🇯🇵 On an early Sunday morning…

We arrived in the heart of Tokyo, shivering in the cold breeze. Along an eerily silent street, we dragged our luggage to a coin locker and parked ourselves on the second floor of a McDonald’s, staring a pachinko parlor across the street as we licked spicy wasabi-flavored mustard off our chicken sandwiches. Next to us was a girl fast asleep all alone and a few other early risers, silently reading newspapers and slowly eating their breakfast. We had arrived in the capital city of Japan, and boy was it quiet.

There was so much I had heard about Japan - the food, the history, the people, the anime, the emojis. I have friends who visit every year and I’ve always wondered why they were so attracted to this place. Was it the anime memorabilia? Was it Jiro and his sushi dreams? Was it the abundance of matcha-flavored snacks? I was about to find out.

🌸 Morning at the GARDEN

After McChickens and a really good Starbucks matcha latte, we decided to walk to nearby Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden to spend an easy morning. Autumn in Japan is mesmerizing. We wandered through a grove of red and yellow trees, took a nap in the English landscape garden, and strolled through the Japanese traditional garden gawking at the beauty of the tea house, the pond, and the towering city above. (Central park vibes all around.) As the morning progressed and we had our first matcha soft serve of the trip, elderly Japanese men with tripods and huge telephoto lenses started crowding the walkways. They pointed their cameras up into the trees, trying to capture the golden leaves. I wasn’t the only crazy photographer. I’d totally forgotten I was in the home of Canon and Nikon.

🍡 Making my way downtown

It was time to explore the city as I’d always known Tokyo to be - bustling, colorful, and full of life. We squeezed ourselves onto a completely packed but silent commuter train and got off at Shibuya Crossing. (The crowd was actually pretty underwhelming compared to Shinjuku station.) We ventured into Harajuku boutiques, didn’t see any Harajuku girls, but enjoyed amazing daifuku mochi. For lunch we lined up for Nakajima, the Michelin star restaurant famed for its sardine dishes.

When I travel to big cities I usually expect to see similar things. Tall buildings, shopping malls, crowded public transportation. But Tokyo was so much more. Depending on what district you’re in, the vibe is so different. Karaoke booths and game centers were everywhere. Every intersection around Shinjuku station was like Times Square. We stayed in Shinjuku, where there’s a random batting center and a bizarre Robot Restaurant. But nighttime is when the streets really come alive. The red-light district was just one street over, and we explored dozens of street food stalls in the Shin-Okubo Koreatown area we lived in. There were even rookie K-Pop groups that walked around handing out concert fliers and groups of girls giggling in admiration from across the street. The energy was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Everyone was out and about doing stuff: eating, drinking, shopping, socializing. It was a different scene on every block.

Stray observations:

Shinjuku station is a giant maze. It’s multiple floors and intertwined with shopping malls and department stores. We pretty much got lost trying to find our way out of the station every single time.
Trains are so quiet. You keep to yourself, and push your way onto a commuter train without speaking a word. If you get a seat, there are also heaters for your feet and (like wet) shoes.
Bikers are also quiet. When you’re walking on the sidewalk, bikes move past you with no warning.
No one jaywalks. It’s a small one-way street. There are no cars. We wait for the light.
The bidets are amazing. They even play music.
Nothing is open in the mornings, especially on weekends.
The best breakfast is the fresh hot food from Family Mart and Lawson. The buns and fried chicken and sandwiches and onigiri. Drool.
It’s rude to eat while walking in public, which made it quite awkward eat any of our breakfast food we bought from said convenience stores.
Don Quixote was souvenir heaven. It sells basically anything you need, and the cheapest special flavored Kit Kats.
They play really good pop music in the stores! That and Christmas music made shopping even more fun.
I really liked using vending machines to order food. Perfect from introverts and foreigners like us who had to Google Translate everything off the menu. Such efficiency and food safety!
On a similar note, the Uniqlo self-checkout counters were magic. You drop all your items into the bin and everything scans immediately. You pay, take a bag, and bag all your items yourself at another counter. Yes I spent a lot of my time in Japan wide-eyed whisper-screaming at how efficient everything was.
Japanese women are so put together. Their fashionable but still warm wool coats and long skirts coordinated with everyone else’s outfits. They wearing a full face of makeup, even out to lunch. The beauty social norms were so fascinating to witness and compare myself to.

🍣 Rain + Sush

They say there are three ways to see a city: daytime, nighttime, and in the rain. A rainy day greeted us, but thanks to Paolo from Tokyo (our favorite tour guide of the trip), we found all the underground passageways and malls we could explore without getting an ounce of rain on our heads. We started our day in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City, and headed to the Pokémon Center! It was our childhoods, encapsulated in one store! Needless to say we bought all the things. The mall also had dozens more stores that sold trinkets from every cute animated thing you can think of.

After a satisfying udon lunch at Kineya (who knew mall udon could be so good?), we headed to Tsukiji Market for more food! The narrow lanes of the outer market were filled with people, umbrellas, and fresh seafood. Blowtorched scallops, tamago, dried cuttlefish, mochi, eel skewers, tuna sashimi. We even managed to snag a box of sushi for 50% off as the remaining shops in the inner market were closing.

For dinner, we met up with our friends at Himawari, a conveyor belt sushi stop that ended up being Simon’s favorite meal of the trip. Fresh quality sushi, self-service, affordable plates. What more could you ask for?

🌲 Yoyogi

We ended our Tokyo trip back in nature. From Harajuku, we meandered into the Yoyogi Park forest. The path led us to a massive torii gate, which marked the entrance into Meiji Shrine grounds. We followed other visitors to the purification fountain and the prayer wall and watched people bow and pray. It was my first time at a Shinto shrine, and the tranquility and understated beauty of everything was wonderful to experience. As the sun set, we enjoyed one last stroll under the large cedar trees before we headed home to pack for our next adventure.

🗻 Day trip to Hakone

The next day we took a bus to Hakone, the onsen-filled vacation town just outside Tokyo. Our long-distance bus immaculately punctual, and was able to accommodate last-minute passengers along the way with collapsible seats in the middle of the aisle. (The efficiency!) On our way there we even caught a glance of Mt. Fuji out the window. When we finally arrived, I understood why locals come here to vacation. Hakone was exactly the opposite of Tokyo - quiet, empty, and peaceful.

With only a couple more hours of daylight, we took the local bus down to Togendai to hop on the pirate ship sightseeing cruise around Lake Ashi. It was cold, but we go to see and photograph the snowy top of Mt. Fuji. When it got dark, we quickly grabbed some food from Lawson and came back to our inn.

We stayed at an authentic traditional ryokan, cozy Fuji-Hakone Guest House. This family-style inn had tatami mat floor rooms and the friendliest host. After finishing our convenience store food and trying juice box sake, we donned yukatas and headed downstairs for the private onsen. Hot magic water. I loved it.

🚅 Shinkansen time!

The next morning, after much bus schedule confusion, we took the Tozan bus with super well-behaved uniformed schoolchildren to Odawara Station. It was shinkansen time! Off to one of my favorite part of this trip: Kyoto!

Check out my Kyoto photo diary here.

Asia Travels