Tokyo

Tokyo

Wow! I can’t believe it! Another huge adventure all starts here. Yay!

When I first walked onto the Japan Airlines plane, I thought, “This plane is pretty nice”. When I got off, I thought, “I want to do that again!” The plane was amazing! For a 13 hour flight, we got lay-flat seats in our own little pods with TVs. We were in business class and you could tell that they were not messing around. They had great food from a Western or Japanese menu. You could order from your remote control at your seat! After the flight, we took various trains and subways to get to our hotel, the Grand Hyatt Tokyo in Minato, specifically Roppongi.

DAY ONE- WANDERING AROUND TOKYO (MEIJI SHRINE, SHIBUYA DISTRICT, IMPERIAL PALACE)

The next day, bright and early, we set off to a 7-Eleven. The 7-Elevens here in Japan are way better than in the United States. There are shelves of baked goods, fresh sandwiches, and a latte machine that my mom really liked. I recommend peeking into a 7-Eleven just to see how different they are from the ones in the United States. We found some baked goods for breakfast and ate them in the Metro Hat, a hat shaped building that contains the metro station closest to our hotel. There is a cafe area, with chairs and tables, so we ate there. After that, we took the subway to the Meiji Shrine. On the subway the first car was a women only car. We got on and my Dad pointed out the sign. I guess he felt uncomfortable!!! We walked onto the next train car which, fortunately, was not all women. In 1912, they introduced these cars because women and children weren’t as pushy as men and so they couldn’t board the trains. They were reintroduced later because during rush hour, it was so crowded that some men took the opportunity to grope women. Not cool, not cool.

Finally, we arrived at the Meiji Shrine. When we first walked in, we had to wash our hands and mouth. It was different but important to wash parts of your body before prayer in some religions. In this case, it is the Buddhist tradition to wash your hands and mouth before entering a shrine. We walked in on a big ceremony. I didn’t know what is was for, but we saw priests blessing food and a long parade-like line of priests. It was very interesting to see. We got lucky! On our way out, we explored a garden. There were many beautiful things to look at! We walked around and found wells, old fishing spots, grassy areas, and even a waterfall that you could walk near.

It was all very fun! After that, we headed to Tokyo’s Shibuya area. On the way, we walked on a street with many stores. We stopped at two of them- a Family Mart and an electronics store. We got some food at the Family Mart, another 7-Eleven type place to get snacks.. I selected the Calbee potato sticks. My brother picked out some chips with a picture of steak on it. When we got out of the store, my brother declared that the chips were too spicy! I guess we overlooked the big pile of wasabi sitting on the steak in the picture. My Calbee potato sticks, on the other hand, were actually really good: they tasted like a mash up of French fries and potato chips. We stopped at the electronics store to look at some  robots that they had on display. They were pretty cool, but they only spoke Japanese and they wouldn’t stop staring at me. Creepy… (see photo below)!We kept on walking to Shibuya. Finally, we came to a dog statue. What is this dog statue? We didn’t know. Luckily, there was an information kiosk right there. We asked the woman there and she told us the story of the dog: Hachikō was a loyal dog. He walked his master to the subway and then waited for him to come back. One day, Hachikō’s master had a heart attack and died at work, but Hachikō still went to the subway every day and waited for his master’s return. After a time, the dog then died too, and there was a statue made of him, maybe 2 or 3 times the size of today’s statue. During the 2nd World War, the statue was melted down for bullets. The next day, the war ended. Ironic! Some while later, two men met at a school reunion. One was the grandson of the man who made the original Hachikō statue, one was the grandson of the man who owned Hachikō. Inspired by their reunion, The grandson of the man who made the original statue decided to make another one (even though he was a painter, not a sculptor), and that was the one we saw before our very eyes. After an amazing story, we looked at the dog statue. Once done with that, we

crossed the biggest, most photographed street crossings in Japan. It was pretty cool. We walked up into a Starbucks adjacent to the crossing and got a great view of the street crossing from their eating area. We headed into a department store for lunch and found a sushi restaurant! You ordered on an iPad. It was a lot of fun. I have to be honest, the food courts in department stores are way better in Japan. After that, we took the subway to the Imperial Palace, where the current Emperor lives.

