All About My Trip to Tokyo!

Well peeps, I am back in the states and readjusting to local time.

I had a great time in Tokyo despite the short duration of our trip (thank you SO MUCH stupid American Airlines!). Just to recap if you missed it, I did not arrive in Tokyo Tuesday evening as scheduled because my flight to L.A. was delayed, then canceled. I got my money back from American Airlines and flew out to L.A. the following day on United. The United flight was smooth as butter, but I lost an entire day of my trip (and that day, I found out later, would have made a world of difference!).

My Singapore Airlines flight to Tokyo was wonderful! I got an exit row seat so there were no seats in front of me, a huge plus for an 11-hour flight and my long legs. We had recent movies available, American TV shows, Japanese TV show and lots of music available (headsets were free!). We got a little pouch with comfy socks, a toothbrush and toothpaste AND a menu of both American and Japanese-style meals. And, most importantly, drinks were free! I had some Riesling with my unagi and rice meal featuring cold soba noodles as an appetizer. A few hours later, we had fried noodles and coffee cheesecake. I was so happy.

My friend and I stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel Chinzan-so, a luxury hotel more in the European style. The staff was outrageously polite and spoke quite a bit of English (which was oddly disappointing. I wanted to practice my arigato!). We had a huge garden with a stream filled with giant goldfish, a pagoda from the 1700s and places to sit in near silence even though the entire thing was surrounded by the city. I got in late that night, so we just went walking around the neighborhood to find some grub. Thank God just about every place in Tokyo has menus with pictures of the food! If not for the pictures we would have starved. No one spoke English an we didn't speak any Japanese. We found a spot and pointed to some sort of stew looking thing, fried dumplings and fried sesame seed balls. The stew turned out to be beef with noodles and my mouth still waters just thinking about it! If I could get some right now, I would! The dumplings were typical gyoza and the sesame seed balls had mochi (chewy, glutinous rice) and sweet red bean paste inside. DELICIOUS!

Our first day, we went on a bus tour to some major sites like the Meiji Shrine and the Imperial Palace garden. The shrine (Shinto, Japan's number one religion) was huge and surrounded by greenery. Out front there were sake drums on display (but no sake to drink!). Before we went into the shrine, we had to purify ourselves by washing our hands and our mouths in a spring. Inside the grounds, you could write little prayers on wooden boards and hang them up. The Shinto priests apparently go through all of them. We could not go into the interior of the shrine though, which I kinda liked. It is a place of worship after all, no need to have random people traipsing through.

The Imperial Palace Garden was gorgeous, though it was clear our tour guide was a little annoyed by Japan's imperial family. Tokyo is 2,187 sq kilometers and the Imperial palace and its grounds take up 3.4 sq kilometers, roughly the size of Central Park, but only 2 people live there. Meanwhile, more than 12 million people live in the rest of Tokyo. They're lives are subsidized by taxes the residents pay. "And they don't even come out to say thank you," our tour guide said with a smile, but I could tell he didn't think it was cute.

Can I say that one of my favorite sites in Tokyo was all the kids in uniforms? Yes, I know I'm weird. But I got a kick out of it. I saw dozens of children of all ages walking to school, out to lunch and sometimes just in the middle of the day (we couldn't tell if they were playing hookie or what because they had their uniforms and their black bookbags, so...). They were by themselves. No adults accompanied even the little little kids. Some kids had sailor looking uniforms. Others had gray sweaters over crisp white shirts. Some skirts were down to the knee, other skirts were down near to the ankles.

We walked down a shopping arcade not far from the big Buddhist temple in Asakusa (our guide told us that most people in Japan are both Shinto and Japanese, but most young people have Christian, Western-style weddings). We saw old women buying shoes, sandals, sweets, and sundries. We couldn't figure out what anything was in the drug store. All the little bottles and boxes were written completely in Japanese. Is this aspirin or gingko biloba? No idea.

