Leaving home is always a hard day (for me, at least). I want to leave the house in a nice and clean condition for our return and that stresses me out, as - though everyone would like to return to a clean house - we have 5 people and 5 different definitions of clean and tidy; you guessed it, my definition requires a lot more work that others.. Also.. we had a lot of time to prepare to leave (1pm BART train) and yet, five minutes before our time to leave the house, Luke was looking for his kindle (super important thing we cannot do without for school on the trip!) and Alex was picking up his bag and wondering why it was so light, did he forget something important? Ok, no drama here, Luke found the kindle (packed, in his backpack!) and we all commented while walking to the Bart station that ALL of our bags were lighter than any of our other trips. I think we’ve gotten better at packing and we all left our “heavier” jackets out this time as we don’t anticipate anything colder than 65 degrees or so.
Bart and SFO, all so easy. Couple weird things as we boarded - we took this low cost airline, Zip Air, a subsidiary of Japan Airlines and this giant, 787 plane was like 1/3 full; we were about 5 rows back from Business Class, 5 of us tucked into our two rows and as we walked backwards to the restroom, we passed lines and lines of empty or single-person rows; so weird. Also, I don’t know why, maybe the plane windows being bigger than normal threw me off, but I took this photos of what appeared to me to be giant, giant plane engines.
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| And we’re off from SFO, on the budget Japan Airlines company ZipAir. |
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| Image of the plane engine that just seemed humongous to me, on our very empty flight to Tokyo. |
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| Had to stop here on the way into Tokyo from our airport hotel. |
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| More happy travelers. |
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| First ride on the Tokyo subway. |
Skytree: Our very first afternoon/ evening in Tokyo, we hopped on the subway and went right up the tallest structure (634 meters) in the City, the Skytree which a broadcasting tower & tourist attraction (it overtook the existing radio & tv signal tower, the still beautiful when lite up Tokyo Tower). We went at sunset which had some very nice views but also reminded me a bit of Empire State Building, where it is just too crowded to enjoy it as much as you think you will. We did get the chance to walk around the bottom of the structure where there were some food trucks set up) and a mall with a Pokémon store (we went to a lot of those + Nintendo stores). The amount of retail square footage in Tokyo is insane; I kept thinking of the market studies I used to work on many years ago based on daytime population (residential + workers) * spending on this or that retail good = how much retail can be supported and in Tokyo, that number is a a big, big boatload.
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| Checking out Pokémon store in mall near Skytree. |
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| So many character stores in the mall. |
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| More pokemon. |
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| Snacking before the Skytree. |
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| On the Skytree. |
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| Looking down passed Katie’s foot through the Skytree to the ground far, far below. |
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| Tokyo behind us. |
Bike tour: We bought tickets on a bike tour and joined one German woman with our two guides and set off on very thick-tired, e-bikes (our first time on these powerful puppies). Biking in the very-busy-sidewalk City seemed a bit risky, but the reviews of the tour were very good - Our experience was both harrowing (we biked just a few inches from people on crowded sidewalks, trying to remember to Keep Left [Japan is a lefty-country] and exciting, because we covered much more ground on the bikes than we could on foot. Our guide was more someone to follow on the bikes than one who relayed a lot of stories and facts; the kids really liked him, as Alex put it, “I think he was the type who waited for us to ask questions about something and then he gave good answers, rather than him chatting on.” He also had attended a football camp in the Bay Area and was a 49er fan, so that was good. We had lunch at our guide’s recommended sushi place in the cool area around the old Tsukji fish market - the German lady from our bike tour joined us, which was a treat. We learned about her ~12-months of travel, on her own, taking a break from her work. After ordering on the table-iPads small amounts of food, the kids went all in on 6 cucumber sushi rolls (36 pieces) - It was very funny, the waiter brought the big wooden plate of 36 pieces and they went to work while the couple at the table next to us sort of giggled. The bill for the 6 of us was only slightly more than the bill for the couple next to us because they had some high quality sashimi and, you know, sushi with fish in it, while we only had two real-sushi eaters are our table..
