Days 13-17: Tokyo

We stayed in an area called Asakusa. That evening we decided to keep things easy and go get burgers, then walked around a huge temple, Senso-Ji, which was very pretty at night but still very crowded. I can’t imagine how many people are there during the daytime. We found another covered shopping arcade, so we wandered around there for a while, then headed back to our Airbnb. This house is super cute with a huge sunken wooded table right when you walk in, a teeny tiny kitchenette, then three bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Two of the bedrooms have 2 beds each in it, then the third bedroom has one bed. All with their own bathrooms, which is such a nice change. We can all spread out here.

Tuesday April 15th

We had tickets to a very famous art museum called TeamLab Planets. It takes about an hour to get down there, so we had to leave around 10:00. The museum itself is an interactive art museum. There were four different areas. Water, Garden, Forest and Open-Air. The Water section had several different rooms, but before going in, you had to take off your shoes and leave your bags in a locker, and roll your pants up. We walked in ankle deep water to a waterfall in the dark with light shining through the waterfall-it was pretty but quick. Then there were several digital art rooms with moving images. The best room was where you were walking through a pond of water up to your knees with digital koi fish swimming around your legs. My next favorite area was the garden where they had floating flowers. All these real flowers were tied to strings and they moved up and down so you could walk through them. A lot of people sat down and just stared around at the flowers. They smelled so good as well. The other areas of the museum were good, but were mostly moving digital artwork which can cause motion sickness. There was one room in particular that we all nearly threw up in. I was attempting to get out and almost just grabbed the person in front of me to guide me out because I was desperate to close my eyes. After that room, Paul was done. We all went to the Open-Air section, which really is just a café outside with some plants around you. Paul stayed there, while the boys and I checked out the Forest area. Braydon enjoyed this area because there were physical things to do, like walk on swinging steps, go down a slide, walk on bouncy cushions, etc. I didn’t stay long, because you had to wait in line and take your shoes off again for each activity, and there were a lot of kids in these lines, so I left and met Paul outside. The area was a bit confusing, and Kyle missed the fun part of the room, which was unfortunate. We found this cute outdoor BBQ place across the street from the museum. They have tons of teepees and tents, that families can rent and BBQ their own food here and spend an afternoon with friends or family. They also had a food stand and bar if you wanted to just go there. We grabbed a bite to eat and a drink, then hopped back onto the bus to explore another area of Tokyo, Ginza. Ginza is the area of Tokyo with the high end shops, so the first place that caught the eyes of Kyle and Paul was a Nissan special showroom with a Formula E electric car on display. Above that was a Sony store and gallery with high end cameras and other equipment. We continued on and made our way to the Imperial Palace and gardens, but after walking so much, we were all exhausted and ready to sit down for a while. We took the train to our next destination area and found a bao bun shop that drew the boys in, they enjoyed a few pork bao buns on little stools outside the shop. This area of Tokyo was much quieter and more local, not a lot of tourists around which was nice. We had tickets for a Samurai Cutting Experience in this area. It was a small little studio nestled into a residential street. We were all dressed in Samurai outfits along with 5 people from New Jersey and two guys from Australia. We were taught some of the traditions of samurais and how to hold a sword. Then we were taught how to swing it correctly, eventually culminating in us each cutting a tatami mat. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately with the tennis elbow I’m dealing with right now, I couldn’t swing the sword, so I let Kyle cut my tatami mat. This was a fun experience we all enjoyed and we got to learn more about the Japanese samurai culture. So of course, we hit a Scottish Pub afterwards! Paul saw it on Google maps and had to go. We all ordered our drinks and food, but I struggled ordering mine, I thought the guy understood me in the end, but my food never arrived. I went up to ask him about it and he was so apologetic, he brought me out a portion of left over roast beef, and then mashed potatoes and coronation chicken (which really just tasted like curry chicken salad) all for free! And I’m pretty sure it was all GF, win win for me! We ended up taking a taxi back to our Airbnb. Everything in Tokyo is far apart, and takes a while on the trains, and none of us had the energy to take 2 trains, lasting up to an hour total.

We had a reservation for an in-home ramen cooking class. It was over an hour away, so we had to leave fairly early that morning and would have had to take 2-3 trains to get there, but ended up taking a taxi to a different train station, limiting our need to change trains. The house we were going to was west of Tokyo and again in a nice little town with not many tourists. Her home is located right next to a big University, so we witnessed many students walking around. She said her town is a University town. It had that nice feel to it. Nahoko was our teacher’s name and who’s home we were in. She taught us a bunch about cooking ramen and the different ingredients that we used. Nahoko went into deep detail regarding what Umami is-basically delicious taste that you taste with your whole tongue and not just a portion of it like sweet, or salty. She also makes her own Miso from chickpeas and had a big jar of it that she had made over a year ago, claiming it had very good bacteria in it to fight the bad bacteria, she said she would eat a spoonful a day to keep flus and covid away. She made us all try a tiny bite of it, it was strong! Paul hated it! She put a spoonful into our ramen broth, which just added to the flavor it did not overpower it. Next we had to make and knead our dough for quite some time getting it to the right texture. The boys and Paul all made regular ramen, but I was able to make gluten free noodles. They used a pasta press/cutter to make their noodles, but I had to cut mine by hand. I used the coolest knife to do so and loved it! We got to enjoy eating our homemade ramen afterwards and all really liked it. We made our way to the famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing afterwards-about 45 minutes by 2 different trains. It was crazy in Shibuya, millions of people attempting to cross the street and video the crossing, etc. There is a Starbucks in a central building on the 2nd floor that is a famous place to view the crossing, so of course we had to go in. Braydon and I were excited to buy Japanese only Starbucks merchandise. I came home with a Sakura (cherry blossom) themed water bottle and Braydon came home with a Japan themed coffee mug. Shibuya was really crowded and hard to do anything, so we started walking away from the crowds, ended up in Yoyogi Park, then down to Takeshita St. which is another small covered shopping arcade area with lots of shops. Braydon ended up buying Doc Marten shoes here. Paul and I found a little café and got drinks sitting outside while the boys wandered around. Then we all got some dinner and different places, afterwards we splurged for a taxi again back to our place. Otherwise it would’ve been over an hour back to our place again.