🇯🇵 Japan: Land of the Rising Sun
Introduction
After having spent 2 weeks prior in Busan, South Korea, my parents and I embarked on a journey to Tokyo, Japan for a week. As it was almost like our first time there (only my father having visited decades ago for his business trip), we could not have expected all the troubles of finding our destinations and using Google Maps constantly to find which entrance/exit to use in the train stations. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful trip full of novel experiences, great food, and much, much walking.Day 1: Arrival
Upon our arrival to Narita Airport, I met a familiar figure as I was walking towards the exit after having done customs. It was none other than the character whose voice I've heard millions of times. I had qualms about navigating my way through an unfamiliar country, but seeing Miku drastically shortened that feeling of distance between me and Japan.
As we headed out the airport we were looking for the Keisei Skyliner, which is a high-speed train that allows us to go to center of Tokyo directly. We got on the train, got off at Nippori, and took the Yamanote Line towards Hamamatsucho Station, which is just a 5 minute walk away from our hotel.
It SHOULD've been just a 5 minute walk away from the station to our hotel, but the fact that Google Maps doesn't tell you the direction you are facing, you never know if you're walking away or towards the destination. This hesitation and murkiness of using the app made us walk an unnecessary 15 minutes all over the streets with each person carrying two 30-lb luggages each. This was probably the worst experience in Japan yet. Our feet and arms were was dead as the luggages' wheels. After checking in, it was approximately 3 pm, so we wanted to save our stomachs for dinner, but was still very hungry, so my parents set me off on a mission to take on the greatest experience any foreigner can get while in Japan: the convenience stores. Just like the 3 admirals in One Piece, Japan has the 3 most well-known convenience stores: Family Mart, Lawson, and 7-11. All three were nearby, but the closest in proximity was a 7-11 down the block, so I headed towards there, and oh man was I impressed by the selections. I knew what to expect, but I was still impressed. I had to take into consideration of my mother's inability to digest hard foods, so I chose some soft meals, some drinks and the legendary egg sandwich everybody worships.
To digest, we took a walk to Roppongi Hills to have dinner there, and pass the Tokyo Tower and Zozoji Temple on the way. The Tokyo Tower is a great feat of a building, resembling a tower on the other side of the world, but it truly shines in darkness. The funny part was that I would know where to get great angles of the tower as I would see a crowd of people at a certain location holding their phone upwards, so all I needed to do was to join the herd and follow along. Here a couple of my favorite shots:
I apologize for filling your screen with perhaps mundane pictures of the same structure. But you must understand that I really was excited to observe an edifice so close-up.
As aforementioned, the search for the restaurants and shops proved to be the most challenging obstacle. Turns out the restaurant we wanted to go to was in the lowest level of the Roppongi shopping district. After ten minutes of much work, I managed to fill up our names in the queue before the lines became unmanageable. And oh boy was the struggle to find this place worth it. The tonkatsu just melted in our mouths and made us forget the nearly an hour walk we had prior getting to this place. I highly recommend checking out Butagumi and trying their Rosu-Katsu (loin cutlet) and Hire-Katsu (fillet cutlet).
And of course, we can't forget about the detour to the convenience store before heading back to the hotel. We snagged a small green pea snack and a Horoyoi, a type of Chuhai (low-alochol sparkling cocktail).
Day 2: Shibuya
Determined to try all the top 3 breakfast donburi chains of Japan, we headed towards Matsuya first thing in the morning. There actually wasn't much on the menu that looked appealing to me, so I appealed to my homely tastes and tried the kimchi-mayo donburi with the classic miso soup on the side. Truth be told, I should've ordered something else because the portion was quite small and the flavor was medicore at best.
For digestion purposes, we made our way to enjoy a stroll in Meiji Shrine. I have to say, the walk was quite pleasant as the thick trees provided protection from the sun and the weather gave off a cool feel.
As we exited the Meiji Shrine, the next on the list was the Takeshita Street in Harajuku. From searching online, apparently the crepes are a must, so we acquired a strawberry-chocolate flavored crepe, and man it was savory. Althought I was left alone to eat most of it and gain the calories, I regretted nothing.
Afterwards we spent some time in the big malls area, where they had Tokyu Hands, tokyo 109, etc. The buildings were cool and all, but I wasn't much intersted in shopping anything at the moment so we left rather quickly. And of course the infamous Shibuya Crossing. It was during the day so there weren't as much people as I had feared.
We were feeling a little famished, so we went to the nearest Lawson and ordered the renowned Famichiki, basically just tender-like fried chicken you can eat on-the-go. Frankly speaking, it was good alright, but I think people give it too much credit. It's kind of hard to go wrong with fried chicken anyways.
As the evening approached we wanted to spend it near the center of Shibuya, but not before visiting the Pokemon Center first! We were still passionately playing Pokemon Go at the time, and since there was an opportunity to catch different variations of Pokemon in a different country, we had to visit the main attraction of our latest obsession. But oh man was this a mistake. Lines were filled and filled without and end to sight, and we couldn't enjoy much less anything. All I got was a picture of MewTwo at the front of the store and that's pretty much the only memorable event that day...
To catch a breather, we went to the famous Starbucks place near the crossing and seats were dificult to find as expected. We tried the matcha donut and a strange yuzu drink that I forgot why I ordered (probably because it felt novel at the time). During this time our father went out alone to buy some belt that he must acquire, which contributes to my mother's irritation to this day. I no longer have pictures around this time as my phone was dead from Google Maps overuse.