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| Alex’s first cleansing ritual before entering a Temple. |
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| Bike tour. |
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| In front of Tokyo Station. |
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| Mochi yummy pastry - Trying food is one of my favorite things on bike tours; I guess I would really enjoy a food tour but I think I am in the minority in our group! |
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| Yum. |
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| We stopped at a lovely garden during the bike tour; the ponds had turtles and big fish. |
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| We missed the cherry blossoms by a few weeks, but the blossoms on the ground are also pretty. |
Akihabara: We headed over to one of the big commercial districts, this one is sort of the anime and electronics hub. We headed up all +6 escalators through Yodobashi Akiiba and I was just bowled over by the sensory overload of goods and signage and, as we approached the video game floor, that is when the exchange rate-scheming began.. You see, Alex and Luke have been saving their money to buy a Nintendo switch for.. literally almost 2 years. They have enough money for one at home finally but they’ve noticed we can buy one in Japan for a discount because the exchange rate is good for the dollar now. We now must stop at each store to make sure the price is still good. We’ve convinced them to wait until our last city in Japan (Hiroshima) to decide whether to buy it (so it’s not rattling around in their bags for too long) and because they’ve both purchased ‘bonds’ on Scott’s-bond-market with their savings and the money matures on May 10, so they need to wait for that payout anyway.
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| We went into this ginormous electronics store. |
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| We found Nintendo on like floor 8 in this giant store. |
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| I love these tiny cameras. Not to own, just to see and touch. |
Sumo: We missed the dates for the Tokyo sumo tourney, but we went to a glass windows-practice session (in the stables, they call them sumo stables). We arrived to a crowd of people watching and taking photos; we piggy-backed and shoulder-road the kids as much as we could so they could see. Then, such luck: The watch session has rules for good behavior (of course, Japan!) including being quiet and NOT bothering neighbors by sitting/standing on their stoops. These noisy Europeans had walked right passed a resident-placed orange cone no less! To get a better view on their steps. Well, a stone-faced sumo wrestler walked right passed us to give them a frightful grimace, just as Alex and Luke, who were practicing their sumo moves as they could not see the actual sumo, wrestled, oblivious to the giant human passing behind them :)
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| See crown behind me standing outside the sumo-window where people can watch the practice. |
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| View of the practice from the back; Katie on Scott’s back. |
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| My view on tiptoes. |
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| Wrestler walking behind the oblivious and wrestling-Alex-and-Luke; the wrestler is headed toward the two people on the right of the photo, standing on some stairs; you can just glimpse the orange cones in the bottom right of the photo, that told those folks NOT to go stand on house-steps. The wrestler walked over and gestured at them and they hustled back in front of the orange cones. Some people. |
Tokyo National Museum and Ueno Park. We were lucky our apartment was near Ueno Park which is a big open space filled with museums and temples. The place was very busy in some pockets (near the zoo, the science museum) but some areas were so calm and peaceful.
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| In front of Tokyo National Museum, a really good museum on Japan’s history. |
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| We each did research on an item to see in the Tokyo National Museum and my item - a small, figure of a Bodhisattva - was really hard to find! We got to this room FILLED with statuettes and searched for it. |
Dinner, Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Karaoke, Meiji Shrine, and Yoyogi Park with our buddies Cindy and Trey and their kiddos: We were so happy to visit our friends who moved from Berkeley to Tokyo ~18 months ago and their two boys! They took us to a yummy dinner called yakiniku where each table gets a small BBQ and you order meat and veggies to grill. The table has an exhaust-tube and Trey got to work grilling for 9 people! The next day, we met up at Shinjuku, which is a big park in the City where adults pay to get in (it was maybe $5 per adult) and enjoy a whole lot of lovely manicured greenery. We were a bit early and began a small frisbee game alongside a woman doing yoga poses for a cameraman; It wasn’t 120 seconds into the game until a nice man briskly game our way in a neon green vest to so politely tell us we were in a no-games green. Luke and Alex did races (which we think were allowed) while we watched another frisbee family get the reprimand and then we followed them to another green which was filled with kids and small ball games (our first green got filled in with more yogis).
