Saturday
We were picked up dark and early this morning by our driver. He was there right on time, so we left at 4:30am. Who thought that a 7am flight would be a good idea? 😉 The drive and flight went just fine though,
which is the most important part of a travel day.
We arrived in Tokyo mid-afternoon, though it gets dark really early here. We caught the train from the airport to the Taito City area of Tokyo. We booked our accommodations here since they are about a 10 minute walk from four different subway stations. Hopefully it’ll be well-connected enough for us to get around the city easily. Tokyo it so big it’s hard to know where to base.
We are all a little loopy from the long travel day and I think either allergies or pollution are catching up to us. We opted to stay close to the apartment and found a ramen shop not too far away. We did have to track down a convenience store for an ATM though, as our Thai baht doesn’t buy much here in Japan. Currency #4 for this trip!
The ramen place was a tiny little restaurant with one counter of stools. We had to decipher the vending machine in order to place our meal order. You insert cash and then choose the corresponding menu item. It prints out a slip of paper with your order and returns your change. I’m definitely missing the photos and the English text right now!
We slid into a row of seats and shared three bowls of crab flavored ramen. The noodles were nicely chewy and we thought the flavor
was fine, but we weren’t blown away. Hopefully we can find ramen we like better. We also had dessert at a local shop known for their Japanese silk puddings. We each picked out a flavor, though the strawberry seemed to be the favorite.
Our cooking set up is still limited here, but I do have a cooktop and so we stopped at a 7/11 again for some breakfast staples. Then it was back to the apartment for the night. This part of Tokyo is definitely a residential area — it is eerily quiet and empty on the walk home. For a city with some 30 million people, it’s strange to not see anyone walking around at 8pm on a Saturday night. We’re definitely in a smaller space than we are used to in this apartment. We do have a separate bedroom for us with a western style bed, but the kids are on two fold out couches in the living room. When their beds are set up, there is essentially no space to walk. We don’t plan on spending much time in the apartment, but we’re already feeling the cramped quarters!
The toilets feels super fancy though! It even has a faucet to wash your hands that refills the tank at the same time. What a good idea!
Sunday
We were hoping to hit the ground running here in Tokyo and make the most of our week here, but we’re all feeling poorly this morning. I’ve got head congestion, Keller didn’t sleep well at all, and the kids are a bit cranky. We ate a late breakfast after sleeping in and then headed toward Ueno Park for the day. It’s walkable from here, so we decided we’d stay close and slow today. There are a slew of museums in the Ueno area, and we chose to visit the Natural Science and History Museum. Admission was affordable and the kids were free, so that helped our decision making process too.
The museum had a nice collection of taxidermy animals, as well as a 360* theater running a 10 minute video about evolution. There were limited explanations in English though, so we cruised through the displays pretty quickly.
After the museum we went on the hunt for dinner. We found a restaurant nearby with nearly 5,000 reviews and 4.8 stars on Google. Talk about a high rating! Unlike many Tokyo restaurants, it does not
close in the afternoon, so it sounded like a good option to us. It was listed as a tonkatsu restaurant, though we didn’t know what that was. Oh well, we’ll figure it out when we get there! There was a little line at Gyukatsu Ichi Ni San, but we were seated after about a 30 minute wait. This is a very tiny place — seven seats at the bar, a two top table, and one four top table. So 13 people can eat at a time. No wonder there’s usually a line!
Tonkatsu is where you finish cooking a piece of breaded and flash
fried pork loin on a hot stone at the table. It also came with rice, a broth, some shredded cabbage, wasabi, and some dipping sauces. It was very tasty and we all enjoyed it! Caden particularly liked cooking the pork on the hot stone and watching the flame in the pot. The ginger dressing for the cabbage was really tasty too. It’s a good thing that we have gotten more proficient at chopsticks over the last two months, since they seems to be the primary utensils.
After the restaurant, we walked back toward the main Ueno area. We spotted a resale shop on the walk and stopped to find some warmer jackets for everyone. We were definitely limited on space in our luggage, so we’ll be using layers to stay warm this week. Come Wednesday though it’s supposed to cool off, so we needed to add a coat to our options. Fortunately this thrift shop had great prices and most items were 105 yen, or about $1. That’ll work! I found a pink fleece jacket, Kamy chose a green cardigan, and Caden found a black track jacket. Hopefully that’ll keep us warmer!
