There is no denying how much I LOVE a good flight deal so when a $1K premium economy ticket to Tokyo popped up on Black Friday, I couldn’t resist booking (even though Japan was nowhere near the top my list of countries to visit).
Before I get into the details of the trip, let me first briefly gush about how awesome having priority pass is. I mainly use it for lounge access but the hubby discovered we can also get discounts at select restaurants in airports. At JFK airport, we received a $28/person credit towards our breakfast at Bobby Van’s in JFK. Then for lunch at LAX airport, we dined at PF Chang’s where we were credited $30/person towards our meal (both of which was more than enough!). Clearly there isn’t a limit on how many times you can use the card in a day because we then accessed the Star Alliance lounge to relax before the long flight to Tokyo (ahem, can anyone say even more free food?!?!).
Now back to the actual flight 😏 We flew in premium economy on Singapore Airlines and it was really comfortable: plenty of leg room, spacious seat, and an edible meal. We utilized their “Book the Chef” service ahead of the trip so we were able to pre-order the meals we wanted on all legs of our flight. It still wasn’t better than Cathay Pacific in my opinion but it came pretty close (nothing beats those Cathay Pacific noodles!).
After deplaning and taking the obligatory touristy photo by the Welcome to Japan sign, we made our way to baggage claim, immigration, and customs.
We then went down to the basement to activate our 7-day JR Pass (a train pass that allows access on the JR rail lines in Tokyo as well as other cities in Japan) but was horrified to find the main office had already closed at 7pm. However, our panic was short-lived because thankfully there was another office a few feet away that was open (phew!). Of course, the line was a mile long since the other one was closed but we were able to activate our passes and make the train (with kid and luggage in tow) with two minutes to spare. Thank goodness we did because I did NOT want to wait another hour for the next train! Side note: while planning for this trip, I ordered the passes online, had the vouchers shipped to our home, and then activated the vouchers at the office in the airport. The JR pass can’t be used on the regular subway or bus lines (you need a separate train ticket for that) and also can’t be used on a couple of the really fast Shinkansen trains, however, it was still worth it for us since we were planning to travel to other cities in Japan and we could use the rail pass on various train lines to get to several locations on our itinerary.
Tip: If you sign up for the Japan Rail Pass, remember to get a physical stamp in your passport at immigration. There will be airport personnel trying to get you to use the fast pass kiosks but resist the temptation (and their beckoning calls). You need to show the passport stamp when activating the JR Pass so save yourself the headache by just standing on the longer line for the traditional stamp (and who doesn’t love another stamp in their passport?!).
We didn’t have our portable wireless router yet (when I ordered it online, I had it delivered to the hotel), so it was a good thing I printed out a physical map with walking directions to the hotel because we were completely lost when we exited the train! Luckily it was only a 10 minute walk to the hotel (though it took slightly longer with full-sized suitcases and a slow walking, jetlagged seven year old kid in tow!). After a smooth check in at the Keio Plaza hotel, we settled into our room and strategized dinner. We were badly in need of a shower so Will “volunteered” to find food while Avery and I freshened up. In true NY fashion, he came back with a bucket of KFC chicken and some biscuits. We devoured the food (why does KFC taste so much better in every other country outside of the US?!?!) and forced ourselves to sleep to heed off any jet lag. Of course that didn’t work and we found ourselves wide awake at 3am (though Avery didn’t have that problem and slept soundly until 8am).
Since we didn’t want to waste time that first day looking for breakfast spots, we had breakfast in the hotel. Although it was delicious and the service was impeccable, the prices were eye-popping. One glass of orange juice was just as expensive as the food and the rib eye was cheaper than the ham and cheese sandwich. Go figure! Needless to say, that was our first and last time dining at the hotel.
Our first stop of the day was a rickshaw ride by Sensoji Temple. Located in Asakusa, the temple is Tokyo’s oldest Buddhist temple and also goes by the name “Asakusa Kannon Temple”. To get there, we navigated the Japanese train system, and it actually wasn’t as bad as I expected…mainly due to the assistance of Google Maps that provided the time and which train we should take to get to our destination.
In Asakusa, we had a one hour rickshaw tour with Ebisuya (the company has longer tours but I really didn’t want to be cramped in a rickshaw for longer than an hour) which gave us a great introduction to the city. We stopped at the Kaminarimon Gate (the outer entrance gate that leads to the Sensoji temple and is a very popular photo spot), Geisha Town, the Tokyo Skytree (the world’s tallest TOWER at 634 meters), and a few other sights (none of which I can remember the names of…lol).
