Anniversary Blog 18 - Tokyo, Japan Part 1
This was the part of the trip I was looking forward to the most. After a long over night flight, and a layover in the Philippines, we landed at Narita Airport outside of Tokyo and took the bus over to our hotel, the Hilton Tokyo Odaiba. We enjoyed our first taste of sushi and sake, and it was everything I wished it to be. I’ve wanted to visit Japan ever since I was a kid. I grew up on anime, manga, and all the action movies that took their inspiration from the far east. Japan is literally a dream come true.
Our first full day in Tokyo, we got our first experience with the Tokyo Rail System and headed for the Imperial Palace area. Acting as the main residence of the Imperial Family, this area is huge, imagine the Washington Mall in DC where there’s a central complex and lots of museums, government buildings and palace grounds for you to explore.
One of the things that I love about Japan is how English friendly it is. We never felt lost due to all the signage written in the modern latin alphabet alongside the local kanji. There’s also a ton of Gairago, or foreign loaned words, that make it easier for locals and tourists to interact without speaking the other’s language. For example, Suupa is supermarket and kamera is camera.
We walked the entire area (over 5km) taking in the garden and grounds. Over 21k steps on the Fitbit, and well worth it. The grounds were beautiful, we got our first glance of blooming sakura (cherry blossoms) since we visited at the beginning of the season, and we got to enjoy people watching a culture very different from our own.
We also got our first taste of real ramen at Akanoren. We tried the Cha-Shu Hakata Ramen, the Za-sai Hakata Ramen, dumplings, and the Otumami set which gaves us additional toppings like boiled eggs, kimichi and extra pork slices for our ramen. The taste of the broth was so rich, and the noodles were perfectly cooked. The meats and veggies all mixed in perfectly. It was exactly what you’d want from your first taste of Japanese Ramen
On the second day we explored the Ueno area of the city. We went to the Tokyo National Museum where we checked out tons of archeological artifacts and art pieces. It’s interesting how different and similar the collections are to the ones we are used to seeing in museums in the West. The pieces dated from the Jamon period (12,000 years ago) to the 19th century. There was also a special exhibit of the Horyuji Treasures, a collection of amazing pieces from a Buddhist Temple.
Some of my favorite pieces were the Standing Juni Shinsho (Twelve Heavenly Generals). The statues are currently shared between two museums in Tokyo, but while we were there, all 12 were on display. Each sculpture represents an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. They’re very detailed and dynamic, and if you get a chance to see them in person, I highly recommend it.
We then walked around and found various street vendors near the temples. We tried octopus balls, crab sticks, dango (mochi sticks), and noodles and more while enjoying the locals. The vendors were all lively and excited, and it was interesting to experience this kind of vibe while also being within range of the temples. It’s like when a local catholic church puts on a fair, but this is just ongoing year round.
We continued to explore the Toshogu Shrine area. Buddhist temples are beautiful areas surrounded by nature and great architecture. But it’s a little odd how commercialized the whole situation is, at least from our point of view. They have a kiosk where you can buy your blessing and other assorted items, and then you take those to the temple to pray. I guess when you compare them selling blessings to how we use tithes and offerings in the West, it’s not that much different.
We walked down to explore Shinobazu No Ike Ben Ten and snacked more before we headed back to our hotel. That night we went to Diver City Mall and tried a kushikatsu (deep fried skewers) place called Kushiya Monogatari. You pick your meats and veggies and then go back to your table to deep fry them at your own personal fryer. It was delicious, but by the end of that meal, I was glad my gall bladder had been taken out.
The next day we took our first Shinkansen, aka bullet train (the trains in Tokyo are normal subway cars like any other city in the US), on a day trip down to the Fuji-san area to try to get up close and personal with Mount Fuji. Unfortunately for us, the weather was so crappy that even at the base of the mountain we couldn’t see anything above the gloomy cloud level.
Always ones to try to make lemonade out of lemons, we hopped on a bus and headed back into the town of Fujinomiya in Shizuoka. We wandered around checking out temples, shops and greeting locals. Finally, we stopped into a little outdoor food hall situation and tried a couple of the stands offerings. Some ramen, mochi, dumplings, a scallion pancake, noodles and more.
One of our favorite stops was the Fuji Takasago Sake Brewery. We did a tasting of a lot of locally brewed sake. I’d love to tell you I remember what we drank, but I don’t. All I remember is that it was all delicious. We ended up bringing a set of Junmai and Plum Wine back to Tokyo.
Once we were back in the city we grabbed dinner at Jin Din Rou. This place was amazing. We tried the soup dumplings, dried shrimp (in a chili sauce), fried rice, and more. There was a point in the late great Anthony Bourdain’s television career where he noticeably stopped trying to come up with new ways to describe delicious food. To paraphrase, ‘What more can I say? It’s good. The soup dumplings never even had a chance to get a pic taken of them before we scarfed them up.
We had way more of Tokyo to explore, and our next adventures took us to the world famous Shinjuku!