Then we found the Metro station and descended to make our way to Akihabara electronics town, a whole section of the city filled with electronics malls, anime museums, robotic, whatever you can think of. Being from New York City made a big difference here. We were able to decipher the subway system thanks to most of the signs being in Japanese AND English. The automated voice on the subway cars announcing the next stop in both languages was a HUGE help.

The next morning, we went on to what I felt was the highlight of our trip, the Tsukiji Fish Market. The largest fish market in the world, the auctions start at 5 a.m. We did NOT get up that early, and arrived at the market bout 7 a.m. It was non-stop hustle and bustle from the moment we got there. Men on mini trucks drove through the narrow passages between the stalls, where more men lifted huge fish out of boxes, or cut giant tuna into steaks or skinned and gutted eels. I saw live jumbo shrimp flopping about out of water, and fish heads as big as my friend! We had to jump out of the way of the workers, but I didn't feel too crazy because there were other tourists trying not to get fish guts in them while they snapped photos. The energy in that place was electric and it really didn't smell as bad as you might think! There were octopi (octopuses?) folded up and looked like some sort of exotic flowers. There were boxes of black, spiny sea urchins and fish I've never seen before in my life.

We finished it off with a trip to Daiwa Sushi for our sushi breakfast. And let me tell you, it was oishii (Japanese for delicious)! I have a pretty standard set of sushi rolls I get whenever I eat sushi and this was an opportunity to eat things I NEVER would have picked on my own. My friend and I were at the merci of the sushi chefs, whatever they made, that's what we had to eat. We started with tuna sashimi, which we've had before, then mackerel, which I never had. The meat was soft and a little sweet. We had squid, not the tentacles or the sucker things, but the flesh. It was snow white and, frankly, quite tasty. Nothing was fishy tasting or chewy (which is why I hate calamari, for example). I admit, I did freak a little when the chef put baby squid in front of us, tentacles, eyeballs and all. But, this was a challenge I issued to myself, so we just stuck it in our mouths, closed our eyes and chewed. It was good! The flavor was very mild, it wasn't at all chewy and I would totally eat it again!

After the fish market, we just roamed the streets, stopping at a bookshop with Japanese books translated to English and we walked through the high end shopping neighborhoodsof Ginza and the trendier, hipper Omote-Sando. This was my least favorite part of the trip because we have Louis Vuitton right here and I can't buy it here, so what good was it doing me in Tokyo? We did find some cute shops, however, where we each bought ourselves new handbags!

We also spent a portion of the day hitting up the shopping malls to find gifts and trinkets for loved ones back home. Me, personally, I hate souvenirs. I don't like keychains and nonsense like that because no one uses them and they sit in a drawer, box or on a shelf and they, ultimately, are a waste of time and money. In this case, though, we were in Tokyo, so I wanted some real, Japanese stuff for my family and my guy. That was particularly challenging though. Tokyo is a big, cosmopolitan city of the world. Thus, like the U.S., many of the good we found were imported from China, Taiwan, Europe and the U.S.! I didn't want to get anyone anything I could easily find for them in the States. So we hit up some craft stores and bought a lot of food and snacks -- the most authentic Japanese things we could find (and still afford).

We were too exhausted by that night to go to karaoke (which I was dying to do, while my friend, well, wasn't!), so I used the hot spring onsen at the hotel instead to unwind. It's not for the faint of heart. You basically scrub yourself clean in a public washroom (all naked, you can't bring in anything other than your washcloth and a small towel) and once you're clean, you step into the hot spring and just relax. There were just three old women when I went and they were just finishing up. I mostly got the place to myself. Falling alseep would have been really easy, but then I would have cooked myself in the hot water, so I stayed for only about 10 minutes. I went back to our room and pretty much fell out!

Saturday morning we ran back out to the malls to finish our gift shopping and then we had to pack and get back to the airport.

So that's it! I loved it. I was exhausted. And I would do it again (just not for less than 7 days)!

