Back to those Tokyo Nights [Japan]
Back in Vietnam, my exchange friend Will introduced me to the song "Tokyo Nights" by Digital Farm Animals. It quickly became the theme song of Grad Trip 2018, and let me tell you — there's nothing quite like hearing that song IN Tokyo (and Jackie Chan by Tiësto, because... you know, "I just ordered sushi from Jap-a-a-an"). I loved it so much that I even made it the background music for my Summer 2018 vlog, which got posted in a much more timely fashion than these blog posts (hah!).
Day 1: To Infinity and beyond!
Even the elevator was infinity mirror-themed.
While most people fly into Tokyo, we boarded a high-speed JR train from Sapporo in the north. It took a good 7.5 hours (again: thanks Jenny for putting up with my nonsense to see a blue pond!). A few months prior, I had booked tickets to see the brand-new Yayoi Kusama museum in the suburbs of Tokyo — so that was our first stop. The Yayoi Kusama craze had hit Toronto around the same time, but tickets at the Art Gallery of Ontario were IMPOSSIBLE to acquire with my slow Kingston-quality internet. Naturally, the solution was to give up on seeing her Infinity Mirror work in Toronto and look at them in Japan instead. Don't worry, I know how ridiculous that sounds.
Contemporary art is definitely my favourite, and while I may not quite understand the penchant for polka dots or pumpkins, I still loved it. If you go, please be aware that the museum is a little smaller than you might expect.
The airbnb trials and tribulations continued in Tokyo, such that we ended up finding and booking accommodations off Airbnb (as in, via email / with cash) with an expat family in an area called Kichijoji. This was a total blessing in disguise — we would have never visited this area otherwise, but Kichijoji was absolutely beautiful with picturesque parks, families, paddleboats, hip shops, and dogs everywhere. The accommodations were clean and comfortable, although Jenny got the shorter end of the stick (sleeping on a traditional Japanese tatami futon while I had a bed). We resided on the second floor of the family's home, which involved climbing some perilously steep steps!
One of the nice things about staying in a fairly residential part of Tokyo was that we got to see people lead their daily lives. Somehow, there were TONS of children in the cutest outfits being escorted around by adults. We saw parents reading to their kids on the train and kids pushing around even younger kids' strollers down the street. It was adorable.
Night and day in Kichijoji
Here, we also found matcha cremia! Jenny was super excited to try cremia, but I personally found that it tasted like regular cream and melted so quickly that it was a bit challenging to eat. I was much more content to gorge myself on excessive honeydew and matcha soft serve from convenience stores.
Day 2: Glitz and Grub
The next day, we started fairly early to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. Since I've been so slow at writing these posts, I heard that the fish market has since moved locations (end of an era). But back in the day, it was extremely popular for people to head to Tsukiji at like 5 in the morning for the tuna auction. We didn't get up quite that early, although we still saw a giant tuna fish getting filleted at some point (who knew they were so large?). We also saw bonito flakes getting dried — it was fascinating to see the process, and to realize that bonito fish were pretty large too!
I regret being a bit of a party pooper food-wise. I had never eaten sushi before going to Japan, but KNEW that I needed to try it here. My palate wasn't refined yet — I had no idea that I was tasting some of the freshest fish in the world. We went to a reasonably busy stall and got chirashi bowls with medium fatty tuna and roe (+ miso soup). Arriving around 10 am was a good choice to avoid lineups; it only got busier closer to noon.
After Tsukiji, we headed to Ginza, which is a pretty glam and upscale area of Tokyo. We spent the afternoon browsing flagship and department stores — we saw luxury cars on display at the Nissan store, and went to places like Ginza Wako, IDC Otsuka, and Tokyu Hands for home goods. Walking to these places straight up made me feel poor. All these flagship stores in Ginza have multiple floors of beautiful STUFF. At Tokyu Hands, I bought Calvin a fancy Hario Buono kettle. Apparently, the ones you can get overseas are NOT authentically made in Japan, and Calvin wanted the real deal.
My absolute FAVOURITE store was Ginza Itoya. Imagine 12 storeys of paper goods and stationery. I was in heaven. We spent over two hours here buying brand new Pilot Juice-up pens, Zebra mildliner highlighters, sticky notes and dateless agendas. I hunted for my elusive "One Line a Day" saddle-stitch notebooks, but unfortunately, all the notebook sizes are too standardized in Japan (with the wrong size for my needs). The whole place was so aesthetic — we contributed to the paper flower wall and posed for copious pictures!
In what world can you find a whole FARM and cafe in a stationery store?
After visiting these flagship stores, I grabbed some almond bubble tea at an outdoor stand and visited the "Kit Kat Chocolatory." This place was a bit disappointing, to be honest! It was a cafe that... DIDN'T sell that much Kit Kat paraphernalia? Seems strange considering Japan is famed for its localized Kit Kat flavours. We also tried going to a restaurant called Sanshuya (heavily recommended by Lin Ke), but it was closed. We went to a tempura restaurant instead for an afternoon snack. The cool thing about a lot of restaurants in Japan is how specialized they are: a tempura place primarily sells tempura, a ramen shop only does ramen, a sushi place only has sushi, a katsu place only serves katsu, etc.
Afterwards, we made our way to Mori Tower and Tokyo Tower at ✨golden hour.💫 One of the most unexpected surprises was that Tokyo Tower was randomly ONE PIECE themed?! I literally have no words for this.
The raspberry scoop was clearly the weakest link!
As evening came around, we walked to Shinjuku for the famed Shinjuku Crossing! I got raspberry and matcha ice cream at a place called TiKiTaKa, BUT the entire raspberry scoop comically fell off as soon as I got it. Thankfully, the shopkeeper graciously replaced the scoop for me!