We played for a few hours and then left our green oasis for lunch. The first place we sat in had a giant menu (always a red flag), with everything from pasta, pizza, and clams to udon noodles and rice curry. Before we ordered, we observed a large rat scurrying among the HVAC and combined that sighting with the very sticky floor and our table location right above the smoking section, decided we would change restaurants before ordering; glad we moved! We tried some new items at lunch (takoyaki - fried batter-balls with octopus+ginger filling and konjac jelly - a gelatin-like slab made from vegetable pulp that people eat for weight loss and skin [we tried it with tofu, there are not a lot of choices for vegetarians!]. Then! We headed over to the one of MANY karaoke places where you rent a room and sing with your group; we rented an hour which I thought was very fun; strangely, my kids, who we cannot get to stop singing when it is time to be quiet, did not like it that much.. I think they didn’t understand why we would pay money for it.
After singing, we headed over to the Meiji shrine; Meiji was the emperor in the late 1800s, he is credited with Japan’s opening up and modernizing (also a factor: US sent a naval battleship into Tokyo Bay to demand to trade with Japan in 1853; the sight of the ship and modern weapons convinced Japan’s leadership that they must change or they could be conquered; the modernization in warfare in particular was the inspiration for the movie the Last Samurai, as the samurai class struggled with losing their power and privilege when Japan adopted western military styles). Emperor Meiji and the Empress are both revered in Japan and this Shinto shrine is from about 1920, completed and dedicated to them; like nearly all important buildings in Japan, it was destroyed during WW II (most that we have seen also have been destroyed by natural disasters before WWII) but has been rebuilt faithfully.
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| At the “grill it yourself” restaurant with our buddies Trey and Cindy. |
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| Our whole group at the restaurant; we were grilling like crazy to keep the 9 plates full! |
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| Katie at the lovely Shinjuku Gyoen garden & park. |
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| Before karaoke, this place was called Big Echo, well named! |
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| In our karaoke room. |
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| At Meiji Shrine. |
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| At the very large Meiji Shrine gates; the gates are called torii. And you are not supposed to walk in the center; the center lane is for the kami to pass; humans pass on the far sides. |
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| Walking through Yoyogi Park; this is a big park, free to enter, and it was a lot more populated than the paid-garden we went to earlier in the day. |
Senso-ji - Said to be the oldest Buddhist Temple in Tokyo, founded in the mid-600s (we later visited what is said to be the oldest Buddhist temple in Japan in Osaka). We learned a bit about Buddhism and Shinto; Shinto is a native religion - there is no founder, no holy text, no hierarchy - Shinto is polytheistic, with spirits called kami that inhabit all things. We visited many Shinto shrines. Buddhism came to Japan in the 525 - about 1,000 years after the man who was Buddha (a man named Siddhartha Gautama) was born. Japan learned about Buddhism through offerings from the kingdom in Korea. Japan’s Prince Shotoku spread Buddhism through writings and construction of temples. There is no issue with being both Shinto and Buddhist (or Shinto and Christian, etc, Shinto goes with any other religion but I think many religions would not go with Shinto!). Interestingly, Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples were often co-located or even in the same buildings, with shrines to kami beside Buddha statues. But, in the 1860s, the Meiji government issued separation orders, in sort of an anti-foreign-religion (aka, Buddhism) move.
All of that is to say! We visited Senso-ji, the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo, and it was mobbed, we walked through a crowded arcade to get there, waited a bit in line to go make offerings and bow, and then enjoyed the buildings.
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| On the way to Senso-ji temple. |
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| Lot of people behind me at Senso-ji prayer area. |
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| Senso-ji Temple. |
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| Senso-ji Temple. |
We took a break in the nearby arcade after that crowded fun. Fun times; main difference in Tokyo arcades from home: they have rows and rows of The Claw game; some tiny claws, some Giant claws that claw big stuffed animals.. Very exciting to watch someone try to get that giant pikachu! Interestingly - maybe because it was Golden Week holiday week or maybe it is just something people do near the picturesque temple - but there were many women and some men dressed in wonderful kimonos with full air and makeup done. I had to snap a pic of these fantastically dressed girls at the arcade.