After the rickshaw, we walked along Namikase Street, a shopping street lined with vendors selling a variety of souvenir trinkets and yummy local snacks. Beware: it gets VERY crowded and is super touristy. We also ventured down a number of “side” streets, all of which offered a new treat for us to sample or souvenir for us to buy (hard not to spend all of our money stuffing our faces!).
The next stop for the day was Akihabara, a major shopping center for electronic goods like video games and computers. Will is an electronics enthusiast so visiting this area was a high priority on our list. Although there were certainly quite a bit of electronics stores in the area, they were surprisingly outnumbered by the number of video game arcades that we saw! And not just your standard, run of the mill, arcade-type games that you typically saw in the mall back in the day. No sirree. These arcades were entire buildings with their 5-7 floors packed from top to bottom with racing games, anime, and even photo booths with costumes.
We were starving at this point so grabbed a lunch of dumplings and ramen at a cheap nearby noodle shop.
Our final stop for the day was a sumo lesson experience! It was a bit complicated to get to (and of course I forgot to reference the handy map they provided on their website) so we ended up walking a good 30 minutes from the train (instead of just taking the bus) and made it just in time. The actual lesson was a bit on the expensive side at $100/person but it was the highlight of our trip and was worth every penny! The teacher who is a retired sumo wrestler (and doesn’t speak any English) was absolutely fantastic.
First, we were wrapped in the traditional mawashi which is the loincloth that a sumo wrestler wears.
Next, we learned a couple of the basic moves.
Finally, we were ready to attempt to use those moves on our instructor. No one was a match for our instructor but Avery was crowned the winner!
Afterwards, we got a chance to “chat” with the instructor (with the help of the translator) and learned some interesting facts about sumo, including: many wrestlers are not Japanese and come from countries like Mongolia, Bulgaria, Samoa, and Tonga to compete in the tournaments; traditionally, women are not allowed to enter or touch the sumo wrestling ring; and, sumo wrestlers are not allowed to drive cars.
For dinner, we tried to go to Rokkasen for yakiniku (aka Japanese BBQ) without reservations and of course they were fully booked until 11pm. Since we were all pretty exhausted at that point, we ended up at a nearby burger restaurant called 3rd Burger. The burgers were good but definitely a bit different since they put tartar sauce on their burgers. We weren’t feeling particularly adventurous with our food that day so decided against adding that condiment!
The next day we headed to Disneyland. Our hotel actually offers a free shuttle (that would take 70 minutes) but since it was sold out for the early 7:30am departure, we decided to take the train which ended up being much faster taking less than 45 minutes. Still, even though we arrived just after 9am, the park was already crowded (on a Monday of all days!). We went on a few rides including Big Thunder and Space Mountain but many of the lines showed a 90 minutes wait so we grabbed some soy sauce popcorn (extremely weird taste), walked around the entire park (which didn’t take as long as we thought, and then headed back early.
Since we had some unexpected time, we took the train to Shibuya to check out the famous intersection (supposedly the busiest in the world). We had a couple of drinks (non-alcoholic for Avery of course) at the L’Occitane cafe which I read was a good location to people watch at the Shibuya crossing (the other option is Starbucks but was way too crowded). Unfortunately, the restaurant only provided a partial view due to a big tree being in the way 😒.
After the somewhat disappointing view, we explored the area for a bit and bumped into a TGIFridays (a favorite of ours back in the States) so decided to stop there for dinner. I ordered the ribeye steak and it literally melted in my mouth! So yummy!
Since it was still on the earlier side in the evening, we went back to hotel with the intention of just taking a power nap but we all passed out for the night (jet lag is a killer!).
That was short-lived though and turned into yet another sleepless night where we kept waking up throughout the night and then finally stayed awake at 5am. Luckily, this time Avery was awake early too so we decided to go to Ichiran (a popular ramen restaurant that is open 24 hours a day).
We ordered the ingredients from the vending machine, got our ticket, and then sat down at the counter and waited for our meal. It came out incredibly fast and was soooo good…though take my opinion with a grain of salt since none of us are ramen-connoisseurs!
Since we were heading to Kyoto that day, we went straight back to the hotel after our early morning ramen run to finish packing our book bags. The plan was to overnight in a hotel in Kyoto for easy access to Osaka the next day so no need to bring our suitcases with us.
