Ohhhhh Tokyo. Where do I start?
Should anyone that knows me be reading, then you’ll know I booked flights with my sister to go in 2020. Two days after booking them, I read a small news article about a mystery virus in China.
Then they carried on with mask-wearing for a good year or two after we discarded them, so I decided to wait a bit longer before re-booking.
Then my sister was diagnosed with heart failure.
I wasn’t going without her.
And around last July, on bonus day at work, I checked the flight prices – just £850 return with ANA, flying direct. We booked the same day.
Super Play
Visiting Japan has been in my dreams since I was young – it wasn’t quite above going to Ibiza – that was more a spiritual, house music thing, a soul thing – you know.
My first two recollections were reading about it in a magazine, I think, called Super Play, when I was about 11 or so, which was a magazine about Super Nintendo games – Nintendo being Japanese, and they had quite cute Japanese features from their occasional trips there that piqued my interest.
Also my mother went there for work around that kind of time, maybe a bit later. And it all just sounded so different.
Then more recently, I’ve just fallen in love with the idea of a more organised, respectful society that Japan offers. The cleanliness, the societal rules to follow (though they do cycle on pavements), no talking on the metro – definitely no playing music outside, no eating whilst walking, etc etc. I mostly love the chaos of London, but gosh it can get a bit much sometimes.
It was so clean and tidy, that I’d take photographs when I actually saw a piece of litter.
Oh and before anyone else asks, because everyone asks, we have cherry blossom in Croydon, and I was fine not seeing any in Japan.
Arriving
We left Heathrow at 7pm…well…8pm because Britain, and we arrived into Tokyo around 5:30pm – 14 hours later.
I did get some sleep on the flight – but not much.
Then it was out into the lights and craziness of Shinjuku, where we were staying – there were 4 of us on the main trip, but also we had a few others that we knew out there at the same time.
Shinjuku is an overwhelmingly busy area but also full of bright lights, colourful characters (both human and in signage) and just way, way too much to look at and see.
Oh and I had the first of many, many deep fried dishes – not just chicken.
Temples And Stuff
In a city of 14 million people (and wider conurbation of 37ish million) – 3 days is never going to be any more than just scratching the surface of a city. Most of the time we were in Shinjuku or Shibuya – and there is soooooo much more to the city. Guess we’ll have to go back?! How much are flights? OK, maybe I’m not yet ready for another 14 hour flight.
We tried to ease ourselves into the craziness, and it was pretty hot too – nothing unbearable but enough.
We started at Meiji Jingu – a shrine.
I don’t know much about shrines but the gardens were very pleasant to walk around, the gates were stunning – and I loved the sake offerings and all the different barrels.
Around the corner was Yoyogi Park which is worth a wander around if you need some peace – and anyone visiting Tokyo surely does at some point.
Then we decided to attack our senses again.
Not sure why everyone was taking a photo of the sign, but thought I’d do so also.
Take Shita
So Takeshita Street is an experience, and there is no way a second-time visitor would walk down (surely?).
Immensely busy, almost all tourists, and random cutesy places (like almost everywhere we visited) but also things like animal cafes which is a bit, hmmm, gross, from an animal rights perspective – hedgehogs in tiny tanks, for example. I’m hardly a vegan or animal rights activist but it didn’t sit right with me.
Maybe they are happy in there?
Outside of that street, the area is really quite cool, lots of interesting clothes shops (yes, for men too – the shopping in Japan is another level), a couple of cute craft beer places, one or two small art galleries and more of a mixture of tourists and locals.
Planets
Probably the most brilliant thing we did in Tokyo was go to Teamlab Planets – which was a large warehouse of immersive art, split into forest, garden and water zones – if I remember them correctly.
The forest area was the largest zone, and as we had Mario Karts booked (well, I didn’t as I don’t have a driving licence) we perhaps rushed it a tad – you could have spent hours inside.
The first part involves downloading an app, catching extinct animals in your “net”, reading about them, then releasing them.
I think there were about 30 different installations – quite a few interactive and involved walking on stepping stones without falling in the “water” (not actual water, just looks like it), walking on moving steps, crossing the colourful balls, being able to draw and get your artwork included somehow (we didn’t have time for this)…and so much I don’t remember now.
Whilst the water wasn’t real in the stepping stones above, it was real in the water zone – and you had to leave your shoes behind and walk barefoot through the next area.
The most memorable was walking through water not far away from my knees and watching the “fish” swim around. A very curious experience to walk barefoot and in water, whilst in an art exhibition.
