Henry and I went to Tokyo. The biggest problem was that being Asian, the Japanese people there assumed we spoke Japanese and everywhere we went we were spoken to in Japanese. We went all around Tokyo relying on their subway and train system. We also did a lot of walking. We would walk till around 4pm, go back to our hotel, rest our feet until dinner time, eat dinner and then walk around some more. We stayed at the Hotel New Otani. It was nice and the concierge was very helpful and friendly, but most of the patrons there were businessmen, so we kind of stuck out, a lot. But it was convenient to everything and the staff spoke English. Though I would not recommend going to Trader Vic’s in the hotel. The staff ignored us or were rude the whole time we were there. It was also our last meal in Tokyo, so that kind of ruined it too.
We would visit a few places a day, and sometimes we would go back to revisit places. We visited Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Yurakucho-Hibiya, Ginza, Roppongi, Akasaka-mitsuke (we stayed here), Asakusa, Akihabara, Ueno, Ikebukuro and probably some more that I forgot. Sight-seeing places that we stopped at were Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace Plaza, Asakusa Kannon Temple, Sensoji Temple, the Sony building and many other places. We also joined a one day tour to Mount Fuji and Hakone. We were lucky that it was a clear day and was able to see the snow-topped peak of Mount Fuji. I know they say that crime is very rare in Tokyo, but on our first day sight-seeing, we see a young man robbing a woman, he took her purse and ran. But he had shoes on, that were kind of slippery, so the police got him pretty quickly. But it literally happened right in front of us. All the Japanese people grabbed their camera-phones out and started snapping away.
One of our days was spent at Tokyo Disneyland. It was the first time Henry has been to any Disney park. We spent the whole day there and so much fun. The Toy Story ride was so cool, it was like being in an actual video game where you shot at moving targets while you are moving too. They have a Winnie the Pooh ride that was a lot of fun and was very cute. I think we went on a Thursday and it was packed! And the Japanese kids really love their Disney. They all had so much Disney paraphernalia on, it was a little scary. When we were at the Magic Kingdom, there was a kid who actually brought a tripod to take pictures of it, and this kid was probably around 15!
Throughout Tokyo, we relied heavily on Frommer’s Tokyo and Time Out Tokyo for food and for getting around. But the hardest thing for us is when we found a restaurant we wanted to try, it was almost impossible to find. There weren’t always street names or addresses and a lot of times the restaurants weren’t on the first floor of the buildings. Henry and I walked back and forth for about 45 minutes looking for a restaurant, we finally found it, down some small street, only to have it closed for a private party. Though, we couldn’t really complain. Every meal we had was very good. We also had the freshest sushi ever while we were there. In addition to sushi we had tempura, shabu shabu and lots of noodles.
When we were exchanging money, the place we found with the best rates was the Tokyo Narita Airport. Really!
One last thing to note, it is frowned upon to blow your nose in public, but picking your nose? That’s fine. We would be on the train and guys would have their fingers all up in their nose and, for whatever reason, that is acceptable, but if you blow your nose, everybody looks at you. Very very odd!
