Tokyo

Day 362 (June 25, 2019) – Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is enormous. We only had four nights and it wasn’t nearly enough. There seemed to be so much to do. We were staying in another tiny apartment in a small residential area, but it was still close to the train and to nearby shopping and dining areas. We were staying in Ikebukuro, which is known for being a center for otaku culture, which is essentially young people who are obsessed with certain aspects of pop culture. In other words, the streets were lined with shops filled with anime, manga, and video games. Ikebukuro did not disappoint. We were walking home one day and there were hundreds of people out and about dressed up in cosplay. We assumed there was some sort of convention going on that day. It was really cool to see so many people dressed up like it were Halloween.

The main Tokyo train station.

We even found Godzilla. I thought he would have been larger than that.

This strange building was the Edo Museum, dedicated to documenting Tokyo's history. 

We spent a lot of time walking around the city. We found a statue of Godzilla and even a copy of Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell. We walked around the Imperial Palace, located in the very center of the city. We visited the Edo museum, a bizarrely shaped building which contained all sorts of information about Tokyo’s history. We got our best views of the city from the top of the Asahi Beer Tower. The high rise is supposed to resemble a glass of beer with foam on top, but that takes some imagination. On the top floor is a little bar that serves Asahi draft beers. Huge glass windows allowed us to overlook most of Tokyo. From up there you can really see how far the city spreads in every direction. The Asahi headquarters complex also includes another strange building, locally called the Golden Turd. It’s supposed to be a golden Asahi flame, but the origin of the building’s nickname is not really that surprising given what it looks like.

There is a copy of the Liberty Bell not far from the Imperial Palace. A plaque below it says that it was presented to Japan by the Secretary of the United States Treasury, John W. Snyder and that the gift was by suggestion of General Douglas MacArthur.

The panoramic view from the top of the Asahi Beer Tower.

The Asahi Beer Tower is the building in the center that is supposed to look like a glass of beer. The bar was at the top floor in the "foam." The odd building to the right is the famed "Golden Turd." The spire to the left is the Tokyo Skytree.

Tokyo gave us one last chance to enjoy all our favorite Japanese foods again. We had meals of crispy tempura, enormous bowls of udon, tonkatsu lunch sets, plates of conveyor belt sushi, and what was perhaps our best bowl of ramen in all of Japan at a place called Mutekiya. It was one of our last meals in Tokyo and we had to wait in line outside in the hot sun for nearly half an hour, but it was worth it. The broth was delicious but what really set this ramen apart from all the others were the huge slices of pork that were cooked to utter perfection. It was so tender that poking it with a chopstick was enough to make it fall apart. It melted in the mouth. Travis even like it too because he was able to get a super spicy version of the same ramen dish.

One of our best bowls of ramen from Mutekiya. It was worth the wait.

The best part about Tokyo was meeting up with Toshi, a friend of mine who goes all the way back to middle school. In fact, I even traveled with him to Japan the summer between middle school and high school. We were mostly in Osaka, staying with one of his grandmothers. I was pretty young at the time and have a hard time remembering most of the trip, but I have a few scattered memories of events (like visiting Kyoto and going to Universal Studios) and meeting various relatives. It was one of my earlier experiences being abroad and I think it had a big impact on my future interests.

Meeting up with Toshi in Shinjuku.

We met up with Toshi in Shinjuku for dinner and drinks one night. Home to the world’s busiest railway station, the area all around Shinjuku is packed with shops and restaurants all trying to compete for advertising space. It was a cool neighborhood to walk around and filled with countless dining and drinking options. After dinner Toshi took us on a little tour of some of the bars in the area where we indulged in one of Japan’s favorite drinks, the highball. To be honest, the whiskey and soda combination is definitely not my favorite, but when in Japan…

Shibuya Crossing. 

Reliving our days of karaoke from high school.

We met up again a couple days later in Shibuya for a night of karaoke. Just getting there gave us a chance to experience Shibuya crossing. It’s basically the Times Square of Tokyo, consisting of a crazy intersection with thousands of people trying to get across the street when the walk signs turn green. The whole area surrounding the intersection was a hive of activity. At the karaoke facility we met up with Toshi’s sister, Mayuko, and a mutual friend from high school, Keita. The karaoke studio was surprisingly nice. It included dinner and drinks, ordered by touchscreen, of course. We spent a few hours there eating, drinking, singing, and catching up. It felt like the greatest time warp of all time. I went to high school with Toshi and Keita and we’d frequently go to this Korean karaoke studio, with Mayuko and others being there too. Toshi, Mayuko, and Keita had all since moved to Japan and were living in Tokyo. We just happened to be there at the right time when we could all get together for a night of karaoke again. I was even able to find an old picture of us at the karaoke studio in Colorado from 15 years ago! Who knew we’d get a chance to update the photo so many years later being halfway across the world?

Group photo after karaoke.

This photo was taken circa 2004 (15 year ago!) at a karaoke studio in Colorado when we were all in high school. And yes, the photo is super blurry. It was probably taken with a disposable Kodak camera for all I know. I found it floating around on Facebook.

We had one more unforgettable experience while in Tokyo. On the morning of June 24, we got woken up by an earthquake. It was really disorienting. I remember groggily waking up and thinking, why does Travis keep pushing me? I felt like I was on a boat that keep rocking from side to side. By the time we even realized what was happening, it was all over. Nothing in the apartment fell over, but it was strong enough to feel and shook us around in the bed for a minute. Fortunately, earthquakes seem to be a fact of life in Tokyo and the buildings are constructed to withstand them. Although shocking to us, the rest of Tokyo seemed to be going about the day like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Tokyo is the blue dot. 

Tokyo marked the end of our time in Asia. It also marked the point on our trip when we had been gone just a couple days short of a year. We were sad to leave Japan, and we were definitely going to miss the food, but we were looking forward to seeing another part of the world. We took off from Narita Airport late at night on a Turkish Airlines flight that, through a connection in Istanbul, would take us to Georgia. All we had booked was a week at an Airbnb apartment in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, but we would figure out the rest when we got there.