Terrible photo but:
In the garden, the main exhibition was these flowers on some kind of motor that would move up as you approached them – from a distance it just looked like a room of flowers dangling from the ceiling, but you could gradually make your own path through them, with a bit of patience.
It was stunning. If you go to Japan then you simply have to do this. Teamlab have a few different exhibitions in Japan but also some other countries like Singapore, I think – so worth keeping an eye on.
Samurais And Stuff
We ticked off various other things – a trip to a samurai museum whilst the ladies had their tea ceremony. Believe it or not, I had zero interest in a tea ceremony.
The museum was actually quite interesting, and was good to get an understanding of the social structures in the past in Japan, and some history too.
We also had a roast dinner – and there were actual Japanese people eating them, watched Godzilla light show on a building, and saw the actual Godzilla poking his head above a hotel – I didn’t even realise that Godzilla was real.
We went to Shibuya Crossing and crossed it like normal people.
And a photograph, of course.
It’s actually just a road crossing and not very interesting.
Oh and we made friends with the local Fuck Trumpers.
I’m sure we did so much more though I’m even more certain that we barely scratched the surface of Tokyo, and I simply have to go again. Again, and again, and…well…let’s wait until I’m psychologically ready for another 14 hour flight maybe.
Oh we had fire hydrant training when walking past a fire station. Why? Who knows. Tokyo. I’m welling up. I miss it so much.
Eating In Tokyo
Food was a mixed bag in Tokyo, though normally very good – it was a fairly loosely planned holiday so most places were unbooked with maybe 10 minutes research whilst on a train. I prefer to book and research in advance, but it was a 14 day trip and it felt like we were still booking hotels the day before, let alone researching restaurants. I did do plenty of craft beer research though.
The worst thing I ate was this under-cooked chicken ball with slimy cheese on top, from a shack near a street known as “piss alley”. Probably should have researched this.
Mixer’s near Takeshita Street (still no idea why we went to Takeshita) offered gorgeous broth in their ramen, but horrid thick noodles. Not for me.
CALDO PARADISO was a Thai place and I ended up with a bean sprout omelette – and some very necessary salad:
We pretty much went there because it was close to a damn excellent craft beer place called Beer Bomb in Shinjuku.
One of my favourite meals of the whole holiday was a broccoli steak at Enrich:
Cajun broccoli steak, quinoa and raspberry yogurt – this was the stage of my trip where not everything was fried.
Another one of my favourite meals was at Nonki – an Izakaya restaurant where the total bill came to about £15.00 for multiple dishes each, sake, wine and beer – an insanely cheap price.
I cannot quite remember what I ordered – I definitely had fried chicken too.
The final meal was at Shibuya Zetton, another Izakaya restaurant where I tried angelfish (probably shouldn’t eat almost-uncooked fish the night before a 14 hour flight but was too late before I clocked) along with some other things like beef ribs.
Not sure I’d say any dish was OMG you have to go to Tokyo just for that dish, but OMG you have to go to Tokyo.
Drinking In Tokyo
Craft beer is the one thing I researched quite extensively before I went, and the one thing I probably didn’t need to.
Some of the most fun comes from the tiny little bars – 300 of them in Golden Gai, for example – worth wandering around and poking your nose into one or two. Most can fit like 6 people in, maybe 10 at a push – quite how they pay their rent is another question, but also they probably aren’t being shafted like bars in the UK are.
Piss Alley is also of a similar vibe, named because none of the bars had toilets back in the day – so…you can work it out.
Tap & Tumbler in Ebisu was one of my favourite places for a beer – it was pour your own, like Vagabond in London, and they had some mighty fine hazy IPA.
The more surprising place was getting a banging NEIPA in Tower Records. Nowhere to sit down, but you could watch people record shopping.
We also went to Yebisu Brewery – which was this huge grand hall – quite different from all the tiny, poky places we were mostly drinking in. Average beer, but interesting as a venue. Plus we had our fire extinguisher training nearby so it is a fond memory through association.
Tokyo Beer Lab was a cool little spot, Mikkeller was actually a great bar – even if I felt bad for drinking European beers in Tokyo.
And Beer Bomb in Shinjuku also had some damn excellent beers.
Ending The Chaos
I appreciate that I’ve just done a lot of tourist things and even then not really scratched the surface of Tokyo – yet I totally fell in love with this bewildering city.
Next on the trip was a couple of days in Hakone, and a relaxation of the senses – which had been overloaded.
But gosh, I so so so so so so so so loved Tokyo. So much.
Arigato Gozaimasu, Tokyo.