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| Katie and Scott square off at air hockey. |
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| Some driving game. |
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| Had to snap these lovely dressed ladies in the arcade. |
Ninja & samurai experience. Super kitschy and silly but we went to this ninja experience which included a short history discussion about Japan’s feudal system and the role of Samurai and Ninjas.
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| Learning about samurai and ninja. |
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| Katie posing near the sliced-tatami mat - You have to be 18+ to take the tatami-slicing class but we got to watch some newbies doing it before our ninja class; it was harder than it looks; one person did it in one stroke and the next failed on stroke 1 and then succeeded. |
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| Yes, we dressed up like this.. definitely did this one for the kiddos! |
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| We did star throwing and dart blowing competitions; 1 won stars and Scott won dart blowing but Alex came in second in both competitions, so close! |
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| Almost everyone has their eyes open…. |
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| ..almost again, Alex, look this way! |
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| Back to Akihabara for the night, we found Super Potato, some other electrics store Luke found online for us to visit. |
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| Katie and I playing pong, the only physical pong game I have ever seen! |
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| Akihabara + Katie. |
Day trip to Kamakura and Enoshima. We took the train about a hour to Kamakura and headed straight over to Hasedera Temple to see this 30+ foot tall Buddha dates to about 1250. It’s bronze and was constructed when Kamakura was capital for a bit more than a century. It’s outdoors; the temple it was in was destroyed by a storm, rebuilt and destroyed by a storm, rebuilt and then washed away by a tsunami and then it was left outside. We then walked up the high, high Tsurugoaka-Hachimangu shrine which had lovely grounds and views. We continued on to Enoshima island which also had a shrine - you guessed it - way way up a hill. Lovely views! We stayed a while hoping Mount Fuji would pop out of the clouds but no luck.
Kamakura was also the location of the “tiny white fish” incident. You see, it is hard to find vegetarian dishes in Japan if one does not speak Japanese (we could find vegetarian restaurants, but then at least 2 of our 5 person group will be unhappy). We picked a lunch place in town and helped Katie order a veggie dish with noodles. When it arrived, it was topped with what appeared to Scott and I to be little noodles, like., those little crunchy ones you might get. They were not crunchy. As we continued to tell Katie they were little noodles, she said they did not taste like noodles. She looked very closely and noted that they have eyes. Noodles do not have eyes. After a little google searching I saw that a not uncommon topping for extra protein in veggie dishes are.. tiny white fish! They are very mild tasting. But arg, she was a very good sport about it. I did not get a photo of the dish but I did start to see the tiny white fish in the grocery store later on.
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| Looking for Mount Fuji to appear out of the clouds. No luck, but we got to watch this falcon swooping. |
TeamLab - Planets and Tokyo Emerging Science museum: Arg, we got a pretty rainy day and should have waited it out inside, but we had already purchased tickets to PlanetLab’s Planets (immersive art). It’s housed on these artificial islands in Tokyo bay called Odaiba. The area has a lot of space and greenery and outdoor art like a small, statute of liberty and a giant transforming robot and would have been awesome on a sunny day! Sadly, we were running from indoor spot to indoor spot to indoor spot.
