Japan 2024

It had always been our plan to visit Japan. And when the opportunity presented, we made that happen. It was the most beautiful period to experience Japan. When else, but the cherry blossom season, and we weren't disappointed. More like, we were overjoyed at the privilege of experiencing this phenomenon in person.

Here's an account of our trip 🗾

Day 1: 

We landed at a cozy airport Narita international. While this is one of the two big airports close to Tokyo, it was relatively small, atleast looked so when we landed. We took our customary albeit cute ‘welcome to’ country picture :)

And headed to a long queue for immigration that took half an hour to clear. Throughout the airport, staff were well versed in English and very helpful. 

I was expecting a lot of culture shock, but so far so good. There were clear instructions on how to book train, bus, navigate around the airport and even how to reach your taxi (as specific as gate X after 2 crosswalks!). However, for someone who isn’t prepared for how to navigate around the city, it will be overwhelming with so many varied options and not knowing which to choose. If confused, lookup google public route in Maps and pick a train/bus. Cheaper and very good connectivity. 

Here's a look at the section of the airport that provides connectivity options to the city, may it be train or bus or local transport passes.

We ended up taking a cab as we had huge bags with us and quite a lot of walking to our hotel from the train stop in Tokyo. I was expecting a cheap ride, but it costed ~$200 for a 1 hour ride. So if there are fewer bags, it will be worth exploring cheaper transport options. 

Our hotel was beautiful with Sakura trees in its compound. This was indeed a beautiful welcome, and so were the welcome sweets and a cute origami in our room

The options at in hotel restaurants were our first taste of lack of veg options in Japan, as I had suspected. We found very few options for lunch and dinner

Here's a quick look at the meals on the same day. 

This lunch appetizer deserves a special mention. We had ordered a caprese salad that is traditionally made with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil leaves. As can be seen in the picture, instead of basil leaves, there was green basil flavored ice cream. This was the most creative caprese salad I had tasted and left a memorable taste. No other caprese salad will match up to it. Maybe the ones in Italy ? I will let you know when I visit it again 😇

Here are some of the evening cocktail hour snacks. Now this was a preview of what we saw later on, that there are sweets everywhere!! we got fed up of seeing sweet shops everywhere, but more on that later.

Fewer veg options and hence pizza for dinner. sigh!

Ending the day, we headed to sleep Zzzzz

Day 2:

After a very required rest, we headed for breakfast

Breakfast view

We then decided to explore the hotel area. As we were preparing to do so, guess what we saw! (eBay ops review) 

#YouCanTakeAbreak #butEbayDoesntTakeAbreak

And now we went ahead and continued on to the area within the hotel compound. Have to give credit to husband for picking such a pretty hotel. Here are some pics 

Japanese Maple (Just 'Maple' in Japan I guess 😆)

Here's a look at the hotel garden

Although not satisfied enough, we were ready to take on Tokyo. Alas, heavy rains threw a wrench in our plans. It was disappointing as we had limited time in Tokyo and we wouldn't get to see all interesting places in the city. Nevertheless, we headed to our first destination - Uniqlo 😅  To get prepared for the rains, first course of action was to purchase rain suitable wind cheaters. 

We continued on to Tokyo international forum where large cultural events are conducted. We didn't see any but explored it.We entered Tokyo international forum building at one place and without realizing went all the way to Tokyo main railway station that was more than 15 min over ground. Crazy big station, that provides connectivity to major cities in all of Japan. 

Miniature of the Edo castle

Part of the Tokyo railway network

It was still raining. Sigh. To relax after walking in rains and the railways station, we headed to cat cafe minta.

😅😅 cats are indifferent as they don’t much care about you. So you can relax and feed them every now and then have fun observing them.

Husband sharing birthday with Tom :)

Husband hanging out with the cat who shared his birthday

Husband feeding the cat

Shobha feeding the cat

As rain gave us a break, we took a chance visiting the senso-ji temple. Here's a sneak peek just after purchasing much needed umbrella 😅

it was beautiful but oh!the tourists! So that was fun as you can see in the pictures. And yes, I understand the irony 😉

Once inside the temple, we got a chance to get fortune read which was fun and lit incense sticks. Watch it here and here.

Now it was time for lunch and to keep things simple, we chose a vegan place. 

