OOO: Tokyo
One city and lots of friends and food in a 5-day, first trip to Japan.
Place: Tokyo, Japan
Time of Year: Early-Mid April
Hotel: all day place shibuya
I’m not someone known to write “coming at you live from [insert destination here]”. I’d be a horrible reporter. Only my day job gets the privilege of a live OOO email subject line, along with a gorgeous palm tree next to my name on Slack. I’d love to tell you it’s because I am unplugged / focusing on the present / living in the moment, but alas, I am still very much keeping my Google maps, texts and camera and notes app running at all waking hours. The reason for the delay is likely because I… have a full time job? like to curate? Have perfectionist tendencies? Am a pedant?
Okay, no question. I like to curate. And probably take posting too preciously, but I get excited about looking back on a whole collection of photos from a trip or reflecting back on all my pinned spots to rank favorites. I want to be intentional about what I put out in the world and understand a little back-story if there is one, so I like to share the prettiest as well as most joyous, interesting or delicious parts. Is that so bad?
Now that I made this an mini online-recipe-level introduction about me (sans ads), let’s chat Tokyo, which, to be assumed, I flew back from two weeks ago.
The city is everything. I can’t speak personally yet for other parts of the country, but every traveler and their mother have said Japan. Is. Amazing. Tokyo was likely just the surface, but a very large surface at 5,233 square miles. Not quite the sprawl of Los Angeles, but Great Tokyo’s population of 37 million people certainly know how to collectively contribute to a clean, safe and vibrate place.
Christopher kept saying on the trip, in the most complimentary way, that this city is exactly how he pictured it. Meaning that every photo, movie or TV show where Tokyo is depicted didn’t just give us the highlight reel or hide less-than-favorable spots. Maybe because there are no unfavorable spots? I feel like we saw it all— Harajuku fashion, Mario cart fans, pachinko parlors, salary men, tamagotchi retail stores, izakaya (bars), cute af animations, narrow streets, lanterns, and cherry blossoms.
We stayed in Shibuya, a neighborhood most globally famous for the Shibuya Crossing, which is arguably the ‘busiest intersection in the world.’ Without trying, I crossed this intersection no less than a dozen times going from the train station to our hotel. I honestly can’t tell if this intersection is busy because of people’s true need, like ours, to get to the other side or if it’s busy because of the arguable title. The amount of tourists with their selfie sticks and 360 cameras walking back and forth across the intersection points to the later lol. I am not judging, and am, in fact, a participant. Below pic was a particularly weak showing of tourists because of the rain.
First night in Tokyo was Christopher and I taking our near-zombi selves to a Swallows vs Giants baseball game. We were inspired by Anthony Bourdain’s trip to Japan in No Reservations where he went to a game. However, the only scheduled league game in town was the night we landed. We were determined to make it work. It was a cross town rivalry game, as both teams call Tokyo home. We ended up walking through the Swallows fan entrance and got black bird hats plopped on our heads. So we were ‘GO GO SWALLOWS!’ the rest of the night. I was definitely going loopy by 5am PST because at one point the whole stadium erupted in chanting and were waving shimmering umbrellas (it wasn’t raining). Epic. The chanting wasn’t surprising by this point in the game, but the umbrellas had me convinced I took an edible and was transported to Wonka’s world. Americans— can we please make our baseball games this fun? Note: Karaage (fried chicken) at Meiji Jingy Stadium is fire.
Day two would have also still been Wonka-land, but we had gotten caught up on sleep. TeamLab Borderless was on the agenda. It’s an amaaazing light show and moving art installation, that transports you into cool optical illusions and immersive experiences. I promise you’ve seen it on a friend’s Story the past year.
After we saw our favorite Japanese curry spot, Hinoya Curry, across the street and it was there we encountered our first no-English menu. Tokyo overall was great with English signage, but I’m convinced the best food joints don’t bother. Thank god they had pictures. And some learned Japanese and pointing eventually worked. Hinoya was already a favorite because they have a location up the road from us in SF so it was great to have the original. Can go unsaid, but it was just as good.
Another notable food spot we discovered early in the trip was Little Nap Coffee Stand, located in Tomigaya, which is a more residential area of Shibuya. It can be added to the many artisan coffee joints across the entire city. The Japanese seem to love their espressos and pourovers. The city seems to enjoy coffee in a relaxed fashion, not on-the-go, and later in the day. The earliest spots we could find opened at 9am! Not ideal on our first day where we out walking the streets by 7am because of jet lag. When they opened, though, Little Nap did a mean cappuccino and… cheese hot dog! Breakfast of champions.
First proper dinner was with Christopher’s best friend from his childhood and his wife, who have lived in Tokyo together for the past 6 years. This trip was Christopher’s first opportunity to visit them in Tokyo. I can not tell you the luxury of having a native speaker and can-definitely-get-by speaker with us. They guided us through an izakaya menu at a spot called Uoshin Nogizaka. Great miso soups, cabbage salad and globs, I mean GLOBS, of uni. We were properly satiated. The dinner discussion included a deep-dive into all our observations the first 24 hours….
The school kids’ uniforms (a military-styled uniform for boys and a sailor outfit for girls) and the seemingly endless freedom they have roaming the city streets and trains. Apparently they are allowed to travel on public transportation unsupervised at the age of 5. Have I mentioned Japan feels (and is) incredibly safe?
No public trash cans. There was a series of sarin gas bomb attacks in trash cans in 1995, so the city did away with them. People in Tokyo have gotten used to carry their trash in a pocket or bag until they can dispose of it when they get home. Small, tiny “sacrifice” for the safety of the community. Amazing.
