Japan Adventures: Tokyo

Hello from Japan! We're a few days into our trip and it's been a blast, and nerdy as it sounds, documenting and sharing that is a part of the fun.

So here's what we've been up to!

Tokyo

Saturday, May 11

What a very long "day" of travel!

I was up until 3:30am on May 10th packing, and I barely slept until I just woke up at 6:45. My Dad very kindly picked us up at 8:30am, and we got to the airport well over 3 hours before our flight. On the plus side, the airport was totally dead, and we breezed through checkin and security. I insisted we do breakfast at the nice sit-down pub (we didn't even have milk for bowls of cereal at home) and it was exactly the vibe reset we needed.

The flight was long and uneventful. There was a baby near us who barely made any fuss for those 13 hours, and I passed the time watching movies and trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep. I decided on the Mean Girls musical (which I liked better than the stage adaptation) and Prince of Egypt (I wasn't impressed with the added backstory to the Egyptian characters), but both had great choreography and camerawork! We watched The Last of Us together, which I really enjoyed, and I started an episode of the High School Musical show, which I really got a kick out of even though I've never seen the movie. They served two meals (I chose a meh beef and mashed potato for dinner and then a surprisingly yummy pork noodle breakfast), but the portions were pretty tiny.

Our plane touched down in Japan at 2:30pm on May 11th, which was earlier than we expected, but we made up for it by spending 1.5 hours in line for customs! Eventually we got through it, grabbed our bags, grabbed our wifi hot spot and an airport limosine bus. Unfortunately we hadn't eaten much, so and I was super hangry, but the bus is nearly 2 hours long with no way to stop for food.

There's a McDonald's right ourside our first hotel, so I grabbed some fries and “shaka shaka” cheesy chicken before checkin. The room is laughably tiny, and being in it feels like a cruise ship - including feeling like we're in motion! We showered and changed, and best of all: Steph and Carlos met us in the lobby for ramen!

Thank goodness they were there, because we were way too exhausted to navignavigate for ourselves! We were determined to go to Afuri, a ramen chain that's special to us because it's where we went the first night of our 2017 Japan trip. This one was in a food court and had a good line, but we got lucky and all got seats together! My yuzu shio ramen was delicious, and we all devoured our bowls. We stopped for makeup remover wipes, went back to the hotel, and zonked out!

Sunday, May 12

We started our first full Japan day by looking for a breakfast cafe or bakery, and wound up walking rheough a oeaceful area at the Terrace Roy at a nearby hotel.

We sat on said terrace, basking in the good weather and enjoying the most custard-y thick cut french toast, while the wife had velvety scrambled eggs with sausage and thick cut toast.

We had to check out of the hotel and migrate to our next one, where they were at least able to hold our bags since we were early. This place was cool as heck.

Our big Day 1 must-do was attending the Frieren exhibit at Sunshine City mall! We managed to get tickets through a middleman for the very last day of the exhibit (our first day in town), and we were so hyped! Of course, we got to the mall and immediately saw Pokestops for the Pokemon Center, Pokemon GO Lab, and Pikachu Sweets, so we had to make a couple "quick" stops first!

The Pokemon-themed escalator spat us out right in front of the Pokemon GO Lab, a small store with Sitting Cuties plush, stickers, and some Pokemon GO merchandise.

The main "show" area was occupied by a tournament, where trainers were apparently battling for a spot in the 2024 World Championship!

That meant the statues of Professor Willow and the team leaders were off to the side (where I could get selfies with them)! Miss_Editor bought herself a Go Plus+ so she could still catch and spin while doing all our navigation, and we both got stickers.

Pikachu Sweets, a take-out bakery (not to be confused with the Pokemon Cafe) was nearby, and we had to go - after all, it was still morning and they tended to sell out.

We got a combo that came with the Pikachu waffle, a flavoured latte with Pikachu foam art (we chose caramel flavour), and a random sticker. I obviously had to get the Alcremie ice cream, and the Pikachu plush holding a little Pika cake!

The ice cream was naturally my favourite, and Miss_Editor was right that it paired well when alternated with the latte (even though I generally hate coffee). The waffle was sadly underwhelming, but it was adorable! (Obviously I kept all the wrappers.)

