30. Japan Days 1 and 2

breakfast with fresh OJ at the amex centurion lounge

Julia’s friend dropped us off at SFO and we checked our bags with United, smooth as silk. We walked up to the CLEAR area and before we knew it, we had cleared security. Unfortunately we were in Terminal G and all the Priority Pass Lounges were in Terminal A, which a map showed as a 22 minute walk. No thank you. Julia and I agreed we should split up with her using one of her two United lounge passes and I could do my AmEx Centurion Lounge. It was actually nice to be able to take advantage of the Centurion Lounge. I’ve only been able to use it once in the past five years. I do remember vividly attempting to use them in LAX and Sydney back in January 2022 on my first “semester off” travels but they were both still closed from Covid. And now I can’t bring a guest so they are useless when traveling with others. Breakfast was pretty good and the orange juice tasted fresh squeezed! 2 hours sped by and I rushed to the gate to board. The flight crew was super nice but there was a lot of turbulence and I had trouble sleeping despite only getting 80 minutes of sleep the night before. The flight was just over 11 hours but felt much longer. Looking back on my previous 2 trips, it’s usually harder going then returning so I think it has something to do with not getting enough rest before the flight. I’ll have to work on that for my Africa trip, especially since it’s a 13 hour flight to Istanbul followed by an 11 hour flight to Cape Town.

gift bags for the flight attendant

after getting Julia's phone the
airport gates were empty

Finally, we land and the plane unloads surprisingly fast. They had two exit ramps, one in first class so even for us in the “cheap seats” it moved much quicker. We get all the way to the immigration line and go to check our phones for the “Visit Japan” QR codes when Julia realizes she left hers on the plane. We rush back there and wait while the cleaning crew look for it. A few minutes later they find it! I wasn’t worried, but Julia was so relieved! Then again it wasn’t my phone.

thin walking lanes at immigration

I heard someone say that Japan can be the most efficient and least efficient place at the same time. I can believe that. For example, customs had incredibly long lines which started out with normal widths (about 3 feet wide) moving very slowly. Then at the end, you were walking as fast as you could winding along this maze which was only about 22 inches wide (that’s 2 sheets of paper end to end!). People with wide luggage like the lady in front of me kept banging into the poles as we went by occasionally getting stuck, and older folks who moved a bit slower held up the line since we were speeding through at a brisk walk! So there were occasional long gaps in the line, on multiple rows including one twice as long as the one in my picture (I didn’t think to take a pic until I saw it). Once you ran through all the lines, they had over 60 counters to serve people, very efficient! Though on the heels of inefficiency. Or perhaps this is how they keep people in shape and agile!

Our luggage was waiting for us and our next goal was to find the train. Julia had an iphone so she was able to use her suica account on that. This is probably the only time I wish I had an iphone, as only androids from the Japan region have the chip enabled to use IC card apps that you can put money on to pay for stuff. I would need to buy a physical card which you can only do with cash. Since we had none yet I had to buy a one-way train ticket at the counter (the machines didn’t like my American credit card for some reason).

This was perhaps the type of exit
sign we were looking for though the original
ones said East and West and were much
bigger and more obvious for confused tourists

To make a long story short, we took about 100 minutes for a 45 minute series of train rides due to: taking the wrong train (in the right direction), asking someone for directions that didn’t speak English so while she was super nice and helpful she misunderstood what we were asking, using Google maps (useless on Japanese trains) before remembering to use the Navitime App, not understanding that there are several train operators in Japan and to get from one to the other you have to exit the station gates and walk to new station gates for the other operator, and not realizing there are local (stop everywhere) and express trains.

You think we’d be done once we got off the train. Nope. We decided we needed to be on the East exit and followed the sign. But then there was no exit, just endless corridors leading to platforms or to stores or taxis. Google maps was having trouble determine my position underground. We asked a station worker and got a long detailed answer in Japanese, but we followed his gestures to go left, then cut right then up an escalator. We did the first two but saw no escalator. But now our rough position on google maps was halfway through the station underground maze so I felt confident in the direction we were going. Julia, having not experienced the long underground sections of shops littering the subway terminals of Japan, was beginning to feel trapped like she would never again see the light of day. We did appreciate the many yummy smells coming from the restaurants as we walked along. After about 25 minutes we finally spotted stairs up and escaped to the street level!

JR Blossom shinjuku

waiting in line at Gyukatsu Motomura

Once we surfaced it was a short 3 minute walk to our hotel, the JR Blossom Shinjuku, with rooms a little bigger than the Sunroute Shinjuku where I stayed before. I had an amazing shower as usual after a long day’s travel. For an early dinner, we went to my family’s favorite, Gyukatsu Motomura, where we stood in a relatively short line for maybe 20 minutes on this narrow stairway. Usually the line is out the door and down the street but we came early and missed the crowds. They serve excellent wagyu beef cutlets that you cook yourself on a little heated stone mini top. However I ordered a bit too much and the meat is very very well marbled (several pieces were half fat, half meat) so I could barely finish the meal.

Wagyu beef is also too well marbled for me

my dinner and the little heated top to cook on

tons of Ghibli characters at Hands

From there we proceeded to do our first round of shopping (there were many!) at: Hands which was kinda loud, then Don Quijote (very loud and crowded), then Bic Camera where we got our multi flavored kit kats (strawberry, Strawerry milk, milk tea, milk matcha, matcha, dark, choc orange) and the lightest umbrella I’ve ever had. Each of these stores had several departments and several floors. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the camera section at Bic Camera though there must be one, right?

adorable key chains at Don Quijote

We're in Tokyo!!!