It was nothing to write home about but sufficient for sustenance. and of course, I got to annoy husband who is not fond of vegetarian let alone vegan 😅 He endured like a champ!

Our last indoor activity plan for the day was ‘team labs planet’ digital art installation. But as we didn’t have prior booking, we were sent back to home from the reception area 😅

Now onto day plan for tomorrow. Unlike today when we just went for it, will be spending time to plan for places to visit. We usually go with the flow, but some planning is needed here 😉 Thankfully respite from rains gives us a window of opportunity for a day tour. so will plan accordingly. Yay!!

Here are some pics on how we ended the day.

                                                            courtesy of our hotel

yes it is indian food on our first night in Japan  😂

Btw The lack of culture shock that I referred to yesterday, was found aplenty today 😅😅 from making sense of the station signs to pronouncing local names to conversing with the cab drivers, was lot of confusion and fun. 

Day 3: 

Finally the rain gods gave us a break and we charged full ahead. A quick breakfast later, we were on our way to visiting the Tokyo tower. But before that, here's another look of the compound within our hotel from the lift. Can't get enough of it!!

Tokyo tower’s (entrance pic) lovely entrance welcomed us. 

With some quick snaps later, we were on our way to main deck. The staff was extremely courteous in almost all places here. We were taken to the main deck and provided the pleasure of panoramic (PHOTOS 4 folder) view of the city. Tower itself is taller than Eiffel Tower but way more recent. 

As there was an option to go further high up, we took another ticket and headed on. Now this level was let’s say bringing anxiety, at least while in the elevator when you could see yourself climbing up. Ooooo

Once up, now we could see the same building we saw in lower deck at significantly higher level . Now I know that, that is how going up and down usually works 😃but a reminder of the same was anxiety inducing. 

Some other pictures from here and main deck.

At the main deck, we started our souvenir shopping and even got to send postcards to friends all the way from Japan! 

Once we had our fill, we headed down and were greeted with many souvenir shops.  

This got us excited and we explored the shops and bought some. 

We also learnt later that there was an earthquake of 5 on Richter scale while we were in the tower!! But Japan is built for earthquakes and we didn’t even feel it. This knowledge while on top of the tower would have made my heart leap out! Thankfully, learnt of this much later. 

From here, we headed to Asakusa shrine (same as senso ji) and did some shopping for souvenirs. Was fun as there were many shops and we bought nice little memorabilia for friends and family back home. 

As I was too hungry, we stopped at a local cafe but could find only sweet food items. And that is another thing about Japan. Either you would see hardcore non veg food or sweets. Oh! The sweets! We got fed up of seeing sweet shops and at one point were exclusively looking for savory shops. 

Here's a closer look at above dessert. Video is worth it! (photos 5 folder)

Now marching forth, we headed for Chidoriga fuchi. Now before we visited this place, I wasn’t sure of what to expect. But a google search later, I found that this is one of THE places to be in Tokyo to see cherry blossoms. It is right next to imperial palace and has a pond that is covered with a canopy of cherry blossoms. It was like a carpet of cherry blossoms in air. Aah! There was nothing like it. We took tons of pictures and still couldn’t get enough of it. It was sublime. I can’t stress this enough, but if you are planning to visit Japan, cherry blossom is the time to travel.

                                                    Here's a quick look at the canal (Photos 6 videos)

One paragraph describing this place isn’t enough. But I’ll move on as I’m sure I’ll keep ranting and obsessing about spotting Sakura trees in days to come. 

Somewhere in between enjoying the beauty of this place, we spotted embassy of India right in front of this area. There definitely is some sense of kinship when you spot any association with your country in a foreign land 🥹 I was also impressed that India got such a nice location for its embassy. 

But moving onwards, we continued to explore other places as this was our one day to explore the city. We headed to Yasukuni shrine that was right across from street. At this time, yours truly was finding it difficult to walk and had to take a break. But there was so much to explore that I wouldn’t rest. We headed to the shrine that was an open area with two huge gates and one gate eventually led to a small shrine. We noticed that locals would bow before the gates as they enter the shrine. These gates are called Torri and a mark of Shinto shrines. It is a custom to give respect in this manner. As we walked inside the shrine, we were again welcomed by cherry blossoms all around us.