We tossed our trash (the non-aesthetic stuff) into Garbodor, and admired some of the Pokemon statues nearby. We had been to the Mega Pokemon Center store on our first trip in 2017, but there was a huge line to get in, so we headed to the Souson no Frieren exhibit!

The line wasn't too bad (it was significantly worse by the time we left), but we were probably the only non-Japanese there - which made sense considering we found it on a Japanese website, and the entire experience was in Japanese!

The exhibit was primarily a retelling of the first season of the anime. The walls were adorned with high-quality prints of moments from the anime with descriptions and summaries, as well as standees of the characters and some nice photo ops (we decided not to wait an hour for the photo with the mimic). There were a few beautiful character statues, and iconic multimedia shows presenting moments from the anime in unique ways.

At the start, we were given a sheet with 5 objects you had to track down, because they contained the multiple choice questions you had to answer on your sheet. Doing so earned you a random chatacter postcard at the end. After that was the merch store, where the most unique item was a cookie box shaped like a minic eating Frieren!

Afterwards, I had to hit up Pikachu Sweets again to get the Polteageist milk tea, which involved a little interactive experience! I tipped Polteageist by the handle, and at first got just a few drops of tea, until the ghost did a little dance on its own and poured the rest of the tea. The tea didn't have a very strong flavour, but it was fun to mix. I couldn't stop laughing at Polteageist's performance! All the workers did an amazing job and made both visits so special!

Since there was no longer a line at the Mega Pokemon Center, we walked right in, and it was packed! I tried to be somewhat restrained, and only bought relatively small items - mostly stationary and earrings. I also accidentally found the birthday counter and got a cute little birthday card.

We decided to head back to the new hotel now that we could finally check in. We dumped some of our goodies and had a good rest, and then headed out to Harajuku for some shopping. Miss_Editor had some luck and got some very fashionable pieces, and I was immensely jealous of her very cool oversized sweater-jacket!

We strolled down the main boulevard a bit longer, and were seduced by a huge gashapon store. We both had pretty great luck here - I completed the set of "Pokepeace" food charms, and tried another machine with sets of Pokepeace food stickers.

By now it was 8:30pm or so, and we hadn't had a proper lunch or dinner. We googled around, changed our minds a few times, got in one line that wound up cutting off right before us, and just wound up heading back to our hotel and hitting up the Italian place next door.

This turned out great - we had yummy garlic bread, herb fries, and spaghetti with thick cut bacon! We were totally full and thoroughly zonked by the time we got back to the hotel!

Monday, May 13

Like the day before, we were both up by 7am and eager to start our day in spite of the rain. We got breakfast at the little bakery in our hotel and ate it in the very cool lounge. Then it was off to Shiro Hige for Tottoro-shaped cream puffs!

This adventure took us to a quiet part of the city, full of beautiful old-school Japanese buildings and lush greenery. We waited outside a quaint house in the rain for some 40 minutes to get a seat in the tiny cafe, and it was worth the wait! We ordered a latte and chai milk tea, a curry croquette, plus the famous cream puffs, one cream and one chocolate filling. Everything was incredibly delicious and charming, and we had a great time!

We wanted to hit Shinjuku next, and I wanted to priorize getting new glasses at Jinz. I was pretty anxious about it (especially since the store had a system I didn't totally understand), but it wound up going very well. I tried on tons of glasses around the store, not really finding anything that felt great. That was, until I put on a cute pink pair with round frames and burst into tears. It felt so...me!

I also grabbed some sunglasses I really liked that I wanted for prescription sunglasses, and brought them plus my prescription (which I had almost forgotten to grab before our flight) to the counter. Unfortunately, the sunglasses couldn't use prescription lenses, but they did offer add-ons like UV dimming, which would be amazingly helpful for my sensitive eyes. The clerk explained that for an additional fee, they also had photochromic dimming for general bright environments - and I felt myself getting emotional again. It's not uncommon for me to find it too bright even indoors, and that can be really hard to deal with. The poor store clerk probably wasn't expecting a customer to cry over glasses! All told, my glasses came out to around $150 CAD - unheard of in North America! Miss_Editor also got a pair for fashion, and we're both already talking about getting more before our trip is done!

