Tokyo: Days 1-5

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DAY 1: Traveling, and then more traveling

Our journey started 5 nights ago, when we landed at LAX international airport. The only things standing in our way from Japan were a night’s sleep and a 12-hour plane ride. We landed on Tuesday afternoon, with a 13-hour time difference to get used to. Nevertheless, we were excited to start exploring Japan. Tokyo has an amazing public transportation system, and it was real simple to get to our hostel. That is, once you get used to everything being in Japanese and a few of the signs in English. It took us a little under an hour and one transfer at Nihombashi Station to get to our hostel. It wouldn’t be traveling without getting lost your first day. We made a wrong turn out of the subway and walked in the wrong direction for about 10 minutes trying to find our hostel. Once we realized we went the wrong way, we asked for help and correctly found our way. Our hostel, Unplan Kagurazaka, was located in the Shinjuku Ward of the Tokyo Prefecture. Tokyo is made up of 23 special wards, 26 cities, 1 district and 4 sub prefectures. Tokyo ranks #1 in the world with just over 37 million people. Our hostel is a short 3-minute walk from the subway station. Tracks run east-west, north-south and in a circle making Tokyo a very navigable city. By the time we settled in, it was 6pm and we ventured out for our first Japanese meal. As you could guess, it was McDonald’s. Just kidding!! We went to a sushi bar our hostel recommended a 10-minute walk away. Not that many Japanese speak English, especially among the older population, so communication can be tough at times. Luckily, the menus have pictures of the sushi, so we pointed to what we wanted to order. I got a nigiri sampler platter, which came with many different fish.

The yellow square is egg and the salmon colored balls are fish eggs. The fish eggs taste like liquid salmon when they break. I wish I had learned how to use chopsticks before coming to Japan, because it is pretty embarrassing to have your sushi fall apart in the soy sauce and have to use your hands to pick it back up. For all I know, the chefs were making fun of us in Japanese. Regardless of my chopsticks inefficacy, the food was amazing. My favorite fish was either the tuna or the salmon. After dinner, we walked through the neighborhood to get a feel for the area we were staying in. The area wasn’t built up as much as other parts, so most buildings only went up 5 or so stories. We rarely saw any foreigners in this part of town, we definitely stuck out. I know I was tired from traveling so we went back to the hostel and called it a night.

DAY 2: Modern Tokyo, and the best ramen ever (Sorry Diaspora)

I woke up at 530am, and was ready to get my day started. Unfortunately, that was just way to early to do anything. I thought about going for a run, but then I remembered I hated running so I just laid in bed thinking about what we were going to do that day. Our first stop of the day was in Harajuku. The subways are very clean and easy to use, which makes traveling between wards very easy. Everyone is silent on the subways, except for Jason of course. Our first activity of the day was going to see the Meiji-jinju shrine. The shrine is dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife, hence the name. It was built in 1920 and is being renovated in time for the centennial celebration in 2020. We did not know this and wound up looking at a picture of it covering the scaffolding. Even though we didn’t get to see it, it was nice walking through the park and enjoying the nice weather.

We spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon in Shibuya. We walked from the shrine to Omotesando Street, which is basically an outside mall. On the way, we passed a very colorful crepe stand, so we had to have a second breakfast. They have plastic models of all the crepes they offer, so it was very easy to pick one out. I ended up with the banana and chocolate one and couldn’t be happier. Most stores don’t open up until 11 so we just walked around, window shopping all the expensive brand name stores you would find in most major cities. If you’ve ever seen Tokyo Drift, then you’ve seen shibuya crossing, which at times is the busiest crossing in the world. We didn’t get to see Han drifting through the crowds, but we did get to see the crossing in action. It was pretty underwhelming when we went, as we weren’t there at the best time. There wasn’t much we did in shibuya, but we spent a lot of time walking around. We stopped at an arcade where you can win all the toys that come to your mind when you think of Japan, Pikachu and anime dolls. There was one of a little Japanese girl in a banana that was adorable, but none of us won it. I read about this amazing ramen restaurant so that was the next thing on our list. It is in the basement of a building with a very narrow stairway leading down, so we walked past it twice until we located it. There was a decent sized line and we probably waited 30 minutes to order. We placed our order through a vending machine. Each button had a different meal pictured on it. We pressed the one that had ramen on it and got a ticket with our order in it. After that, we had to wait for 3 seats to open up. While waiting, we got another sheet where we could customize our ramen. How much spice, noodle texture, etc. Three seats opened up not too much longer. It isn’t a traditional sit down experience, as the seats are little personal booths where there isn’t any interaction really. The chefs are in the middle and they take your meal ticket from the table. Once it is ready, the opening between you and the middle is closed and you can eat your ramen in private.