Next, we met up with my childhood friend Albert! Albert was also on grad trip with his friends Seung Hun and Andre. Now here's where we reprise my cash woes from Sapporo. At this point, I still did not have cash in the mecca of Japan's cash-based society. To solve for this, my parents stumbled upon Albert and his dad in the neighbourhood a couple of days before HE was serendipitously scheduled to fly to Japan, too! He offered to bring USD for me across the ocean in an envelope.
The five of us ended up getting along very well! We spent hours running around Shinjuku trying to find a dinner spot that would serve all of us. We ended up grabbing skewers in the Golden Gai area with its narrow alleyways, then headed off for a night of karaoke! I vividly remember Jenny asking to choose between a karaoke night and kobe beef later in the trip. Sometimes instant gratification has to win out.
Day 3: You can't rain on my parade
The next morning, we went to McDonald's (I know, I know!) for a chicken cutlet. I thought it was a cheese cutlet, but it was actually just regular tonkatsu. I LOVE the cutlets that you can get all over Japan (at 7/11, Family Mart, McDonald's, etc.). We checked out Shibuya Crossing during the daytime — it was pretty crowded, but from the ground level, it honestly felt pretty similar to other intersections around the world.
Next, Jenny and I went to a place called "Happy Pancake" for soufflé pancakes! It was cool to see them make the pancakes in front of us by layering two dollops of batter. This kicked off my "jiggly" series on Instagram, where I questioned whether various dishes were truly jiggly enough. I went for the citrus flavour while Jenny had chocolate. The guys tried to meet up with us again, but they went to the wrong location.
It was a bit of a rainy day, so we browsed some shops. We visited Tower Records — shocking to see that people still buy CDs! I heard it's still common in Japan. We then checked out Yoyogi Park and Meiji Shrine, where we met up with Albert, Seung Hun, and Andre again. The park was super atmospheric in the rain.
The next district we checked out was Harajuku, which is so canonically ~Japan~. There were kawaii shops and pastel colours everywhere. We ran into a bunch of the shops mainly to fend off the rain, but a lot of them were Ardene-like in terms of quality (in other words: low). The two common goods sold in the area seemed to be cute socks and crepe cones (not from the same store). We also went to... the PINKEST washroom ever?! I unfortunately did not take a picture of it. I also discovered Daiso (the Japanese dollar-store equivalent), which had some unique staple products like pre-moistened q-tips! To close out the afternoon, we went for some super long garlic fries. To make them, a potato puree got put into a squeeze tube, which was then dispensed directly into hot oil for deep-frying.
Then we made our way back to Shibuya to meet up with my exchange friend, Aisha, by the Hachiko Statue!! Aisha was raised in Japan, and she seemed shocked that I would visit. We ended up having a pretty large group, which made it difficult to find somewhere to eat (we had seven people including me, Jenny, Aisha, her friend, Albert, Seung Hun, and Andre), so we made our way to a department store called the Hikarie building. Aisha's Japanese skills came in handy here, and I wound up eating some simple sticky chicken wings and miso soup with rice.
Aisha also took us to the second floor of Starbucks to see a prettier view of Shibuya Crossing, although it still wasn't as busy as I expected. Then we grabbed some Coco bubble tea, which allowed me to get my fix of orange yakult! 😋 The boys tried their hands at the claw machines at VR Park Tokyo to no avail, then checked out their Airbnb in Shinjuku. I'm glad we didn't stay in this area — it was pretty much a red light district with a ton of ladyboys and a darker, more belligerent side of Tokyo on a Saturday night. Overall, it was fun to hang out with friends new and old!
Day 4: Temples and technology
I am a menace 😵💫
The next morning, I was in the mood for more ramen while Jenny wanted some rice. Since most restaurants are specialized, we compromised by hitting up two establishments and getting a bit of both. I also tried a matcha cremia float, which was an improvement over the cone on its own.
Our metro passes were about to expire, so we then rushed to Sensoji Temple. Here, we finally saw a bunch of people (mostly tourists?) in yukatas! They seemed to have a hard time walking, so we didn't bother with rentals. I got a matcha ice cream melon pan around here. Another unexpected custom is that people are expected to consume their snacks completely while standing in front of the vendor — there are no garbage cans lining the streets. Near the temple, we saw a monkey doing crazy tricks and checked our fortunes. Mine was so comically bad that I couldn't help but laugh it off. Thankfully, 2018/2019 were both great years for me...?
Afterwards, we spent 45 minutes walking through the suburbs of Tokyo. It was so nice and warm! It felt like we were getting the real "Japanese" vibe as we walked along aesthetic alleyways. We stopped for some canned drinks along the way — pro tip, Kokumin is a cheaper drug store than other options like 7-Eleven or Family Mart (or was it cheaper simply because we were in the suburbs?).
Eventually, we made our way to Akihabara, which screamed "TOKYO" in all its busy glory. While I would've certainly enjoyed this district 10x more back in my weeb days, it was still fun exploring the shops. In the giant Bic Camera department store, Jenny and I deliberated hard over purchasing hot irons and cosmetics, before ultimately abstaining.
For dinner, we'd heard about a standing sushi place, but they were all out of sushi for the day. Instead, we went to a place called Kizuma Sushi where we had delicious ootoro, grilled crab butter, and salmon sushi. You really can't go wrong with sushi anywhere in Tokyo. Jenny went for one more serving of Coco Curry for our last night in Tokyo, including a haul of packaged curry sauce to bring home. To cap off the evening, we had fun taking haul pictures of everything we'd gotten in Japan thus far.
That's it for Tokyo! Would I go back again? Absolutely. I felt like I barely scratched the surface of everything there is to see, do, eat, and buy in the city. Many cities around the world feel similar, but Tokyo is one-of-a-kind.