Tokyo Drifting

Friday, July 19, 2019

Since The Husband was spending so much of his vacation time with the Boy Scouts this summer, I would have plenty of unused vacation time by the end of the year.  Never one to give up vacation time, I decided to take The Girl on a mother-daughter trip.  After mulling over our options (we couldn't go somewhere The Husband had never been to), The Girl picked Japan.  The Husband and I had been there many years ago and had visited a lot of the major tourist sites.  So I decided that this trip would focus less on history and more on culture and experiences.  After seeing The Husband and The Boy off on their Philmont adventure (this will be the longest that The Husband and I would be away from each other since our marriage), The Girl and I boarded our own flight and flew to Tokyo with a brief layover in Houston.


Saturday, July 20, 2019


After landing in Tokyo, I sent our large suitcase to our hotel in Kyoto via takkyubin which is Japanese door to door delivery service.  There are several companies that offer this service but Yamato is the biggest and most well-known.  Luggage forwarding is a very convenient and common practice in Japan and they offer next day delivery to most locations in the country.  We were left with a carry-on suitcase that allows easier movement on the train and subway systems.

The Yamato counter at Narita airport

I also purchased a Pasmo card and loaded it with about $50.  Pasmo is a rechargeable smart card that allows you to use subways and trains without having to purchase separate tickets each time.  It can also be used as a payment card in stores and vending machines.  There are a few alternatives, Suica and Icoca, but they all offer the same benefits.

We then boarded the Narita Express, a fast train that services Narita airport and a few select stops in Tokyo, bound for Shinjuku station.  I decided to stay near that area because our next stop is Hakone. There is a train that goes directly to Hakone from Shinjuku station.  While on board, I popped in a sim card that I had purchased on Amazon called Sim2fly which is suppose to offer 4G speed for 8 days for multiple Asian countries.  This sim card was much cheaper than the different Japanese ones that were being offered.  Except it wasn't working!  After trouble shooting via their tips and trying to contact the company (they are located in Thailand, and they could only chat in Thai which I don't speak...), I was freaking out because all my plans were dependent on access to the Internet!  Somehow an idea popped into my head to shut down and restart my phone, and voila! It worked! Divine intervention perhaps?!

After arriving at Shinjuku station an hour later, we were able to locate our hotel easily with our new internet connection.  I decided to stay at JR Kyushu Hotels Blossom Shinjuku because it's only about a block away from the train station and newer than some of the other options at the same price range.  We got a double room which was a tight squeeze even with one person being a child.

Our tiny double room.

A decent-sized bathroom in comparison

It had been a long trip, and we had gotten only limited sleep.  So, we decided to just walk to the shopping center around the corner for dinner.  After looking over our options, we decided on Afuri Ramen which turned out to be a chain.  We used a vending machine at the entrance to make our choices and got tickets which were handed to the workers.  Less than 5 minutes later, we were given two piping-hot bowls of noodles.  They were delicious!  While we were slurping away at our noodles, we noticed that everyone else had on paper bibs that protected their clothing from the soup.  We were not given bibs and there were none at the counter.  Do these people carry around paper bibs with them in case they decided to eat ramen?!

Yuzu shoyu ramen

Yuzu ratanmen

Japanese cheesecake, dense and delicious

Sunday, July 21, 2019


We were starting our day at Shibuya Crossing, the busiest intersection in the world.  After a brief subway journey, we arrived there to a very small crowd.  I had planned on having breakfast at a coffee shop that overlooked the crossing, Hoshino Coffee.  But due to jet lag and waking up early, we arrived before the coffee shop was open.  For whatever reason, a lot of Japanese coffee shops don't open until around 10 AM.  There was also a Starbucks at this intersection but I wanted to stick with local Japanese brands...and I already have a Tokyo Starbucks mug from my previous trip.

The famous Hachiko statue is also at Shibuya Crossing.  Hachiko was a dog that waited at this crossing for his owner to come home from work.  It did this every day even after its owner's death.  As a reward for the dog's loyalty, the Japanese erected this statue in its honor.

After taking pictures with the Hachiko statue and wandering around aimlessly for 30 minutes, we were the first patrons of the day for this coffee shop.  We took the only seats that offered a clear view of the crossing and ordered the souffle pancakes that have been popping up on Instagram posts.