Monday
Today we have plans to visit the teamLab Borderless art installation! This has been on our To See list for several months, ever since Keller started doing research on Tokyo. Borderless is a digital projection installation that incorporates interactive projections with whimsical and creative displays. We bought tickets in advance and planned to arrive just after lunch.
On the way we stopped at a halal ramen place we scoped out on Google maps. They are known for their spicy ramen and we were definitely up for something spicy! It’s only been three days since we left Thailand and we’re already missing the heat. 😉 We’ve had great success with meals at halal restaurants — Muslim families can cook a mean meal! We ordered two bowls of ramen and added some fried chicken too. Kamy really liked the chicken while the rest of us enjoyed the ramen. We’re still perfecting our technique when eating ramen and attempting not to splash broth all over our shirts. I think we need more practice!
Next we took two subways and then an elevated rail line to the Daiba area of Tokyo — right down by the port and waterfront.
There was a line at Borderless but it moved pretty quickly. Once we were inside, we were free to explore the different rooms. Many times the projections would continue around the corner and end up in another space altogether, especially flocks of birds.
One of the prettiest rooms was a large space that transitioned from flowers to a waterfall. The images are dynamic and some are also interactive and respond to your presence.
Another beautiful room was the LED room, with strings of LED rope lights hanging from the ceiling. The multicolored lights would group and scatter all around you, making it feel like you were totally surrounded by lights. The firework displays were particularly neat.
Kamy and Caden also really enjoyed the spotlight room. Here there were 244 theater spotlights that were programmed to swivel and move to music.
Overall we really enjoyed Borderless! It was maybe a little pricey for what it was, but the experience was definitely unique and it wasn’t so busy that we couldn’t appreciate the artwork.
After Borderless we walked across a massive pedestrian bridge to the bus stop. We had plans to go to an Italian restaurant for dinner, but the first place was full from reservations, the second was closed, and
the third finally worked out. We had a light meal and headed back home. We’re going to Tokyo Disneyland tomorrow, so we need our rest for a big day tomorrow!
Tuesday
Today we’re going to Tokyo Disneyland! This has been a Must Do for our stop in Japan, ever since booking tickets. We’re currently checking off as many theme parks as we can and since we were in Tokyo there was no way we weren’t going to try to do the two Disney parks here.
We started off early in the morning and our first train was very empty. That didn’t hold though, as we got closer to Disney.
Disneyland opened at 9am, so we caught an early train out to the park. We had some challenges at the Maihama station where there was a huge line of people waiting to take the train we needed. We cheated a bit — took the line going the other direction one stop, then came back on the train. Was it the Japanese way? We’re guessing not. But it worked! There were hundreds and hundreds of people in the line for the train … there’s no way we would have been at the gate on time if we had waited. The train was definitely full, but we weren’t totally squished since they were metering people getting onto the platform. Daddy was feeling pretty tall though!
When we arrived at the Maihama Station, we stopped at the ticket counter for our day tickets and got in line. We were there 15 minutes before the park opened. There were a lot of people in line in front of us,
but quite a few more behind us!
Our plan for today is to ride as many of the big rides as we can early and then fill in the day with re-rides and lower priority attractions. We weren’t quite sure what to expect for crowd levels — there’s not really a “low” season for Tokyo Disney, but this was marked as a medium-crowd level.
We started off with FastPasses for Monsters Inc and then hurried to Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, a new trackless dark ride. However, Pooh wasn’t open, so we did a couple of other rides in that area while waiting for our Monsters Inc fast pass to open. We did Pinocchio, Snow White, and It’s A Small World all in a row, followed by the Haunted Mansion. Small World was really nice — in perfect condition and incorporated a lot more movie characters than the rides in California, Paris, or Florida. Yes, now we can compare rides across FOUR different theme parks.
Monsters Inc was ready now, so we grabbed fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, rode Pirates of the Caribbean, and went to ride Monsters. Pirates was very similar to the one in California and was a hit with everyone. We really liked Monsters too; it was super cute and new to us! We checked on Pooh again (still closed) and then rode the carousel.