The streets are virtually litter-free. This ties into the above. Schools don’t hire janitors so kids are taught at a young age to clean up after themselves. Or is it the other way around? Either way, it’s known that it’s not someone else’s job to clean up your messes. I love this.
Tokyo feels safe. Well, that’s because it is. There are .36 homicides per 100k people, while the US has 5. The only thing Japan ranks higher than the US on, in terms of crime, is bicycle theft haha. It’s obvious right away this is because there are more bikes in Japan and more people who don’t bother to lock them up because Japan is safe!
We are giants here. In some train stations and most doorways, Christopher (6’ 5”) has to slouch to clear the ceilings! Lots of clothing sizes and shoes sizes won’t fit us here either. For a city that’s famous for its shopping, we unfortunately can only do window shopping for certain items lol. Another comment on that later.
Day two found us pulling out yen from the ATM and heading to the neighborhood of Shinjuku for some breakfast Soba. A girlfriend recommended a spot called Kameya, which is among the alleys of Omoide Yokocho (“Memory Lane”). Christopher and I pointed our way through our order and slurped up one hot bowl and one cold bowl of Soba at an 8-person corner bar. Many customers were eating their meals in sub-5 minutes and heading out. I think we might have overstayed our welcome by 10 minutes as we soaked in the novelty.
After, we walked over to a spot called Golden Gai, famous for its night life like Memory Lane, and it’s snug bars. Reminder that this was not a night time excursion for us— it was 10 o’clock in the morning! We were for sure the only tourists making our way through these alleys at this hour. We did, however, find a couple bars just opening (or still open?) We squeezed our way into a 4-stool tavern, joining two other patrons and the bartender in broken English and Japanese banter and beers. Christopher had his Lonely Planet Japanese language guidebook on him, which served us well for ordering, but mostly for a good laugh and ice breaker with our three new friends.
The rest of the day consisted of lots of quality time with old friends. We hopped on the train west to Eifukucho Station, where we met up with Christopher’s other friend, this time a college classmate, his wife and their new baby. First stop was the grocery store to get picnic items for our planned day in Omiya Park.
The grocery stores are packed with the most delicious snacks, sushi wraps and the famous egg sandwich. If you can look past the overuse of plastic (they individually wrap the bananas), a Japanese supermarket is my heaven. We found the most delicious cream puff in the refrigerated section that we went back to buy again after our time in the park. Whatevs, we were walking 10+ miles a day!
We later arrived at dinner with some family friends, one visiting Tokyo like us and other who’s from Japan but has been buddies with my dad since college. Again, so grateful for our meals with native speakers. Dinner was at a Tofu restaurant called Sorano Ebisu. I never thought I’d say this, but Tofu is delicious.
Finished the night off by exploring the local Shibuya bar scene and stopped by this trendy looking spot called Lilgo. I tried raw chicken liver for the first time… the English menu translation said “lightly cooked,” but it was definitely 0% cooked. Luckily didn’t get sick from it in the slightest, but still. Down to try most things at least once.
The second to last morning of our trip we grabbed coffee at this extremely boutique coffee shop called Starbucks since it was the only spot open before 9am. We took our drinks and walked to the neighborhood of Harajuku, walking distance from our hotel. Another observation from the trip was that it felt like there was a Hermes store (and other fashion houses) on every other corner in Tokyo. Harajuku was no different. The section we were exploring had a really neat mix of residential, narrow streets mixed with traditional houses, tiny cafes, and modern retail spaces. The architecture choice for your neighborhood Prada store, was bold, but at the same time, blended into the already architecturally diverse scene.
Our Harajuku morning walk turned into a hangout with Christopher’s friend from childhood, first with a visit to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, then to the Onitsuka Tiger store. It was shopping at this Japanese store where we learned that most spots in Japan only sell up to women size 8 and men size 11, bummer for us Big Foots! We capped off the first half of our day at a spot called Unatetsu for an unagi (freshwater eel) lunch. Plan later was to regroup and meet up again in the neighborhood of Ginza for dinner and drinks.
And Ginza did not disappoint. Again, Tokyo is a designer store mecca. I poked my head into Komehyo, which has various stores throughout the city but its largest/nicest is in Ginza with its second hand designer options. Maybe one day I’ll throw down for a 3.2 million yen Hermes bag…
Pre dinner drinks and snacks was a well-known Yakitori spot, called Marugin, which includes the most delicious meat skewers as well as refreshing lemon shochu highballs to wash it down. I didn’t order it, but Marugin is famous for being the first bar to create the Japanese Whiskey highball. Definitely a spot I’d recommend.
Heck, the whole evening was fantastic. The whole agenda, planned by our buddy, covered lots of his favorite spots. Dinner was at Shimantogawa Ginza and post dinner drinks was an excursion to the Imperial Hotel’s Old Imperial Bar, which has a nod to the 1923 design of the hotel by Frank Loyd Wright. Christopher ordered its famous Mount Fuji cocktail, made the same way with gin, pineapple, lemon, egg white and cherry garnish since the 1920s. Finally, we ended the night “scandalizing” ourselves at Dogenzaka Church, a chapel-turned-bar. Or maybe it was a bar built to resemble a church? Either way, bartenders dressed as nuns was included! The Japanese do love their cosplay. We did our last night in Tokyo correctly.
In sum, Tokyo is the easiest direct flight from San Francisco. Four nights was perfect for what we set out to see/do in one city and given our work schedules. We will indeed be back. More of the country to see next time. Counting our blessings that the cherry blossoms bloomed late this year!
Kanpai xx