Souffle pancakes

Shrimp, avocado & egg toast

The food was good but the crossing was a disappointment.  I didn't think about the fact that it was a Sunday and most of the busyness of the crossing was due to the working folks going to and from work.  The crowds did pick up a little as time went on but The Girl was not impressed.

The "busy" Shibuya Crossing on a Sunday morning

Our next stop was the Harajuku area.  We went into a store called Kiddy Land which I remember liking when I was there last time due to all the Hello Kitty merchandise.  It is a store that comprises 4 stories of Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Totoro, Marvel, Pikachu, anime, and various other cute merchandise.  The Girl was like a kid in a candy store and declared it the "best store ever."

The best store ever according to a 12 year old

After spending way too much time and money at this store, we went to a coffee shop called Reissue.  I had read about this place on someone's blog on the best coffee shops in Tokyo.  The owner of the cafe is an award winning latte artist.  Since we were still full from breakfast, we decided to skip lunch and just have some coffee.  The waiter took pity on me after seeing me trying to use google picture translate on their menu and handed me the English version of their menu.  The Girl picked 2D latte art with her picture and I picked 3D latte art of an elephant.  They took The Girl's picture and 20 minutes later, my daughter was presented to me in coffee form.  The resemblance was uncanny!  It really was so much fun.  An American couple at a table close to us liked it so much that they ordered four cups between them.

English directions on how to order your drink

The Girl as a coffee

Elephant and The Girl

We then walked down Takashita Street which is suppose to be a teenager's dream.  I had expected to see a lot more cosplay since it was a Sunday, but we only saw one girl that could be considered to be in costume.  The street was very crowded and had several tattoo parlors, Korean skincare stores, and generic souvenir shops.  Again The Girl was not impressed, and we left after a quick walk through.

Nearby was Harry's Hedgehog Cafe, and The Girl who is a big animal lover jumped at the chance to get close to another animal.  We had passed a cat cafe on the way but since The Girl is allergic to cats, she had to sadly say "hi" and "bye" to the cats through the window.  We decided on a 30 minute encounter (the other option was an hour) with the hedgehogs, and I shelled out extra money for mealworms for these critters.  Hedgehogs are nocturnal animals and most of them were sleeping peacefully in the gloved palms of the patrons.  Not the two hedgehogs that were assigned to us!  Our two "hedgies" must have been possessed or on drugs because we were hand-over-fist trying to catch them as they crawled/ran out of our hands.  The only way we got them to stay still was to curl our hands completely around them leaving only their faces out.  They did enjoy their mealworms and ate them right up.  The 30 minutes passed quickly but I don't think we would've enjoyed a whole hour with them.  In retrospect, I'm glad our hedgies were hyper because I don't think I can stare at a sleeping hedgehog for 30 minutes.

We could barely...

...keep them in our hands.

Someone else's peacefully sleeping hedgehog

While we were walking, a protest passed by.  It had a police escort that shut off all traffic at the intersection.  There was a car that was blasting chants of the protest and the people then repeated the chants.  I wish I could've understood what they were protesting.  But it was a very peaceful and civilized protest.

A police-escorted protest

It had been a long day and we decided to hit up the food hall of Isetan, a Japanese department store.  Almost all Japanese department stores have food halls and grocery stores in their basements.  After looking at all the various Nipponese foods on display, The Girl decided that she wanted dumplings from the only Chinese counter.  She had a sudden craving for them.  To balance out her choice of Chinese food in Japan, I purchased some sushi and we had a nice bed picnic at the hotel.

The delicious looking...

...fakes on display

About $10 per peach

Small head or big peaches?

Chinese dumplings that The Girl was craving

My yummy sushi dinner

This would be our last night in Tokyo.  When The Husband and I had visited, neither one of us had liked Tokyo very much and we both preferred the quiet and slower pace of the smaller towns and cities.  We had both liked Kyoto and wished we had more time to spend there.  So in planning this trip, I had dedicated the majority of our time to Kyoto.  The Girl, however, really liked Tokyo and thought it was "homey".  Now we don't live in a big city and she has never taken public transportation at home.  So why she thinks Tokyo is "homey" is beyond me.  Except for Tokyoite's, I don't think anyone would consider this city "homey."