We missed out on the lottery system for any of the shows, so we stopped for a meal break after Big Thunder. We also went to the Enchanted Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise, and the Bear County Jamboree. Checked on Pooh again and grabbed a fast pass for late this evening before going to ride Star Tours. This one wasn’t as intense as the one in California and we enjoyed it.
We found a spot for the Christmas parade just before it started and enjoyed all the floats and characters that went by. Kamy is motivated to become a Disney Princess — she would love to be one of the princesses on the floats who wave at everyone. Maybe one day, Kamy!
Splash Mountain was closed for a while this afternoon but looked like it would reopen. When it did, they were only allowing fast past people to get in line. Meanwhile, our fast pass for Thunder Mountain was available again, so we bypassed Splash Mountain to ride Thunder again. We all love it! We did come back to Splash Mountain though.
We took a pit stop for a light dinner at one of the counter service restaurants in the park and then went back to rides. We rode Pirates again, as well as Peter Pan, before the Main Street Electrical Parade started. This was high on Keller’s list as he has fond childhood memories of seeing the parade when he was little. The parade has definitely been updated since then, but the spirit was the same, including a huge train covered in lights and playing the same jingle Keller remembered. It was great! (Plus, more Princesses for Kamy.)
We managed to get in line for Splash Mountain finally, so added that to our check list. Like everything else in this park, it was in great condition. We missed the fireworks, but we weren’t stressed about seeing them. We then trekked across the park to Toon Town where we rode Gadget’s Go Coaster (surprisingly fun and quick) and the Car Toon Spin. Our fast pass for Pooh’s Hunny Hut were finally up, so we headed there next. It was super cute! We really like the trackless dark ride system — it’s so neat to watch different cars zoom off in separate directions and have a little different experience each time you ride it. Our favorite part was twirling with the heffalumps and woozles in Pooh’s dream.
The park was definitely clearing out now, so we had a little time to do some last minute rides. Caden wanted to do the Gadget Go Coaster and Big Thunder again, Keller and Kamy both voted for Pooh. We managed to get the third ride on Big Thunder and catch Pooh again. With just a few minutes left, Caden and I went to the Go Coaster while Keller and Kamy did Pooh one last time.
What a fun day! Disneyland Tokyo is a great park — impeccably maintained and very efficiently run. It is clear the company operating the park is focused on the overall experience. While we wished that Space Mountain and the castle were open, we’re excited about the possibility of coming back in a few years to experience the new Beauty and the Beast ride and the rides that were closed this time around. Maybe in 2021? We’d definitely be up for returning.
Now well past closing at 10pm, we stopped at the grocery store just outside the park for some breakfast items and then headed home. Except apparently in Tokyo, there is a music venue space called “Home” that is no where close to Taito City. Nope, clear on the other side by Shibuya! Unfortunately we didn’t figure this out until we were at Shibuya wondering where in the world we were. Ugg. So then it was back to the subway to get to our apartment-home. It was 1:30am before we were all in bed asleep. What a day! It was fun though!
Wednesday
Today is a recovery and recharge day before hitting the second Disney park on Thursday. While researching online, we came across the Thunder Dolphin coaster, not too far from where we were staying. It is a full size roller coaster, tacked onto a little amusement park / shopping center / indoor arena. A little out of the ordinary, but each ride had it’s own ticketing system and thus there wasn’t a entry admission fee.
We grabbed lunch before going over to Tokyo Dome City, this time opting for another Muslim run shop nearby called New Sarathi. Google had it listed as “Asian cuisine,” which ended up being a menu with Chinese, Thai, and Indian cuisine. So I guess Asian is a good description! Apparently we really weren’t tired of Thai yet, as we ordered spring rolls and green curry. 😉 The couple running the restaurant were very friendly and were Pakistani immigrants.
When we arrived at Tokyo Dome City, we were told that Thunder Dolphin was closed due to wind. While it didn’t seem windy to us any more, they said they had to wait a certain amount of time before reopening the ride once the wind died down. They wouldn’t commit to a specific time, nor if it would even open at all today.
