We woke up early after not the best sleep. The A/C just wasn’t doing its job. But then we did a better job looking around the room, found the A/C remote and English instructions and quickly “fixed” the A/C. Guess we were more tired last night than we thought. Otherwise, jetlag wasn’t really affecting us but I remembered from a previous Asia trip that going West from the US isn’t so bad; it’s coming home that can be a bitch. But that’s not for another two and a half weeks!
As is becoming our travel routine, I had booked a free walking tour for this morning, our first full day in Tokyo. It was scheduled to begin at 10:30 am in Akihabara. Google Maps suggested a small station a couple of blocks away to begin our commute via train, but I was hesitant since we didn’t yet have our Suica cards and would need to figure out tickets, likely from a machine. A quick YouTube search alleviated my concerns with a preview of what we should expect. My time as an NYC resident might give me an advantage, but overall I think the metro/subway in Tokyo is really easy to navigate. Google Maps provides very detailed directions, including which platform number to find your train going in the correct direction, and the exit number you should use at your destination station.
It’s funny I made such an effort to get a hotel “close” to Tokyo Station for ease of transportation, but most of the time we used this much smaller station only two blocks from our hotel and it was still easy. On our next trip I’ll know to just make sure we are close to any station and it will be all good!
Once in the Akihabara area we eventually found our way to a bakery I had found online. I say eventually because unlike using Google Maps for transit directions, using it to follow walking guidance is horrible. It didn’t seem to do a good job of pinpointing our exact standing position at any given time, so we might think we were on one side of a road or an intersection but we were most definitely not. But yeah, we eventually found the Akihabara location for Vie de France and enjoyed a couple of goodies while we people watched.
Since we were figuring out how long it takes to navigate while walking, we left with plenty of time to spare for our free walking tour, and had a little time to browse inside the Tamashii Nations Store (the tour meeting point). I don’t really know any Japanese characters, but they had some great Star Wars items for this GenXer to enjoy.
We joined the Original Free Walking Tour of Tokyo hosted by Tokyo Localized at 10:30 am. Our guide was Reiko and she was so, so lovely. Our group was an international mix of maybe 10 people, including a couple from Vegas and a father/daughter duo from Cork/Dublin. In addition to an ongoing verbal overview of Japanese history and cultural notes, our three-ish hour tour included:
*A walk around Akihabara with comments on “otaku”. Oxford says, “a young person who is obsessed with computers or particular aspects of popular culture to the detriment of their social skills“. HA! Our guide also talked about maid cafes and recommended we give one a try. Um, no thank you. The neighborhood definitely had fun vibes and amazing visual stimulation though!
*Yushima Seido, a site for Confucianism including the world’s largest sculpture of the man himself. Our guide took the opportunity to explain how the Chinese teachings align well with Japanese culture, and how the temple fit into the larger story of Japanese history. Students frequently visit here to pray for scholastic success. Our guide also warned of the mosquito population on the grounds and graciously provided repellant, but per usual my blood is too tempting for those little shits and I found many welts on my legs the following day.
*The Kanda Myojin Shinto Shrine that is a favored site for business people to pray for success. Here, Reiko taught us about Shinto shrine etiquette. On one hand she explained that Japanese people are not judgmental or offended by people that simply walk around the grounds as a tourist stop. On the other hand she said non-believer tourists are also welcome to participate in visitation rituals and took us step-by-step through the process including how to walk through the torii gate, how to purify your hands and mouth, and how to pray at the offering hall. There are lots of websites and YouTube videos that detail the traditions, but getting the lesson during our walking tour was so great to instill confidence for the rest of our trip. The Shrine grounds included nice bathrooms and an indoor souvenir shop, which provided a wonderful A/C break.
*A quick stroll through Ameyoko Shopping District with a warning to watch our belongings in the crowded area with a reputation for pickpockets. The food stalls all looked super amazing, but sitting outside in the 90-degree humidity to eat did not.
*Ueno Park, which probably qualifies as their “Central Park”. Massive park with water features, museums, food stalls, etc. We didn’t walk through much of it on the walking tour, but it was a great ending point. Only one photo here because I was getting heat stroke and needed to find some sustenance and A/C asap. My face might have told you that already, though.
Overall I definitely recommend this tour and bonus if you can luck out getting Reiko! The company has several free walking tours spread around the city and next time we are in Tokyo we will likely do a couple more. I just think these tours are an awesome way to get acclimated to a new city. We all need to tip well to keep these going all over the world!
The next couple of hours are a little bit of a blur but I know in my heat stroke haze we made a stop in a Starbucks for a cold drink – the yuzu citrus iced tea was amazing, and we stopped in a tourist office to get our Suica cards. We had to show our passports to get them; apparently there’s a chip shortage so they’re reserving some for tourists. These tasks happened in/around/between Ueno Station and Tokyo Station. I know we ended up having lunch in Tokyo Station at a place that lured us in with their name: Beer Hall New Tokyo. Cold beer in an air conditioned restaurant. Yes. Well, kind of. Cold beer was good, food was pretty meh. They were trying to do German food. My German-ish partner was definitely a YES though – so cute, right?
Next on our preplanned agenda was Street Kart at 7:00 pm in Shibuya so we headed that direction planning to explore that neighborhood a bit before our start time. But when we started to exit the station a huge thunder and lightning storm hit and we crowded under the roofline with a couple of hundred other people to wait it out. It did stop for a short bit but then started up again later and we found refuge in the doorway of an apartment building.
This is when I started texting with the Street Kart office about options. They were cool about us rescheduling, but apparently we still needed to come to their office in person to do that (WHY?). Luckily the rain subsided to a trickle and we were able to walk to their office, but we decided to reschedule to another day anyway considering all of the rain puddles we would have to zoom through in our lowrider vehicles. No thank you.
For the late afternoon we spent a lot of time in the Mega Don Quixote in Shibuya. Does anyone ever get in and out of there quickly? Jesus that store is insane. I had seen a couple of videos on it during my trip planning but they did not prepare me. I found some stationery sets for Scott’s mom, and I grabbed my favorite kit kat flavors (orange & strawberry). I left the pikachu shorts for someone else.
After all of the walking, heat, sweating, heat stroke, new learning, and visual stimulation we were kinda done early. We did the cliche konbini dinner in our hotel room, showered, and zzzzzz… goodnight Tokyo.
Kjar-ied Away 
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