Day 3: Ginza
tried yoshinoya this time, got the suki set , and oh man there was a small fire that constantly kept the food hot so it was nice but at the same time surprising at times cuz i expecte the food to be cooler but its still as hot as I first had it haha maybe good for taste but convenicence wise a little startling for sure for sure. parents wanted to try the taiyaki we saw on our say to yoshinoya, so we got that on our way back, arried at ginza, saw some watches at the WAKO place, and visited ITOYA and copped some cool pencils, and my dad got some cool pens, visited UNIQLO and copped a rain jacket and parka that I used quite well for the rest of the trip.Day 4: Akihabara
got the takoyaki near yodabashi akiba, the biggest tech store in the world, could already tell this was a different vibe area, with the station at first, checked out a couple of anime goods and book places (manga nad light novels) today was mostly scouting, I would come back at another time to spend a good time by myself to look for the things I wanted, but it was a good effort. we then got curry later for dinner, and then we got some traditional japanese sweets, and oh man was that water SALTY af im not sure what that was but maybe it's good for your health, or so i hope, then got some sweeets, the inmatsu and the fried anzu thingy. then on our way home we stopped by Tokyo Station to get the night view, and man there were lots of wedding couples posing to take pictures. It was quite a sight. Then we walked through Marunoichi street which weas just a block ahead and observed cool lights.Day 5: Shinjuku
this time we went to y oshinoya again but this time i tried something else, and it was quite good too! today was the day where we visited ginza so that dad could get the pen that he wanted from itoya last time, and this time i went to ginza to the sixth floor of ginza six, where they had starbucks and a tsutaya books, where i purhcased fresh copies of Good Bye Eri and Look Back (this is airing as a movie now!) check it out. It's a great read/watch. After we met up at we headed for Omoide Yokocho, but I got scammed because there are apparently two different ones with the same name. I went to the one where they had like only four or five stores, so I thought something was odd because from the pictures there should've been way more but i didn't question too much because the sign before entering the street was undoubtedly Omoide Yokocho. Turns out I got tourist scammed and we had to purchase 350 yen for JUST NAPKINS. bruh im so sad i knew i should've left the place but thought this was the real deal, only to realize that when we exited, there was another stree that had the exact same sign at the etnrance but with WAY more PEOPLE and with actually a bunch of stores, which I realized my mistake, because it should've been this place. I consoled my self at the fact that the stores here would also be tourist scams and moved on to a restaurant nearby as we didn't eat too much at the izakaya, went to a sister recommended pladce down the block called gyukatsu motomura, and this was different than tonkatsu in a way because this was beef, and oh many it was so smooth and soft, and teh experience of having to cook it yourself was also quite interseting. A shame we couldn't sit as three people as the space in the restaurant was very limited and didn't accomodoate large parties. coming back got some hagen daz to wash down the grease.Day 6: Asakusa
this was where we visited the senseoji temple and oh ma of course, people are people everywhere. the street of souvenirs and foods/sweets before the main hall to the temple we had a vanillla/strawberry cone and a peach flavored mochi with a strawrberryu on top and also had cream inside of it it was so good oh man. I then sent my parents back to the hotel and went on a mission to visit the Pokemon Stores in the Tokyo Station and the Pokemon Center DX in Nihonbashi. Got the iconic train station pikachu and copped a few cool gacha. Also did the coin making thing and I got al lteh exclusive ones from both centers, which I was quite happy about. Coming back to the hotel we still had a lotta of cash left and realizing our departure is tomorrow I set out on a mission to spend all the nearly 3800 yen I had at the Family Mart near our hotel. I almost succeeded, leaving only a few coins left, and this was the stash. Also got a Oshi no Ko figure box cuz why not had to spend it all haha. Got more Horoyoi as they added new flavors! was quite excited to try it out and the apple one was really good.Day 7: Departure
Not much to discuss here but just got a small Tokyo station sign keychain at Narita airport before leaving and also caught a shiny beldum on this game called pokemon go which was exciting! I could proudly say that I caught a shiny pokemon in Japan, haha, albeit not in the center of Tokyo :). We arrived at Incheon to stay a hotel nearby and had good seafood. The hotel was really nice and they also had a sauna, which I wanted to go to, but it was quite small and there wre already people inside it, which I didn't want to interrupt or be in their presence, so I just used their gym to do some basic light exercise before heading back up, showering, and getting ready to head back to the good old America.Looking back, even though lots of days were filled with much walking, much frustration at trying to find the right locations for everything, the novelty of being a foreigner, speaking in Japanese which I rarely do in America, lots of new food and cool buys, it was a very short but memorable trip. Though right now the jet lag is kind of killing me coming back, I would surely like to visit once more, perhaps by myself or with a small group of friends. Next time somewhere else, like Osaka or Kyoto, or maybe a few day trips to Kamakura or Yokohama. Who knows? Not sure when the next Japan trip will be , if any, but I know that this one will always be looked back at fondly as it was the first. I'm grateful for my parents for also keeping up with me with all the walks. They got sick the last few days in japan due to lots of strained exercise, so I feel a little bad for not taking it a little bit easier, but even this too will be a special memory, and speaking of special memories we will not forget the times we've practically visited a Don Quijote in every major city we visited. The song is still stuck with me, and I have to make much considerable effort to get rid of this sound. Or maybe I don't have to. If I can't let it go, I'll just enjoy it . Don Don Don... Donki...~