Ultimately, we bought day passes for the kids to ride the little stuff while waiting on Thunder Dolphin. Just as they were getting through the little stuff, the big coaster was opened. Keller and I bought a couple of adult tickets, and we got in line for the coaster.
Loading was suuuuper slow and they only had one car running on the track. Other than that though, the ride was a lot of fun! It was very fast! It was manufactured by Intamin, one of Keller’s favorite manufacturers, and tops out at 130 kph. It also goes through a hole in a building, as well as through a spoke-less ferris wheel.
We were very glad that it opened long enough for us to ride on it. Afterwards, Keller and the kids rode the little log flume ride, as well as an indoor coaster called Back Dan! which was definitely a surprise hit for Keller. We also all went on the large ferris wheel and could see just a part of the vast metropolis that is Tokyo.
We happened to catch a J-pop band performing in the open air venue and watched a bit. It was definitely different from anything else we had experienced! Everyone inside the ropes had their possessions tied in a plastic bag and no one was allowed to have their cell phones out. After the performance, the audience was allowed to go up to shake hands with the band members, shuttled through by staff who would grab their trash bag of possessions and walk them through the greeting line with a hand on their shoulder. It was efficient, that’s for sure!
We grabbed some groceries from the shopping center, as well as a light dinner for the kids, before heading back to the apartment. We have another early morning tomorrow, so we need to get some good sleep!
Keller headed back out to grab something for his dinner after the kids (and I) were in bed. He found a spicy ramen place nearby and said it was the best he’s had so far! At least this vending machine had pictures!
Thursday
Bright and early today (or rather, before dawn), we were once again walking to the subway station. We were out of the door before 6am. We opted for a different route this time since the park was opening an hour earlier than Disneyland on Tuesday. This meant Google said we should take a different subway line.
By the time we made it to the Maihama station, day was breaking. It’s a bit of a hike to get to the entrance to DisneySea, and we were advised to take the monorail around to it. It was a bit pricey and not really faster though, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. The kids did like being in the front though!
We were there early enough that there weren’t a TON of people in front of us, but it certainly wasn’t empty either. We had a tentative plan to go to Soarin’ first. It’s one of the newest rides at DisneySea and often has a really long line. We were hoping by getting there early we could knock it out. Alas, by the time we were in line, the queue counter was guessing we had a 3 hour wait. 3 HOURS! It was literally 15 minutes after opening time. Thus we decided to bail on that plan. Instead we tried our hand at the show lotteries, but came up empty there too. Onward we went to the Tower of Terror. Here we stuck it out in the line and it took about 75 minutes to actually ride the ride. I have to say, it wasn’t the fastest start. This ride is actually themed a bit different and isn’t the Twilight Zone since that is not a well known series here in Japan. This is the Hightower Hotel which is cursed thanks to the millionaire owner’s penchant for stealing idols. 😉
However, Keller managed to get some decent options for fast passes in hand while we were in line, so it wasn’t totally lost. The day started warming up too, which definitely helped. It was quite chilly this morning!
By the time we finished Tower of Terror, our fast passes for Toy Story were available. This is a super cute ride and was a new one for us!
We walked through the incredibly themed area for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and past the closed Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Next was Ariel’s grotto, an indoor area with many small children’s rides and a theater show. Our timing was great as we walked right into the show without a wait.
After that, the kids rode a few of the small rides inside before moving to Flounder’s Coaster just outside. We also walked through the Arabian area. We had time to ride Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage, a fun indoor boat ride. This was definitely unique to DisneySea and Keller particularly enjoyed it!
By now our Indiana Jones fast passes were ready, and it was the first time either kid had ridden Indiana Jones (they were too small when we were in Disneyland several years ago).
One of the most intense coasters at DisneySea is the Raging Spirits. Unfortunately, Keller was right at the 195cm height limit, and you cannot dissuade Japanese cast members from following the rules. The kids and I rode it, however, it was just okay. It was definitely rough and shorter than I had expected. Despite having a loop, it wasn’t super fast either. Oh well, I told him he didn’t miss much.
Our fast passes for 20,000 Leagues was ready now, so we hopped over there to ride it. Once we got going, we really made a lot of use from the fast pass system which definitely helped our time waiting in lines.
