We left Hawaii on a new airline, Japan Airlines (JAL), and after never flying on a non-US airline we were unsure of what to expect. Japan Airlines did not disappoint. JAL operates a 777 from Honolulu to Tokyo. The plane is massive, I believe the larger “Economy Plus” seats we had were still 2 x 5 x 2 seating arrangement, meaning, the planes is 9 big seats and 2 aisles wide. The cleanliness and service on this flight is something I don’t think I can go without mentioning. The plane was extremely clean and although it looked like it was put in service somewhat recently, it was not new at all, just very well maintained. The service was also something that was very good, even for us English speaking travelers. Most of the flight attendants spoke English well enough to take care of anything you asked them for and were able to take care of us just fine. We flew into Narita Airport, one of the major airports for the Tokyo area. We managed to locate my mom (Kinuko or Kim, as we will refer to her in the rest of the posts) wandering around the baggage claim area soon after we arrived. We directed her through the baggage claim and customs process on our way to the main lobby to meet up with my aunt and uncle. They were able to spot the three of us and graciously welcomed us to Tokyo. They had transportation already arranged to get us to the center of Tokyo where they live.
The drive back from Narita to Tokyo was similar to what you’d expect coming into most large cities, lots of tolls and traffic. Most of the transportation is similar to ours in the US, but not the same, and of course, everyone drives on the wrong side of the road here. They all have vehicles where the driver sits on the right hand side as well.
We’re currently staying in an extra home my aunt owns just a couple miles from the middle of Tokyo. The homes are nice, but everything is a bit miniature compared to American standards. The rooms are a bit smaller, the doors are much shorter, and just everything is about 4/5th’s the size. It all works quite well until you hit your head on a door frame. My mom decided to come back over for my cousin’s wedding, so we decided this would be a great time for us to come as well, mainly so I could meet my extended family here in Tokyo. The wedding is a few days off, so we’ve got a couple of days to be the non-Asian tourists, as the rest of the family is busy getting ready for the wedding. On Friday we we headed out with my mom (Kinuko) and her sister to the “Skytree Tower,” which is the largest tower in Tokyo, quite a bit larger than the original Tokyo Tower. Crazy thing is my aunt lives here and had never been. I guess the notion of being a tourist in your own city is a concept understood worldwide. After a trip to the top for some 360 degree breathtaking views of Tokyo, we ate lunch in one of the restaurants in the lower levels before heading over to see the Senso-ji temple. My aunt drove us to the Skytree Tower and then dropped us off in front of the temple because she needed to head back to get a few things done in preparation for the wedding. We’d need to navigate public transportation back to her home, this ought to be a fun…with Misty being a terrible navigator and, well my mom not being here in at least 15 years, we hoped this process went well. Glad I marked a pin to the place we are staying, just in case we needed to find another way back home. We had a great visit to the shrine and the shopping area directly in front of it. It’s filled with shops selling everything from incense to put at the shrine to foods and random waving cat souvenirs. The shrine itself stands at the end of the long shopping area and stands prominently over the surrounding area. People were making offerings in the form of coins thrown into this box that looked like it had an odd corrugated thing on top where the coins would fall into the collection area. Basically, you would wait in line, throw your offering into the box, say a prayer, and exit to the side so that the next person could do the same. The more formal area behind the glass (inside the actual temple) was also available and there were several people inside as well saying prayers at the shrine. We left the temple and sampled several things, such as Mochi, rice crackers, and other great Japanese treats from the vendors on our way back.
After making it back, we met up my aunt and uncle for our first trip to one of the conveyer belt sushi restaurants. Now there are many ways to get sushi here in Tokyo, but the place we had dinner was probably the most fun. I’ve gathered this is not the fanciest way to have sushi, but probably the equivalent to a casual family restaurant, maybe like a Cheddar’s sushi restaurant if that makes sense. The reason this one is the most fun, is because the chefs stand in the middle of the restaurant and put sushi on a little conveyer belt that moves around their area. As the sushi (and other goodies) come by and you see something you like, you just pull it off the conveyer belt and eat it! It might sound a bit mundane, but it’s pretty entertaining, at least for me. Ha!
The next day, my mom informed us that she had gotten pretty worn out on day one and would rather rest and help her sister with things around the house for the day. So, Misty and I headed to Shibuya on our own. We figured most of the areas had enough things in English that we would be able to get by pretty easily. This was true for the most part except for one little hiccup in the beginning where we had to transfer from the bus down to the subway station and must have been looking quite lost. A rather quirky man (carrying a mini-poodle) approached us asking us if we needed assistance and proceeded to help us understand what we were doing wrong in the best broken English he could muster. As we were following this guy around the subway station, he escorted us all the way down to the turnstile where we had to put our tickets in and made it into the fare payer only area. He gets an A for effort and an A+ for helping two wandering souls.
We made it to Shibuya without much issue after this and proceeded to explore the Shibuya Crossing, also known as the busiest intersection in the world. We had to take a moment and go up to the Starbucks that overlooks the intersection (as it gives you a birds-eye view of the crossing all happening at once. We made our way out and about through the shops and Misty just had to go check out the pachinko parlors from there. We didn’t play any pachinko, but these places make our casinos at home look pretty docile. These are some of the loudest games I’ve ever heard. You can hardly even hear each other yell in these buildings, but the nice thing is, much like our casinos at home, they always have trash cans, fresh drinks, and bathrooms. Well, the trash can thing is kind of odd, but in the 90’s or sometime around then in Tokyo there were terrorist groups blowing up trash cans, so they just removed them all. So when you have any refuse with you, you just have to carry it until you’re back in a business that has one which is pretty few and far between. We went down the to Tokyu Food Show for lunch to sample several different things and see the fancy produce areas, home to the $150.00 cantaloupe. Admittedly, it was probably the most perfect cantaloupe I’d ever seen, but it was a bit pricey, I thought. The pastries, baked goods, produce, local cuisine looked absolutely perfect, almost like art. It’s almost too pretty to eat. At this point we have had ramen, sushi, fried rice, etc. since we had been here, but we hadn’t had any yakatori yet, so Misty dug up a favorite spot by the locals, where we ate some of the best yakatori, washed down by a Sapporo of course. We managed to find our way back to my aunts house, where after just two days in the city, we ordered in yakiniku and gyoza for delivery so that we could just rest and relax before the wedding festivities the next day. Looking forward to meeting the rest of my family tomorrow.
