. That is half one…
Date: Sunday sixteenth November 2025
Beginning Level: Tokyo (JY01)
Finish Level: Nishi Nippori (JY08)
Length: 4 hours
Approximate Distance: 7 km
The primary focal point was simply exterior the ticket gates themselves. It’s a particular tile that marks the spot the place the tenth Prime Minister of Japan was killed in 1921 by a railway employee. The tile has a little bit white spot that undoubtedly goes unnoticed by most individuals as they race round.
The identical was true for me too till 2018 after I went on a deep historic strolling tour of Tokyo for a college occasion.
Wanting up from there’s a nice view too and one which can also be missed by many commuters. When you lookup contained in the south dome you may see eight animals from the Chinese language zodiac. Every animal represents a course however for some cause the 4 principal instructions (north, south, east, west) are lacking.
Our canine is not any stranger to Tokyo station having been there quite a few instances forward of Shinkansen (bullet prepare) journeys to Hiroshima.
That’s nonetheless not the top for our start line as the outside of Tokyo station is a superb sight in itself with its lovely crimson brick architectural design serving because the symbolic gateway to the capital. It could mark each the beginning and finish for our epic stroll across the Yamanote Line.
It’s not such a standard place for individuals to stroll their canine in any respect so the sight of our little chihuahua caught the eye of a good few individuals within the neighborhood.
There have been a few quirky animal-related sights alongside the best way to the subsequent station. First up was a large bear very near Tokyo station.
The stroll to Kanda wasn’t too thrilling as we usually took the quickest and quietest routes for the sake of the canine. A sheep peering into the window of a lamb restaurant was the spotlight!
Our strolling tour was extra in regards to the route and getting some train slightly than visiting a load of locations alongside the best way. Nonetheless, there was the hope of seeing some attention-grabbing spots we’d by no means seen earlier than and one such instance (for my spouse anyway!) was a shopping center consisting of about 50 boutiques promoting distinctive handcrafted and customized gadgets beneath the railway tracks between Akihabara and Okachimachi. Personally, I used to be extra within the train-style signage on the place which is named 2k540 Aki-Oka Artisan.
Ameyoko market in Ueno is a much more well-known and energetic buying district that neither of us had been to for a number of years. It’s a hive of exercise and ambiance for the hordes of vacationers in that space with so many out of doors eating places and retailers promoting quite a few souvenirs, garments, cosmetics and so forth.
Ueno is notable for its park and zoo in addition to the various museums housed inside it. The Nationwide Museum of Nature and Science introduced again reminiscences of after we took my spouse’s nephew there a number of years in the past. The image of the museum is a 30-metre statue of a blue whale exterior it which was slightly apt as we have been certainly (get able to groan!) having a whale of a time on our stroll!
The unique concept was to complete at Nippori however as Nishi-Nippori is simply 500 metres away (they’re the closest two stations on the road) we determined to do yet another station. We got here throughout probably the most fundamental kids’s playgrounds the place there was only a solitary and slightly lonely panda rocking-chair trip. Even that was off limits so perhaps any youngsters visiting can have their enjoyable by working across the panda or one thing like that!
One rule for this Yamanote loop problem is to get a selfie with the canine at each station. The number of photographs taken on the primary a part of our journey was pretty restricted!
The subsequent instalment will start again at Nishi-Nippori station to make sure the entire loop is walked in its entirety and that can seem right here quickly. With eight out of the 30 stations already lined on our first day we had made nice progress and have been trying ahead to persevering with our journey at a later date.
Click on right here to learn ‘Biking Around the Yamanote Line within the Reverse Path To 12 Years In the past!’
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