Finally, my own Dos and Donts if you ever plan to go to Tokyo:

DOs
DO ask the concierge or somebody at your hotel or the place you are staying for suggestions on places to visit.

DO hunt for the best currency conversion rate you can find. It makes a huge difference in how much money you'll actually have available to you.

DO get up early to see the Tsukiji Fish Market and have a sushi breakfast there. Personally, if you do nothing else in Tokyo, make sure you do that.

DO make the trip with a friend. Two heads are better than one here. It's easier to find things and plan. Make sure you can stand each other for long periods though!

DO read up on Japanese customs and etiquette before you go and learn a few words (Konnichi wa or moshi moshi (hello), sumimasen (excuse me) and arigato (thank you) are essential, ESPECIALLY sumimasen).

DON'Ts
DO NOT try to do Tokyo in twodays. We went non-stop and were achy, grouchy and tired by the time we collapsed on our beds at the hotel. I'd love to go back and even though I've already been, I wouldn't do it for under 10 days the second time.

DO NOT bother with cabs. It's really expensive, the metro is faster and the cabbies don't speak any English so wherever they wind up taking you is where you will be.

DO NOT try to see more than two or three sites or neighborhoods in a single day. You'll just miss a lot of things and you'll be in physical pain by the end of the day. Some of the most interesting shops (even some museums) are tucked in alleys or squished between two great big buildings and they can be easy to miss (especially since Tokyo addresses are indecipherable).

DO NOT rely solely on your travel book. I wouldn't got to Tokyo without a travel book (we wouldn't have found many things without it), but you can also get tunnel vision running from one site to the next when there are plenty of other things to see and do and eat that aren't in the book.

Comments

[savvy]

Sounds like you had a great time. Welcome back.

[debtor]

wow, sounds like a blast! I am NOT adventourous with food so I wouldn't be trying the sushi. Must be nice to be able to pay for such trips with savings!

[Grace]

I was in Japan for three weeks last October. I can't imagine doing Tokyo in 2.5 days--I was there for 5 days and still managed to miss the Imperial Gardens. But your post brought back so many wonderful memories.

[Craig]

Sounds like an amazing trip, you got to see and do so much. Such a cool place to go, I'm jealous.

[Single Ma]

Wow, sounds like you had a BLAST!! Way too short though. Mental Note: plan for 'at least' 7 days when visiting another country.

I'm allergic to fish and seafood so I probably would have nothing to eat if I visited Japan. LOL

[Debt Hater]

@Single Ma, you would've eaten a lot of noodles and onigiri (that's rice balls!).

[debtor]

just wanted to drop by and let you know you were tagged in this post. Have fun thinking up 7 things!
http://debtorinthecity.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-was-tagged.html

[Jerry]

Wow, what a great trip -- too bad it was shortened like that. I would go to Japan in a heartbeat! My first experience there was on the island of Okinawa with the military, (and it did not lead to an experience that I would want to repeat), but a trip like yours sounds tremendous. Experiencing new cultures and new foods is one of the best forms of insurance for expanding your world view, I find. Welcome back!
Jerry

[MoneyFunk]

How exciting! Thank you for visually taking us on a Tokyo trip. First off... How could eat that baby squid? That would of been so hard for me to do (and I love sushi). I love Yoshikitty, too. The fish market... the electronics neighborhood... all things I want to experience myself. And you're lucky they had pictures on their menus... or you would have NO CLUE as to what you're eating. And japanese palates are so different than ours. LOL. Thank you again for sharing!

And 2 days?!?! Crazy! But what an experience!

[karen]

Thanks for the recap of your trip!

[Moneymonk]

Pics look like New York City!
lol

You can lose alot weight in Japan!

[Sushi Tail]

I love your blog! I cannot believe you hit all those major spots in just two days.
I have one more thing you can add to your DOs list. Explore the food section at any major department store. It's usually on the B1 level where you find all kinds of great Japanese foods. Being from Japan, that's where I first go whenever I travel back home.