We went to the east garden and walked around a bit. We downloaded the official guide app for the gardens. It was helpful with providing information in English. We walked into back gardens. They were truly beautiful. There were many lakes and a waterfall. I had a lot of fun there. The day was so amazing that I only felt my dogs barking when I lay down in bed.

DAY TWO- WANDERING AROUNG TOKYO (TSUKIJI MARKET, SENSO-JI TEMPLE, THE ROBOT RESTAURANT, SHABU SHABU DINNER)

We started our day with a walk around Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market. There were fish in tanks and small pieces of sushi that you could buy a la carte. We saw some crabs who appeared to be holding hands (clawing at each other, if you ask me).  We got a little (okay, a lot) lost looking for a particular sushi place.  Right when my parents were about to lose it, I noticed a perfect place for brunch — conveyor belt sushi!We went to Sushi Zanmai, a place we had seen multiple times at the fish market, but none other than this one had a conveyer belt. We ate our hearts out- it was so yummy! It was the freshest fish I will eve®y have because I’m in the biggest fish market in the world and- I’m not just guessing here- that’s pretty fresh. After that, we took the subway to Senso-Ji Temple. On the walk to the temple, there is a long street full of small tourist shops and bakeries. We got Tokyo key chains (my brother and I collect key chains when we travel). We explored the temple complex, looking around at the decorative gold, wood carved with meticulous detail, and stone statues. One notable thing that we did was get our fortunes. We purchased a fortune for 100 Yen. We shook sticks around in a bottle and picked one out. We matched the Japanese symbol to one on a drawer and picked a piece of paper out of it. If you get a bad fortune, you are supposed to hang it on a fixture that they have out, but we couldn’t tell if ours were good or bad, so we kept them. On the way back from the temple, we stopped at two shops selling baked sweets. Our first stop was a melon pan bakery. Melon Pans are sweet, slightly dense and donut-like pastries in the shape of a half sphere with a crisscross pattern on top. Yum!!! Our next stop was to get doll cakes, a Japanese dessert cookie with… is that what looks like chocolate? The sweet bean paste filling was much to our surprise! It did not exactly float my boat, but it was much enjoyed by my dad. Next we took the subway to the Robot Restaurant. It was very touristy, but we decided to give it a try. We were sure to ask for headphones (the music is very loud).

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It was an upbeat, crank-up-the-energy kind of show. It was super fun for every one! It makes no sense, but it looked really cool. It’s so nonsensical that it is really entertaining. We didn’t order food because it isn’t supposed to taste that great. Instead, after the show we went to a nearby restaurant, Nabezo. We ate a special, traditional meal called shabu shabu. What you do is you get veggies and plop them into a bowl of broth that is warming on a Bunsen burner in front of you. You are served beef and pork to go with that. The meats are raw, so to cook them, you dip them into the boiling broth and veggies, swish ‘em around bit and eat it. Yum!!! After you have had your fill of meat, you can get noodles to put into your broth. Then you enjoy the soup of your making! With a full stomach (and a need for relaxation after all the crazy robots), we lay down in bed for some sleep.

DAY THREE- DAY TRIP TO NIKKO (TOFU LUNCH, VARIETY OF TEMPLES)

 After a relaxing morning in at the hotel we took a long, scenic train ride to Nikko. Nikko is a small town with many temples and important religious sites. On the train ride, we saw rice farms and mountains. Everything seemed magical because of the slight mist. We arrived in Nikko and got a tofu focused meal at Aburagen. There was pork with rice, tofu skin salads, or even just straight out good tofu. It was delicious. We walked around. For the walk, we got Pocari Sweat and Miu, both Japanese sports drinks that we got from a vending machine. They taste like Gatorade but without coloring. Getting something from a vending machine is a must-do thing, kind of like looking at a 7-Eleven. There are very wide selections of drinks like teas, sodas and sports drinks.