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| Science museum. |
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| Science museum; they had many displays about protecting the Earth and what humans’ impact on the planet. |
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| Luke and I in front of the Gundam Unicorn transforming robot. The robot had just transformed and Luke was like, is that it..? It was impressive, just not compared to movie-transformers. |
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| At TeamLab Planets exhibit. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab Gardens exhibit; you had to get down low and crawl under the flowers to get to a spot where you could sit up. |
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| TeamLab |
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| TeamLab. |
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| TeamLab. |
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| We spent the whole day on Odaiba island, got to take this pic in the rain with the Statue of Liberty behind us. |
Last day in Tokyo, quick visits to Sony store, Shibuya crossing, Yakusuni shrine, and Tokyo Dome City. Last day in Tokyo! We tried to get to all the things on our list so we did a quick visit to Ginza shopping area and
Sony store, which Scott may or may not have visited on his other trip to Tokyo in the 1990s. We headed over to the busiest pedestrian crossing in Tokyo,
Shibuya crossing. We also went to go see
Yakusuni shrine, the national shrine where +2 million souls are enshrined (not bodies buried, but spirits are housed) of people who’ve died during a Japanese war - Controversially, +1,000 war criminals are among those listed at the shrine. The shrine has been in the news for the last ~twenty years or so because China, South Korea, Russia, and North Korea all protest any time a Japanese Prime Ministers visits the shrine. Other than the controversy, the shrine appeared like most other large shrines. Lastly, we headed over the
Tokyo Dome City, where the
Yomiuri Giants (the Yankees of Japanese baseball) play baseball! The area is surrounded by an entertainment zone. We went to batting cages and then bowled a game. During these games, I got the very unwelcome set of messages that I had made a bit mistake - You see, I thought I had booked the airbnb to leave the next morning. When I finally looked at my messages while the kids were batting, I had about a dozen messages from the airbnb host (and airbnb, they get involved when a mistake is this big!) asking why our apt was full of our stuff, why we hadn’t left it clean, and finally wondering if we had the wrong check out date. Turns out, between 3pm and 6pm while I was not replying to messages, they had tried to clean it and check someone else into the apt and finally decided we were not going to come and take our 5 bags of stuff away so put the other party into another apt they have. Argggggggg!!! I felt so terrible. Turns out, I had put the booking into my google calendar when we were in CA and when we got to Japan, my time zone changed and (because I did not set up the event in the calendar for Tokyo time zone), it switched to Tokyo time and Thursday in CA is Friday in Tokyo. So.. I thought we were checking out on Friday and booked train tickets and the next hotel for Friday… arg!!!! I felt badly about it for a long time but we settled with the airbnb host for an additional $200 (to pay for the other party’s taxi ride, the extra cost for the other apt they stayed in for a night, and for the extra cleaning fee) and I slowly got over my big mistake.. Now, I need to figure out how to automatically import airbnb bookings into google calendar.. Right when our trip is almost over.. Arg, hard way to end our Tokyo trip (for me at least, everyone else as having a good old time batting and bowling!).
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| Shibuya Scramble Crossing. |
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| Katie petting a robot dog in the Sony store. The sign says they will not sell the dogs to non-Japanese. |
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| Another Shibuya crossing. We just walked back and forth a few times, like non-dorks. |
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| Katie and I walked up to a rooftop cafe at a mall and I had to take this photo with the Tower Records in the back; they still have Tower Records, with real CDs, in Japan! |
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| Entering Yakusuni Shrine. |
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| Posing in front of the (Yomiuri) Giants’ ballpark! The sign behind me says (in English, I do not know why so many signs are in English) Our Giants Will Live Forever |
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| Alex. |
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| Luke. |
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| Yah bowling. |
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| Bowling scores. Do not zoom in, they are all under 75 :) |
Check out. Friday! We checked out! Luckily, there are so many places to leave your bags in reasonably-priced lockers, we took a few hours to visit the science museum in Ueno Park which was good times. Then! We went to Tokyo Station to take our Shinkansen (bullet!) train to Osaka! As I’ve mentioned, it was Golden Week when we were traveling and everyone warned us that all of Japan would be traveling at the same time.. well.. that was NO JOKE. We got to Tokyo Station and it was like nothing we’ve ever seen before.. People were EVERYWHERE and moving so fast… It took us a while to get some paper tickets and we found out platform and no joke trains were leaving with +500 aboard like every three minutes.
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| Science Museum; pretty good whale. |
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| Making our way through Tokyo Station. |
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| I found a place for the kids to sort of be out of the way for a few minutes while we tried to figure out where our platform was; there were just thousands and thousands of people streaming by behind them. |
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| Yes! We found our spot; we sprung for first class train tickets just so we would have numbered seats together. Off to Osaka! |
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