My sister Julia and I have both been wanting to visit Japan and decided to finally make it happen! We chose to visit during April to catch some of the famous cherry blossoms in season. First stop: Tokyo.
Day 1 in Tokyo:
Getting to Tokyo takes a looooong time! After a flight delay due to a problem with the bathroom, and 12 hours in the air, we arrived in Tokyo, waited in a long line to get our JR pass, took an hour and a half train ride into the city, found our apartment and had finally arrived! Even though we were deliriously tired, we went out to Tempura Tsunahachi, a restaurant specializing in tempura, where we enjoyed a tasty meal and then promptly went to bed.
Our 'hood for the first few days
Day 2
We managed to sleep pretty well and were up by 8 to get to sight-seeing. We walked to Shinkjuku Gyoen National Garden park to witness the cherry blossoms in full bloom. We took lots of photos and walked around to different areas of the garden. While we were relaxing and discussing where to go next, someone overheard us and said we should check out Ueno park if we wanted to see more cherry blossoms.
Getting our first full day off to a great start!
This is what we came for!
Before moving on to the next park, we made a stop at Yabu Soba for handmade soba. It was tasty but a little plain for me, but we got our own little tatami room which was cute (and uncomfortable).
Soba!
Bellies full of noodles, we headed to the park, which reminded me of the Dolores Park of Japan. There were tons of people picnicking, drinking, and having a great time. Another area had lots of food vendors selling everything from octopus to cotton candy.
It was fun to see, but the crowds were a little overwhelming, so we decided to head out of there and check out Yanaka, a historic neighborhood nearby. It was much more calm, with a few cute shops and cafes along the way to a main street with a bunch of food vendors and restaurants. After a bit of a nap at home, we wandered around our neighborhood a bit, grabbing some cocktails at a jazz bar called Dug (not very Japanese!), and then dinner at a Yakitori restaurant whose name we've already forgotten.
Day 3:
On our third day in Tokyo, we started out at the Meiji Shrine, which is nestled in a beautiful wooded park. We wandered around a bit, and paid a few dollars to walk through the empress’s former private tea house and garden area it was a beautiful and peaceful escape from Tokyo madness.
There's a huge wall of sake bottles at the shrine- great photo spot :)
The Harijuku neighborhood is super close to the shrine, so we headed there next- what a contrast! The main street, Takeshita Dori was wall to wall with people. Plenty of tourists but also lots of young Japanese girls...I kept wondering why they weren't in school! We followed our curiosity down some stairs and found ourselves in a photo-booth arcade (that's the best description I can come up with). Basically you go in one of dozens of different photo booths, take a bunch of pictures, and then edit them to add stickers, change your eye color, and more. It's probably easier to understand by just looking at the results:
We've never looked better.
After wandering around looking at lots of cute stuff and photogenic desserts (like a huge cotton candy, and Japan's longest soft-serve) we headed off the main drag to finally have some ramen at Kyushi Jangara, which was recommended to me by someone.
YUM
Following that we did a little more window shopping on Cat Street (which has mostly international stores so was not that interesting) and made our way to Yoyogi Park, another popular cherry blossom spot where lots of locals were picnicking and enjoying the afternoon.
We rested our feet for a few, then headed out to Omotesandō, which is a tree-lined avenue with all the major high end stores. Our destination was Anniversaire, which has a lovely outdoor cafe where we enjoyed some wine and sweets.
Not very Japanese, but very delicious.
After our afternoon rest, we headed out to the Park Hyatt bar- famous for its appearance in Lost in Translation. We felt very classy (and underdressed) drinking some expensive drinks, then headed home where we struggled to stay away past 9 PM after our long day of sightseeing!
Views on views from the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt hotel
Day 4
On our last day (for now) in Tokyo, we paid a visit to Senso-Ji, the oldest temple in Tokyo. There are tons of small souvenir and sweets shops leading up to the entrance, so we did some browsing and bought a couple of souvenirs along the way.
While I can't say we absorbed much of the history of the place, it was beautiful to see, especially with the cherry blossoms in season.
Next up, we headed over to the Naka-Meguro (aka Nakame), another popular spot to view cherry blossoms. We had a lovely lunch at a French restaurant called Huit, which was a nice little change of pace from Japanese food. We strolled along the river for a while; towards the end were lots of cute little restaurants selling sparkling rosé to enjoy outdoors.
Along the riverside
We wrapped up our visit to Tokyo with dinner with some of my Google colleagues, who were in town from SF for work. We ate at Inakaya East, where you sit around the chef and basically point at what you want and he'll cook it for you. It was a bit touristy, but a good time and we had some delicious sea food.
Next we headed off to the famous tourist attraction, the Robot Restaurant (actually more of a show than a restaurant). It's a bit hard to describe- people dressed as robots and other anime-like characters, banging drums, dancing, singing, with plenty of lasers, neon and loud music.
Staying up past 11 was a super late night for us, so we headed right to bed to rest up for our journey to Mt. Fuji the next morning!
FINAL DAY IN TOKYO (post-Osaka)
We returned to Tokyo for one last day before we flew home. This time, we had a hotel in the Ginza area, one of the ritzy shopping areas in Tokyo, great for people watching and window shopping.
We didn't have any more sightseeing plans, but happened to open up Google Maps which now tells you about local festivals and events going on. We saw that there was a wine event going on 15 minutes from our hotel, and that was all we needed to see! 15 minutes later, we found ourselves in a pleasant park at a tasting event for Japanese wineries. For about $20, we got a glass and a bunch of tasting tickets. We weren't sure exactly what varieties we were tasting, but we were sure that none of them were very good! Sorry to any Japanese winemakers who may be reading this (unlikely), but we'll stick to our California grapes for now.
Even though the wine wasn't very good, it was a really fun afternoon trying something different and enjoying relaxing in our last day in Tokyo.
Of course, we had to close out the trip with one last bowl of ramen, this time from Kagari Ramen, inside the Ginza subway station. They make a chicken ramen, which is apparently not common, but it was incredibly delicious!
Unfortunately I spent the night battling food poisoning :( I don't know what caused it, but it wasn't the best way to end my trip!
Not letting a sore stomach slow us down, we managed to squeeze in a couple more quick activities the next morning. We went to the fish market, but I'm not sure we saw the most interesting parts- we just kind of walked around the tourist area. I think this would be a sight best seen with a tour guide.
Then, we wandered over to the nearby Hama-Rikyu garden to kill a little more time and get some more walking in before the flight
A beautiful oasis surrounded by skyscrapers!