Sipping our drinks along the way, we got great views of mountains and greenery. The Shinkyo bridge was bright red against the blue sky. We walked across another bridge parallel to the Shinkyo bridge to get good views, but you can buy a fortune to walk on the Shinkyo bridge itself. The Shinkyo bridge is very significant in the buddhist religion because it was said to be made when a priest could not cross a river. A god came with two snakes which stretched out to make the bridge.

We strolled through Nikko and visited temples. It was a great walk (training for Mt. Fuji). We then walked all the way to the Kanmangafuchi Abyss. There were many statues of Jizo, the god that helps children who didn’t have the chance to get enough good karma to get to heaven. People whose children have died make crochet hats for the statues. They think that if they care for Jizo, he will care for their children. It was very sad. It is the legend that it is impossible to count the exact number of statues because they routinely disappear(or some people are bad at counting). We counted, and we found 92 statues with red crochet hats. At the station, we purchased a portable dinner for eating on the train. We got balls of rice with pickled something inside. Once we got back to the hotel, we could barely keep our eyes open. What a tiring day!!!

DAY FOUR- DAY TRIP TO KAMAKURA (BIG BUDDHA, SCENIC WALK, CAVE )

We started the day bright and early so that we could catch a train that would get us to Kamakura early enough to beat the lines. We got off the train and our first stop was the Big Buddha, a Buddha statue that lives up to the name. It is BIG!!! I could stack myself up 8 times to be about as tall as the big Buddha- not to mention the width! We paid extra to go inside the big Buddha. It was so amazing to think that something this awesome was hollow and that you could go inside. It reminded me of the Statue of Liberty a bit. It was amazing how it had survived all these years. Afterwards we went to the Hasedera Temple Complex.  The distance from the Big Buddha to the Hasedera Temple Complex is walkable. Once we got there, we took a scenic walking path.We got an ocean view with beautiful greenery. After that, on our way back, still in the Hasedera Temple Complex, we ducked into a cave with some cool carvings. They are of Bezaiten and her 16 children. We continued walking to the exit and ended up back where we started. We decided to go back in again because of the slight refreshing breeze being in darkness gives. Unfortunately, my mother bumped her head on the ceiling. This should be a warning to others: be careful!!! We finally came home to prepare for climbing Mt. Fuji.

PARENTS CORNER

Our fabulous flight to Asia was thanks to American Airlines frequent flyer miles… some time back I had googled “best way to use American Airlines frequent flyer miles” and hit on an article from “the points guy“ that said one of the best ways to use miles is to get business class tickets on American partner airlines that fly to Asia. As soon as we decided we wanted to take the Asia trip – some eight months prior – we got online and found flights mileage (we actually picked our arrival and departure cities – Tokyo and Hong Kong – based on the available mileage awards flights). It was a great way to get here (as Dora described above) and we were relatively well rested and jetlag free!

We arrived at Tokyo’s Narita airport at 2:40pm after a 13 hour flight… we expected long lines at the airport for customs and immigration, but sailed straight through and headed downstairs to the local trains.  Thanks to advice from a good friend, we found the Keisei Skyliner train… the newest, fastest – and apparently least expensive – express train into Tokyo from the airport. It goes to Ueno Station with only one stop. We purchased a combination Skyliner and three day subway pass which has made it really easy to get around the city since our arrival. The Tokyo subways are very easy to navigate (for us New Yorkers, anyway).  They move swiftly, and have lots of English language signs — and they’re a great way to experience the city!

MORE ADVENTURES COMING SOON… UP NEXT, CLIMBING MT. FUJI!!!

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Dora