We walked over to the Port of Discovery and did Nemo and Friends and Aquatopia — a trackless ride in shallow water that has potential but falls a little lacking in execution. I believe it is in the process of being replaced.
The sun was starting to set at this point, so we headed back to the main lagoon in order to stake out a spot for Fantasmic. We were early enough that we got a spot right by the water and the kids had an unobstructed view of the show. Perfect!
Before the park closed, we headed back over to the Arabian area to ride the two story Aladdin themed carousel, as well as riding Sinbad’s Journey again.
For the last 30 minutes, we split up. Caden made a new friend and rode Flounder’s Coaster 3 times in a row, while Keller and Kamy did Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania one last time each.
The park is beautifully lit at night — especially Triton’s castle. I guess it’s not Ariel’s castle since she is a human and now lives on land. <shrug>
We had a lovely time at DisneySea. It’s definitely got a different feel than the rest of the Disney parks and is quite special. Everything was in exceptional condition and I don’t think we saw a single burned out light bulb in the entire park. It was amazing and detailed and impeccable. I can see why this is some people’s favorite park. Crowd level aside, once the day got going we were able to see and do almost everything we wanted to.
Back to the trains and back to the apartment. We were all thoroughly worn out and it was past midnight (again) by the time we were back home. This time we did actually go straight home though!
Friday
Today we all slept in. When we did get up, we discovered a cold, rainy day. I don’t think we were very motivated to get going, especially as tomorrow is a travel day and we’ve burned our candle at both ends this week. Add in the head congestion, and we were a little pitiful all the way around.
We decided to go to Gyukatsu Ichi Ni San for lunch again. We knew we enjoyed it, it was close enough to walk through without getting totally soaked by the rain, and we were definitely hungry. We didn’t have to wait very long, so we were seated at the counter. We all ordered the only thing on the menu and thoroughly enjoyed the meal!
After lunch we split up. Keller wanted to go do some shopping for vinyl records and the kids were just pooped. So Keller took his transit card and headed to Shibuya while the three of us walked back home. We spent the afternoon hanging out and watched a movie and the kids played on the switch. Sometimes you just need a down day and that’s okay.
Meanwhile, Keller managed to find some record stores and explore a bit of Tokyo. As it was raining, most Japanese people had umbrellas to shield them from the rain. Alas, all those umbrellas were right at Keller’s shoulder level, so it was a bit treacherous to navigate on the sidewalks! He did see Shibuya crossing with people in it … though he said he could mostly see umbrellas, not people. 😉
Keller also stumbled upon a line of people waiting to visit the brand new, just opened today, Nintendo store. Everyone in line had a special piece of paper authorizing them to visit today … and Keller didn’t have one. He did peek in the windows though, as he could see above everyone’s heads. LOL!
Keller stopped for spicy ramen on the way back home and the kids and I ventured out for pizza for dinner at Pizzeria Bueno Bueno. We ended up in a little restaurant with a bajillion instruments and knick knacks on the walls. The pizza was just fine, but it was good to get out of the tiny apartment and we definitely needed something to eat. It wasn’t the highlight of our time in Japan, but what can you do.
Another early morning is coming tomorrow for our flight home, so we turned in for the night.
Saturday
We’re up early today to head back to Texas! We needed to catch at 7am train to the airport, so it was still dark when we left the apartment. Timing worked out great and we had a simple and straight forward transfer to NRT. Once there we pulled the remaining value from our public transit cards, converted our Yen back to USD and got ready for our flight.
The flight itself went very smoothly. It was nice to have a direct flight, and thanks to a really really fast jet stream, we were back in Houston in 11 hours (vs 14 hours on the way to Tokyo)! At one point we were going more than 700 mph. In fact, thanks to the time zone differences, we landed before we left Tokyo. Our flight departed Tokyo Saturday morning at 10am and we landed in Houston Saturday morning at 7am. 😉
Payton and Corinne met us at the airport with the truck and then we all went to breakfast together. We were a bit loopy, but ultimately we decided against sleeping at P&C’s house and opted to just drive home. The kids fell asleep on the ride back and we got home with plenty of daylight to spare. We ate dinner at Saltgrass in Tyler, but Caden didn’t make it through the meal. It’s been a LONG day!
Welcome home!