Learning not to Walk & Eat in Tokyo

Japan! It had been on our top 5 list for a while, and when a great flight deal appeared, we decided to go for it with our friends Hilary and Nathan. We flew to Tokyo by way of LA, and lucked out with Economy Plus rows all to ourselves for the long-haul flight. Still, when we landed at Tokyo Narita 20+ hours after leaving home, we weren’t as wide awake and chipper as you might think. The train from the airport into the city took longer than we all expected, and we were fighting sleep to not miss our stop. Needless to say, we didn’t have energy for much wandering that first night, and only went out to find our first vending machine ramen order (Nathan, Hilary, and Elisse got “frankly chicken soup”, which turned out to be pork, and Scott got “fish thick soup”, which also seemed to be pork, but with thicker noodles).

We slept well, but three of us woke up around 5am, and we were out of our Airbnb by 7am to start the day. We had heard so many recommendations of Japanese 7-Eleven that we decided it would be a good first stop to get a breakfast snack. (We had first thought about going to a coffee shop. NOPE. Coffee places don’t open until 10am, and even then apparently don’t get busy until noon. Coffee seems to be more of an afternoon break concept.) We had a great time investigating the Japanese convenience store options, and ended up getting a variety of snacks, some of which would become daily purchases throughout the trip:

• An individually packaged banana
• A sweet bun (that looked kind of like an uncut hamburger bun) filled with red bean paste
• A peach “yogurt drink” with a fat straw to be able to drink the little bits of cut up peach in it
• Onigiri: a triangle of rice with seaweed wrapped around it. The convenience store ones have a very clever plastic wrap that keeps the seaweed separate from the rice so that it doesn’t get soggy, but when you open it the right way, the seaweed is perfectly wrapped around the rice. On that first morning, Elisse got hers with a soft boiled egg in it, basically a much healthier Japanese equivalent of a western breakfast sandwich. (other flavors we liked throughout the trip included “tuna with mayonnaise” and “seaweed”, which had soy-marinated chopped seaweed in the middle)
• A chocolate croissant
• A bag of crunchy pickled plums (Scott really really did not like these)

Getting to the subway, we quickly learned that the Lonely Planet book wasn’t lying when it said that Shinjuku Station at 8:30am might be the busiest train station experience ever. It is. In the last half mile walking to the station, we passed a constant stream of folks in suits heading the other way to their offices. The station itself was also packed, and we found ourselves swept along with the flow of the crowd. It was the calmest, most polite, quietest, and least stressful crowd experience we’ve ever had, and that held true of the crowds throughout our trip. Everyone was paying attention to what was going on around them, not on their phones, not talking, not pushing, just following the flow and patiently waiting to get to where they were going. The same was true on the subway; no one talked, no one played music, and no one had any to-go coffees or food (which made a lot of sense when we learned how tightly packed we’d be with all the commuters).

Our first real destination was the Tsukiji fish market. This used to be where the famous fish auctions were held, but they’ve recently moved that part of the market to a less tourist-friendly location. We wandered around the stalls/shops of the market, tried a few snacks, and admired the many many fish-related products. Just before we left the market, we heard over a loudspeaker that one wasn’t supposed to walk around the market while eating (oops, guilty). Instead, you should stand and eat the food directly next to the stall where you bought it, and certainly not in front of someone else’s stall. This was the beginning of our journey of understanding that the Japanese do not eat on the go: it’s messy, impolite, and makes it so that you can’t focus on and enjoy the food as much.

Next we visited the Hamarikyu Gardens, a lovely large park with several different garden areas within it. Our favorites were the wooded path coated with little green pods that popped under our feet, the peony garden with skyscrapers in the distance, the pond surrounding a teahouse, and the wisteria trellised path. We stopped at the teahouse for a lovely tea and sweets before heading off to Ginza, the shopping district, for lunch.

By the time lunch was over, we’d already done everything we’d planned for that first day (that’s what happens when you leave home before 8am and the culture/weather doesn’t seem to support sitting on benches in public spaces). We wandered through Ginza and stopped in a couple shops, and then we were near the Imperial Palace, so we decided to wander towards it. We were exhausted by the time we got there (we had already walked something like 7 miles), so we just looked at the watchtowers and then headed off to get a beer on a terrace (which was incredibly difficult to find, but we made it and it was worth it). We managed to get on the subway at rush hour again :) and headed to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Shinjuku for dinner.

Phew! Can you believe that we’re just now getting to day 2?? On our second day, we visited Meiji-jingu, a shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife that is surrounded by 170 acres of forest in the middle of Tokyo. It felt like we were entering a different world as we walked down the wide wooded avenue leading to the shrine. By the time we reached the shrine, the noise and bustle of Tokyo seemed very far away, and we really enjoyed seeing the prayer rituals and architectural details of the building.

In the afternoon, we explored the Harajuku neighborhood, where we ate dumplings, checked out a few shops, kept an eye out for the fashionable youths, and visited an owl cafe. That evening, we went to an amazing 8-course dinner at Kaikaya by the Sea to celebrate Nathan’s birthday. We had probably the best sashimi of our lives and really delicious tuna cheek carpaccio, as well as 6 other very good dishes, ending with cherry blossom ice cream. The whole staff of the restaurant turned out the lights and came to the table to sing happy birthday to Nathan. :)

Such a packed and fun few days in Tokyo! The next morning we did a bit of wandering and experienced some of the biggest crowds of our lives while navigating the train station (it was the beginning of Golden Week, and it seemed like all of Tokyo was heading elsewhere — probably should have paid more attention to the warnings we’d heard about going to Japan during that holiday…). We did manage to get bento lunches and find unreserved seats for a relaxing train trip to Kyoto.