I was determined to visit Loft next, and as the rain sputtered off and on, I insisted we stop at a Lawson store themed after Monster Hunter!

I don't know the series at all, but it was so fun seeing all the decor, from the walls to the coolers. I had to get a little washi tape for fun!

The rain was picking up as we dodged through side streets, but my eye was caught once again - this time by these ADORABLE macarons! I had to get a yellow bunny-shaped mac with a pretzel!

Finally we arrived at Loft, a huge household goods/gifts store. We got all kinds of beautiful items, and then met Steph and Carlos in the stationary section! We all got fun stuff, and then had to go to another floor for our tax rebate, which involved a long line and only learned after 30 minutes that if you got the rebate, you couldn't open your bags until leaving the country. What a pain!

We were all exhausted by now, so we hit up an Excelsior Cafe for a sit-down. Miss_Editor and I shared a peach jelly drink and a shrimp and salmon pretzel sandwich, yum!

Carlos went back to the hotel, and Steph brought us to GiGO game center, where she tried to win some Pokemon plush, and I had to go to Fan Gamer that was selling merch for Undertale, Shovel Knight and more.

But I didn't want the merch - I only needed a taiyaki of Undyne from Undertale!

From there, we caught the adorably tiny Hachiko bus to Laforet, a shopping complex in Harajuku. Miss_Editor got some cool cyberpunk-style pieces from a brand doing a collab with Hatsune Miku, and Steph and I enjoyed browing a Sailor Moon shop next door.

I fell in love with an oversized sweater-jacket at a small shop called Oz that I can't wait to wear, and Miss_Editor also got a cool oversized shirt there.

Now it was evening, and the three of us dashed through the rain to drop off our goodies at the hotel, and meet Carlos at Shinjuku Station for dinner. We found a neat omurice place, and I got yummy butter chicken omurice!

Then it was a race in the rain to get to the Muscle Girls Bar! Thankfully we made it on time, but Miss_Editor and I were thoroughly soaked (we have to get some umbrellas already). We lined up to enter, and the guy in front of us proudly explained it was his 16th time there, and the hostess seemed happy to see him and even saved him the chair right by the Twitch camera.

We were welcomed by our muscle girl, Tomo from Argentina, who had some sick anime tattoos. We started with giant steins of alcoholic mix drinks, and being asked who wanted to try the chest press challenge on stage. Both Carlos and Miss_Editor were down, and Carlos almost made it to the 50 reps mark! We explained to Tomo we were there for our honeymoon and Miss_Editor's birthday, and she asked how we learned about the bar. Miss_Editor explained she's really into fitness and had heard about the bar online, and of course Tomo asked to see the muscles and was very impressed!

Since it was her (early) birthday, I had to buy Miss_Editor some silly experiences - from being "honeymoon carried " by Tomo, to getting a "muscle sandwich"! Miss_Editor bought Carlos a "muscle injection" (aka a protein shot) since he failed the chest press, and the muscle girls put on super fun, high-energy shows in between, which I cheered my head off for. We finished the night with a "family photo" of us with almost all the girls!

Our time slot ended, and as we were all sheparded out into the rain, Carlos got chatting with some very drunk patrons, and eventually got recognized. Well, maybe "recognized" is a strong word - Carlos asked the guys what their favourite video of his was, and they just said "any one where you're talking to the camera!"

"Can I get a photo with you?" the guy shout-asked as rain splattered against his umbrella.

Carlos is a good guy. "On one condition," he said. "My channel name is Insaneintherain. We have to take the photo in the rain."

To his credit, the guy didn't hesitate to set aside his umbrella and pose with Carlos in the Tokyo downpour, and we all couldn't stop laughing.

We were soaked on the train ride home, but we were all in good spirits and happily exhausted. Talk about an end to our Tokyo stay!

On May 14th, we caught a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, but that's for another newsletter!

Keep an eye out, though - we plan to livestream soon (tonight, in fact, if you're in North America) where we can chat about the journey so far, so make sure to turn on those Twitch notifications!