For those of you that know me, I probably eat ramen once a week at school, shout out Aaron and Rian, and I can say this was by far the best I have ever had. The broth was so flavorful, yet not too spicy for me (You could add spice on a 1-10 scale, I had a 2 or 3). After walking through most of the district, we went back to the hostel to take a nap and get ready for the night. Taking a 2 hour nap was a pretty awful decision because I woke up way more tired then I was when I went to sleep. We spent our night in Akasaka, which houses a lot of ex-pats. Our plan was to meet up with some friends from school. Since we had some time to kill before that, we went out to dinner. Akasaka, from what we were told, has one of the most restaurants per capita for any place in Tokyo. It was so hard to pick a place, so we just ended up going to a random sushi bar in the basement. We got shown to a room in the back because it was so crowded. I think the moral of our trip so far has been if we don’t know what’s good to eat around us, go to a basement restaurant. More sushi was consumed. This time around I got some sushi rolls. One thing I’ve noticed is they put lettuce in most of the rolls. I don’t know why, but that’s just a thing I guess. Our meeting point was the Akasaka business tower, but we didn’t have Wi-Fi and had no idea where that was also. Travel Tip #1: Every Starbucks in Japan has free Wi-Fi. Not on purpose, the Starbucks we went to was inside the business tower, so we found the meeting spot by accident. One of the girl’s family lives in Akasaka, so we went up to the rooftop to hangout before we went out. We got a great view of the surrounding areas. There aren’t a lot of tall buildings in Tokyo due to the earthquakes. I was expecting countless huge skyscrapers, but they only dot the cities. Our activity of the night was Karaoke, obviously. Karaoke means empty orchestra in Japanese, which is hauntingly beautiful. That’s a How I Met Your Mother reference for all the fans out there. They had all different types of costumes you could wear while singing. I think my only regret over the next 5 weeks is that I didn’t get a video of Jason singing My Humps in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit. We ended the night at a bar across the street. We left thinking the subways closed a little after 1am, but they close around midnight. Travel tip #2: Always keep the address of your hostel in the native language. We weren’t able to talk to the cab driver, but he put the address in the navigation and we made it home safe and sound.

DAY 3: Traditional Tokyo

The biggest, and one of the most famous fish markets in the world is Tsukiji Fish Market. Our morning started off by taking the subway out there. You can tell you’re because the smell of fish is very potent. If you didn’t know where you were going, you could follow the smell to get there. We walked around the outer market, going from stall to stall looking at all the different items for sale. We tasted some buffalo Kim chi that was very good. All the food there is so fresh, and you can taste the difference. Some of the walkways are very narrow and filled with tourists/locals so you got to keep moving; it’s very hard to stand still. After an hour or so walking and eating, we made our way to the Hamirikyu Gardens. Even though Tokyo is such a big city, there are many gardens dispersed throughout the city. There wasn’t a whole lot to see but the views of the surroundings were amazing. The park is located on the Sumidigawa River. We took a boat cruise from the park up to Asakusa. Not to be confused with Akasaka, Asakusa is not near as metropolitan as the other parts and is still very traditional. We went to the Tokyo Sky tree Tower, which is located in the urban part of the district. Standing just over 630 meters, it is the tallest tower in the world, beating out the canton tower. It is basically the same thing as the CN Tower in Toronto. You take a really fast elevator (600 m/min) up to the top. It was very foggy due to potential rain so the views weren’t the greatest. On some days you can see Mt. Fuji, but today was not one of those days. They also have a glass floor you can stand on top of and look down. I know I wasn’t going to fall through, but I’m always hesitant to stand on top of it.

When we were finished taking in the views, we took the subway a short two stops to see the Senso-Ji Shrine. It is an ancient Buddhist temple, and the oldest in Tokyo. With 30 million annual visitors, it is the most visited religious site in the world. This is what comes to mind when you think of Japan; The red temples and the curved roofs. It is so interesting that there is less than a mile between the oldest temple and the tallest tower in the world. Tokyo truly is a mix of old and new. It wouldn’t be a heavily visited site without 80+ stalls trying to sell you a mix of hello kitty items and samurai swords. I tried a Japanese doughnut, which wasn’t too bad. Their donuts are filled with different flavors, wrapped in seaweed, and then deep-fried. I didn’t know that at the time and it was a weird surprise. Next, we made our way to Ueno Park. This is another of the green areas in Tokyo that I mentioned. There are a couple museums to go to. There is also a zoo with two pandas that you can see. We were worn out from a full day of walking that we relaxed in the park for a little, then made our way back to the hostel. We ate dinner at a Michelin Star rated restaurant, or was at the time when the article I read was published a while back. It was a 10 minute walk from our hostel up the main road, so pretty easy to get to. However, most of the local places don’t have English names outside, so we didn’t know where to go. We asked someone to point us in the right direction and realized we just missed it. It was very crowded (Not too big of a restaurant) and we were third in line to get a table. After 20 or so minutes, they called us in and we sat down. Once again, it was packed with locals so we knew we were in for a good, cheap meal. I got hot udon noodle soup with tempura on the side. The Japanese couple at the table next to us gave us some spices from their table to add more flavors to the soup. I don’t know how they knew we wanted that, but it made the soup even more tasteful. The tempura was very hot and fresh, and made for a great side. Besides the vegetables, I had a small fish and some calamari tempura. To be honest, I don’t know if it was calamari but it tasted good enough for me. We left very satisfied with our food, knowing it could still have that Michelin Star. That was the end of our day as I fell asleep pretty soon after we got back. (Yes, I threw up the peace sign in every photo I could)

DAY 4: A world classic, and more waiting for food.