Jetlag wins again and I fall asleep at midnight then wake up at 3:30. Sadly I waste 2 hours trying to fall asleep before deciding to do something, anything productive. Julia is up early also, waking around 5;30 so we have ample time to get ready before going down to breakfast at 7.

Ashley operating instructions
Julia is really good at managing me and my tendency to dither about. For example in the morning she'll say "I'm leaving for breakfast in 10 minutes.". She's not giving me a command about what I must do but she is giving me a deadline that I would like to aim for. Ideally one pretty close even if al unrealistic. We eventually went to breakfast about 20 minutes later but it got me off of my phone and moving quicker. I suspect my friend Dawne does something along the same lines but she might be too subtle about it for me to notice.

one section of the buffet at JR Blossom

Breakfast is a nice spread with lots of variety. I especially liked the pork with ginger, the egg cubes, the carrots, and the orange slices which they cut in the most amazing way: they cut off half of the peel leaving just enough to hold on to, then they slice down the peel leaving just enough connected so you hold the half peel as a “handle” to eat the orange slice.

bread section of buffet

my buffet selections part 1

buffet part 2 with dessert plus all my favorites including the cool easy to eat orange slices

American food section at buffet

incredible caramel creme kinda like really good flan

adorable salt container at buffet

Closeup of Cherry blossoms

We agreed to meet Natalie at the Shinjuku Gyoen Garden. Julia and I walked there and we were amazed at the various shades of the gorgeous cherry blossoms (aka Sakura). There were tons of cherry blossom trees everywhere! We snapped several pictures of each other and luckily we arrived just before the large groups of others taking pictures. They also had beautiful lakes and a pavilion.

me with cherry blossoms

Julia with cherry blossoms

Julia and I inside the pavilion

Beautiful Sakura (cherry blossom) trees

lake in the park

Taiwan Pavilion

A little rain didn't dampen or trip to the park

super cute animal erasers

We weren’t the only ones to get lost in giant Shinjuku Station. Natalie also took a wrong turn and got trapped inside for a long time as well before finally emerging to meet us at another cute little stationary store, Sekaido, which had all sorts of cute cards and postcards (ones with cats sitting in cherry blossom trees!). Thus began our second shopping spree. We had some time to kill before meeting Natalie’s friend Gaelle from England so we went to Daiso (located on the 8th floor of the Bic Camera store but you pay separately). It was HUGE, you could probably fit 3-4 of our California Daiso stores (depending on your local store) inside of this one. And almost everything was 100 yen or about 70 cents! Needless to say, I bought way more than I need including some super cool lightweight glazed plates and bowls for about $2 each and some cute little soy sauce bowls for 67 cents. Julia being the saint she is, has offered to carry them back for me since she's going directly home and I'm going to Korea next.

cute cards at Sekaido

my new pretty bowls are microwave and dishwasher safe

The entrance to Shinjuku "food Street" Omide Yokocho

From here we went to meet Galle at food street aka “Omide Yokocho”, which are two parallel alleyways that have restaurants running for one long block. Unfortunately it’s mostly a dinner area so only a handful opened at 3:00 or earlier and it was now 2:30. I scouted out both streets to find good places to eat and we decided on Jonetsu Horumon, a yakiniku restaurant where you order meats to grill on your table grill. The owner was super friendly and once we figured out how to order from the table side electric menu it went pretty well. We ordered some skirt steak outer, galbi, and wagu Japanese black beef. The wagyu did melt in your mouth but it was also like a third to a half fat so good but not our favorite. The owner was super funny and explain to us in broken English that the cup of ice was to put on the flames when the fire came up to put the fire out. We didn't quite understand it until we did it. I also had another mishap where I thought that the ponzu sauce with green onion and raw garlic was for marinating before we cooked but apparently it's to dip in after you cook. It was definitely delicious!

Our lunch place

delicious meat and a corn dish I could eat every day!

Julia and Natalie warming their hands on our hot coal grill

Akihabara

After lunch we dropped all our purchases off at the hotel and met Gaelle and her daughter Poppy in Shinjuku Station. From there we went to Akihabara, the area for Manga and Anime. There were lots of bright lights on buildings, tons of shops selling anime and girls every 10 feet dressed up as various anime characters handing out flyers. Most of them must have been freezing their asses off because it was pretty cold and they were in short skirts. We found a store that sold many things including some Ghibli and a few of us got decks of playing cards themed around a movie. Julia got “Kiki’s delivery service.” Then we parted ways and Julia and I started heading home when I decided to check out the Don Quijote’s here since they may have more Pokemon variety. They had a little better variety and I bought a whole bunch of stuff, including a stuffed Mew (cute pink vaguely cat-like Pokemon) since I use it to teach my students how to say mu, the population mean in statistics.

Don Quijote at Akihabara had more variety of pokemon

Anime characters handing out flyers

Dinner that night was a quick bite at a shop in underground Shinjuku Station

Coming home we even managed to find the hidden underground shops in Shinjuku Station, grabbed a quick bite there for dinner AND managed to find our way back to the surface again!