After an evening plane ride from Singapore and late night arrival at Haneda airport it was fun to wake up to sunshine and cherry blossoms in Tokyo!
Our flight got in at 1 AM and I anticipated customs to take a while (and it did, the lines were crazy! But Japan does lines well) so our original plan was to sleep in the airport. However, after some consideration, we realized that would probably set us up poorly for enjoying a busy city so at the last minute, I booked a downtown hotel that was accessible by Taxi from the airport. This hotel room said it slept eight so after we all scrunched into the elevator, making way too much noise for the overnight hotel staff, we were surprised to find only three double beds and only three pillows! Zekey ended up sleeping on the floor in his stylish Japanese robe.
In the morning, I took down the kid who were interested in trying the hotel breakfast. The kitchen staff were happy to have us and served us each up a delicious cut of seared beef as well as spiced vegetables, broth soup, and various pickled items. Not our typical breakfast fare but when in Tokyo…
After leaving our heavy backpacks in the hotel lobby, we set out for a walk around the Meguro neighbourhood. Thankfully we immediately found a French bakery that served fresh croissants and cafe au lait. Thus armed and without even meaning to, we stumbled upon one of the most scenic cherry blossom areas around.
Tourists and locals alike were all out taking pictures and posing along the canal.
After enjoying our second breakfast in the sunshine, we ventured underground to obtain our Suica cards at the Shibuya subway station only one stop away.
The Shibuya station was decorated with many soft, touchable, rubberry, cutesy pieces of art that seemed designed to relieve stress. The kids enjoyed punching or hugging them, basically along gender lines.
Shibuya is what I picture when I think about Tokyo. It was fun to visit but we were all glad we weren’t staying in this crazy neighbourhood.
Our welcome to the neighbourhood we were staying in, Edogawa, included a trip to Don Quijote, a bizarre Japanese department store with pink advertising, manic music, and crazy advertisements for diaper enhanced shorts. This one included a man getting a full cup of coffee poured down his butt crack and then dancing for a minute to show there was no leakage. Another man pantomimed obvious gastrointestinal distress while on the subway, and then just as obviously pooped his pants and smiled.The kids were enthralled.
It was about a 15 minute walk from the Mizue subway station to our rental place, and the neighbourhood was much more our speed. More bikes than cars, lots of young families and tasty cheap bakeries every few blocks.
Our place was small but quite practical. With lovely sliding art panels on the walls.
After relaxing in Edogawa, we felt ready to venture into busy Tokyo once again and check out Akihabara which is the tech and anime zone. We were looking to replace some of our stolen tech, and indeed Mikaya found some awesome light up cat ear headphones, but the selection of tablets and watches was just too dizzying for me to make informed decisions. Check out Zeke above with backpacks with screens!! I did buy a smaller version of our much mourned JBL portable speaker which has come in handy for sure.
Mikaya in particular was fascinated by the girls advertising maid cafés. We read about them and they actually seem quite family friendly, but we never ended up finding the time (or me the drive) to spend some time in one. We also saw advertised “head in lap ear cleaning” which was disgusting to the boys. On further reading this seems to have been one of the impetus for the modern ASMR craze.
On the way home we got off the Shinjuku line a few stops early in to explore Morishita, a totally different vibe again! We were looking for a ramen shop but were seduced by a pizzeria. The staff here was very friendly and the pizza was amazing. We were the only non Japanese people in the place and there were even a few families.
The view from our little deck in Edogawa. The entire neighbourhood is made up of these little 3 story walk ups. The neighbours and the bakery staff were also very friendly. Much more so than the busy areas of Tokyo.
So many bikes in Edogawa! Tokyo has solved the last mile problem by building huge underground bike storage facilities at the main hub stations. You leave your bike with the attendant and they stick it in a rack and even clean it and sometimes service it before your return.
After engaging with tech/flashy Tokyo we were ready for some relaxing beautiful gardens and set out to explore the Imperial palace grounds. An amazing park/historical area with forest trails and huge koi.
There was a large tourist component here obviously but the lawns around the palace are clearly utilized as a park by locals and the path around the castle most is now a well used 5k running loop.
After our excursion we were happy to come back to relaxed Edogawa.
One morning I asked a staff member at the local drugstore to recommend a moisturizer with sunscreen and she pointed me to the exact product that my sister Shareen buys me as a random gift. My skin is thankful…
Continuing our practice of exploring a new neighbourhood every day we navigated the subway to Yanaka where we explored old streets, shrines and a beautiful cemetery (again with the cherry blossoms holy smokes we timed this trip well). The boys all bought souvenir shirts and we had ice cream and delicious street meat from local vendors. The ice cream shop was basically inside a tiny urban shrine which was lovely but also very random…
On our way home from Yanaka we pulled in to a random restaurant near the train station and had our first taste of Yakiniku! Aka Izakaya Aka tiny BBQ… it was a complete surprise and a huge hit with the kids. Both the delicious meat and the self grilling feature. They were all thrilled with the process and Kylie didn’t even realize she was enjoying cow tongue.
We ordered by pointing at menu items and thoroughly destroyed the feast tiny cut by tiny cut.
Mmmmm….
All this exploring and we haven’t even gotten to the big ticket. Tokyo Disney coming up…
Off for one more juice and now off to Japan! Thank you so much to Aaron and Su and family for your wonderful hospitality. We all had such a good time! Everyone wants to come back soon! 