We didn’t have too much planned for our last day in Tokyo, but we had something planned we spent the whole week looking forward to, more on that later though. We slept in a little later today, as we realized most shops don’t open until 11am. We made our way to Ginza, which is like any foreign upscale shopping area. They have all the stores you would expect; Rolex, Ferragamo, Fendi, Tiffany, etc. We went it to a lot of stored just to look at everything, killing some time until lunch. Like the day before, we couldn’t exactly find the place we were looking for. Shout out Shawn for recommending this place, as he ate there when he was in Japan. We knew we arrived because the line was out the door, and curved around. We got a number from the booth, and waited to be called. It took 45 minutes for us to actually go inside and sit at the sushi bar, because no table was open. I love sitting at the sushi bar because it’s so cool getting to see them make the sushi. I got another sampler platter, and a half roll on the side. I got a roll with salmon on top, and I cannot explain how fresh it tasted. That alone was worth the wait. When the platter arrived, I was just as excited to taste all the different fish. We are only a couple days into the trip, but that will definitely be one of the best meals I will have. It was a little after 1pm by the time we finished, so we headed to the Imperial Palace. Little did we know that it’s closed on Fridays, so we had to look at it through the big gates surrounding it.

It was a bummer that we couldn’t go inside the complex and look at anything. It had a mote surrounding it as well. The Imperial Family lives there still to this day. They do not have any formal governmental roles. After walking around the outside of the complex, we made our way back to get ready for the day’s main event. For those of you ever planning a trip to Japan, make sure to go to The Robot Restaurant if you are in Tokyo. It is definitely made for tourists, as no Japanese would probably ever go, but man was it amazing. Robots, humans dressed as robots, exciting music, and lights that would make a child throw up; what more of a combination would you want? I’ll have to admit I didn’t know what to expect, and I thought it would be two robots on a stage with flashing lights. The whole experience is cool, and you wait in a lounge area with floor to ceiling mirrors, lights everywhere and weird anime stuff. When it is show time, they take you down to the basement to your seats. It was a pretty narrow room, which 3 rows of seats on each side and the stage floor in the middle. It is a 90 minute show, yet they have a souvenir and food intermission between each act, it’s all pretty surreal. The show itself has four acts. The first act is taken literally from the Mad Max movie, except for a desert; it’s a neon robotic rave. It’s humans dressed up in weird neon outfit on top of even stranger cars playing instruments and singing. They are just playing drums and screaming at you and it’s the coolest thing ever, my words are doing a disservice to how it actually looked and felt. The next acts ranged from robots invading the peaceful jungle, to fighting big sharks, and singing American songs. That’s how you know they’re trying to take our money; Japanese girls dressed in Uncle Sam outfits singing YMCA. The only thing that could make it more American is a big mac in one hand, and a rifle in the other. Even though the show probably only lasted 45-60 minutes, it was worth every penny. I am going to be watching those videos until I die. When the show was over, we went back to the hostel to get ready to go out. We hung out with some friends from the hostel, as well as 3 guys who worked there. One of the best parts of traveling is meeting new people, and making new friends. We had a big group, probably 10 of us, and took the subway later that night to Roppongi. Roppongi is where a lot of nightlife is, and so it’s a little sketchier than other parts of Tokyo; however, sketchy for Tokyo is still pretty normal. We spent the night at one of the clubs and had a very fun night. It was a great way to end our stay in Tokyo.

DAY 5: Coming soon…

Overall: I really wasn’t sure what to expect of Tokyo coming in. I think you have to be in another city to actually gauge how you enjoyed it when you were there. It is a lot like New York City where there are different parts of it that each have their own personality, and you combine them to get a unique city. Unlike NYC, Tokyo has a lot more history to it with all the temples and shrines. I think without all the earthquakes, which basically destroyed original versions of everything, it would feel a lot different. Tokyo is also very big, it’s the biggest city in the world. Their metro system is amazing and makes every part of the city accessible. I loved all the parks, mixed in with all the buildings. It is such a big city, but it’s so peaceful and everything is just slower. It’s so hard to gauge a city from only 3 full days there, but I could definitely see myself living there in the future. The food, the calm way of life, and the mix of culture and modernity all make it worth it.