We made our way to the Shinjuku station (the train station nearest to our hotel) where we took the train to Shinagawa station so we could catch a Shinkansen train to Kyoto. You could only reserve your seat at the train station with the rail pass (not beforehand) and since the three of us naturally wanted to sit together (duh!), we had to wait about an hour to get reserved seats together. Of course, I made the best use of the time and found a nearby restaurant for us to dine where we ate octopus (takoyaki) that looked like one of my fave West Indian appetizers called codfish cakes, and tried the fried salmon that ended up tasting like chicken tenders (not shown in the photo).
After catching the 12:40pm bullet train, we touched down in Kyoto after a 2 1/2 hour train ride.
Our first stop was taking the train to Nishiki market, a five-block long marketplace in downtown Kyoto lined with dozens and dozens of shops serving tasty treats. While there we sampled scallops, onion and bacon rolls, something that looked like a pig in the blanket, and fresh tangerine and pineapple juices. While I tried to bring myself to try some of the weirder street food, like the baby octopus on a stick (that have had their brains replaced with quail’s eggs), I did NOT want to chance getting sick on day 3 of the trip (yea, I’m turning into a wuss in my old age…lol).
Yasaka Shrine, one of the most famous shrines in Kyoto, was a short walk away so we headed there next. To be honest, it looked like all of the other shrines I’ve ever seen in my travels so wasn’t too impressed.
The last stop before heading back to the hotel was seeing the Fushimi Inari shrine with its thousands of Torii gates. One could spend hours there exploring the various trails but honestly, they all began to look the same after awhile so we quickly called it quits after about 30 minutes.
After a restful night of sleep at the simple yet beautiful and spacious Hotel Arashiyama, we woke up early and headed to the Bamboo Grove. The main reason I chose that hotel was its close proximity (only a 15 minute walk) to the Bamboo Grove and boy am I glad we went as early as we did around 8am that morning. Although the area was smaller than I thought it would be, we spent about an hour at the grove gawking at the incredibly tall bamboo stalks along the winding path but it quickly started getting crowded with tourists…which was then our cue to leave 😉
After checking out of the hotel, we took the Shinkansen train to Osaka. The train stop was actually right inside Universal Studios and there were lockers were we could store our overnight bags so it worked out perfectly. We dined at Eggs N Things for breakfast and it was delicious: Eggs benedict with avocado and shrimp, pancakes with pineapple and fresh mango, guava juice, and yummy bacon. What better way to start a full day at our favorite theme park?
Between the rides, tasty snacks such as pork buns and ice cream, and an entire section dedicated to the minions from the Despicable Me movie, we were in heaven! Despite having to take four trains to get back to our hotel in Tokyo, we had a great day!
Another sleepless night turned into morning means another ramen run! We grabbed ramen from Ichiran but this time added a side of stewed pork with our meal that was “slap yo mama” good.
Today, we had an organized tour to Mt.Fuji, the tallest peak in Japan. But before we arrived at Mt.Fuji, there were other stops first. The first stop was Oshino Hakkai, a small village in the Fuji Five Lake region with a set of eight ponds.
Since the pond water is fed from melted snow from Mount Fuji, we were able to sample the crystal clear water (that is supposed to make you 10 years younger…I’ll report back how I feel in 2029 😉). Although they say there are eight ponds, we only noticed two (we were too lazy to go searching for the other six…shrug).
The next stop on the tour was the Oshino Ninja Village. In addition to beautiful gardens and foot baths, there is the Ninja Karakuri mansion where you have to find your way through a ninja maze filled with secret doors, and the Shuriken dojo where we practiced throwing ninja stars.
Back on the bus, we passed Aokigahara also known as “Suicide Forest”, one of the world’s most prevalent suicide sites where a number of Japanese come to take their own lives each year.
The next stop was the famed Mount Fuji but unfortunately since it was a cloudy day we didn’t have the greatest view. Not to mention, it was freezing! Glad I brought a jacket.
I was most excited for our next stop which was an amusement park where we would ride the 4D flight motion simulator that lifts you high above the ground so you feel like you are flying (similar to a hang glider but inside a building and with fifty other people…lol). On the ride, we were able to see and “smell” Mt.Fuji through the different seasons.
There is also a rollercoaster ride at the park that looked fun but we didn’t try since it wasn’t part of the package.
Our last stop on the tour was Lake Kawaguchiko which boasts the best views of Mount Fuiji. The weather gods were on our side this time because the cloudiness from earlier in the day cleared up and we were actually able to get a clear view of Mount Fuji!
That evening we had tickets for Robot Restaurant so after dropping Will back at the hotel (note to self: do not eat “hot dogs” in Japan), Avery and I walked to the show which was about 20 minutes from the hotel. It was in a very touristy part of Shinjuku with bright neon lights and loud music bursting from every corner.
We arrived 30 minutes before the show so that we could pick up our tickets (per the instructions on the ticket) but of course our early arrival wasn’t necessary since they were still letting stragglers pick up tickets a few minutes before the show started.
Since we still had some time to burn before the show started, we were escorted to a waiting room where you could buy drinks and then we were seated for the show. Boy were we packed in there tight!! The shoulder to shoulder seating arrangement with bodies packed in every inch of the place tested my claustrophobia like never before. And on top of it, they sold everything imaginable to try and take more of your money: light up drinks, snacks, flashlights, etc. A kid’s dream and a parent’s nightmare but I can’t knock their hustle!
Now to the show: It was gaudy, cheesy, and had two intermissions (where they again tried to hawk more souvenirs, snacks, and beverages). Overall, I wouldn’t say it was entirely worth the money spent but we enjoyed it nonetheless and definitely a must do when in Tokyo.
Side note: what should’ve been a 20 minute walk back to the hotel turned into an hour long ordeal because of my inability to follow simple directions on Google Maps coupled with a dying phone battery. Needless to say, Avery is traumatized for life and will never trust my navigation skills again (rightfully so).
For our last day in Tokyo, we were supposed to start the day at the famous Toyosu Fish Market to see a live tuna auction at 5:30am. I had applied online for the drawing to watch the auction about a month before (and won!) but when the time came to wake up, I was not in the mood and happily went back to bed 🙂 Pro tip: try and book the tuna auction for one of your first couple of days in Tokyo since you’ll probably be jetlagged and wake up early anyway.
After sleeping in a bit, we spent the rest of the day in Odaiba, a popular shopping and entertainment district located on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay. Since Eggs N Things was so delicious in Osaka, we tried the one in Odaiba and it was equally yummy.
We then walked over to teamLab Borderless, a pretty cool museum where the artworks move in and out of rooms and intermingle with each other. Note: there are two lines to get in the museum (one to buy tickets and one to enter if you already had a ticket in hand). The line to enter was really long when we arrived before noon but of course two hours later when we were leaving, there was no line at all😒
Next we walked to Odaiba Oedo Onsen Monogatari, a popular hot spring with everything from a food hall to foot baths to video games. After first getting the electronic barcode wristband we would use to make purchases, we went to the yukata stand (kimono) to select the one we wanted to wear along with an obi (belt). Of course we mistakenly got naked underneath our yukatas, only to read that you should keep on your underwear (epic fail #readingisfundamental).
Our first stop was the foot spa since that was gender neutral (the other saunas were for women only or men only). Despite its outdoor location on that rainy and chilly day, the foot spa was deliciously hot to the touch and just what we needed to warm up. The plan after that was to hit the hot baths but since you had to get naked and none of use felt like disrobing AGAIN, we played a few carnival games instead.
Although there were several restaurant options in the complex, we decided that we had our fill and walked across to the mall where there was a Friday’s (you can take us out of NY but you can’t take the NY out of us!). The ribeye steak was just as good as the last time I had it. We had reservations to Kobe Beef Ikuta in Shibuya that night, but we promptly passed out and didn’t make it back out again for dinner.
Our flight was actually leaving from Haneda airport instead of Narita (don’t forget to check this since they are both equally popular) and was easy enough to get by train (only a 45 minute ride). After a layover in Singapore where we were able to check out the airport (which boasts a movie theater, butterfly garden, and the world’s tallest indoor waterfall), we were back in the States planning our next adventure!
Random observations/tips from our time in Japan:
- Everyone in the corporate world wore either black or navy blue suits…men and women with no variations nor any pops of color
- No matter what time of morning or afternoon or evening, we saw school-aged Japanese children out and about fully dressed in uniform with their book bags but not in school…I still have yet to figure out why. We noticed this EVERYDAY.
- Try every ice cream flavor you see…we tried the peach, blueberry, grape, and even matcha which were all great
- The JR Rail Pass is totally worth the investment! It covered most of our subway rides AND allowed us to see two other cities outside of Tokyo. Not to mention, the train system is pretty easy to use…even for direction-challenged folks like myself
Toya's Travels 