Here's a quick look (photos 7) at the shrine's compound.

how blissful! Few more pictures later, we walked to the shrine and prayed. As with all of the shrines we visited, there was a small box in front of the main temple (we are not allowed to be inside and it is barred with a gate) where devotees can offer some money. Folks would do that and then pray. 

As it was getting dark, we decided to travel to our next destination, Hie shrine. It was a small shrine with lots of steps to reach there. Yours truly struggled but persevered and reached the top. Surprisingly there were only a handful of tourist which means it is not a popular spot for them. I had picked this shrine from a list shared by a friend. But it was still very peaceful. 

We headed to our last shrine of the day - Meiji Jingu. It was on everyone’s top ten list and for a good reason. We were welcomed by a Torii and had to walk good 10-15 min to reach the shrine. As it was late in the evening, staff were preparing to close the gates. But we managed to enter in time. The walk to the shrine itself was amidst of tall trees. It looked like a scene from a lush forest. We explored the shrine a bit and then headed back. 

Closeup of the sake barrels (Photos 9)

View of the shrine compound (photos 10)

This shrine (and other Tokyo shrines infact) and its forest like vibe was a unique experience. 

Right outside the gates was what I think must be the poshest area in Tokyo, what with all luxury brands I know of. And here was a contrast. It was a peaceful shrine on one side and high fashion street on its opposite side. 

As we had plans to keep, we walked to harajuku shopping street that was bustling with activity. First stop - totti candy factory where we got huge rainbow colored cotton candy. 

Cotton candy making ; Husband being cute; Yours truly (Photos 11)

We already had our fill of sweets so we took a quick pit stop for some potato swirls.

We spotted an anime store right across from the street and headed into it, only to discover plethora of Knick knacks related to anime. As the prices were similar to those of US, only for the pleasure of buying anime memorabilia from Japan, I ended up picking a couple 🥹 

Here's a look at the store (Photos 12)

We had our fill and stopped buy a few shops to pick a few more souvenirs, before rushing to a ramen shop known for its masala ramen (found this from instagram). Ramen is not a Japanese thing, bento boxes are. So regular shops were mostly selling meals. Now, so far I had not had the pleasure of eating ramen here as almost all are non-veg. I was looking forward to this one. (Ten to sen ramen)

There was a complicated method of ordering the food that was diligently explained to us by a staff.

Video of the vending machine (Photos 14)

We ordered veg masala ramen and waited. Our ramen looked beautiful but it was a jolt of Indian spices. At first, it felt as if loads of garam masala was added at the top of ramen, which was the case. Then as we started eating, we tasted more of Indian spices that were simply added to broth while boiling, unlike in Indian homes where they are fried to impact the right flavor. The more I ate, the more I could feel the strong taste of raw spices and it almost gave a very slight burning sensation in the stomach. I would have loved some curd at that time. We had our fill and headed on to hotel for the night. 

Btw I had the experience of wearing plastic apron just how they show in Korean dramas. It was very helpful as slurping the noodles can wreak havoc on your clothes. 

Videos (Photos 15)

On a side note, as we were going around the city today, I was looking around to checkout earrings worn by thewomen here. But noticed that I didn’t find many. Reason for that being that almost everyone, I mean everyone, wears their hair open and it’s straight and in 95% of instances, has a fringe. Quite a similarity for all of the city. Very similar to Korea as seen in their TV shows 😆 I’m sure this is a city fad and folks in rural areas or smaller cities don’t do so. Guess we will find out when we travel to Kyoto. 

On another side note, Here they would bow and welcome, and then repeatedly mention ‘arigato gazai mas’ (that’s my English version of pronouncing it). Out of curiosity, respect for the local culture and in the spirit of being courteous we picked up this phrase and also ‘konnichiwa’ that means hello. 

By end of this day and numerous cab rides later, we were also comfortable with ‘arigato gazai mas’ and ‘konnichiwa’. Felt nice to partake in such a nice local ritual. 

Day 4: 

Today we had booked for a complete day tour. Bus picked us up in the morning for a 10 hour day tour. While it was early in the day, we were excited to see Mount Fuji. It was a 1.5 hour ride but didn’t seem so long as our English speaking guide entertained us throughout with Japanese tidbits. 

3Ps

For example, Japanese do Hanami that is a family picnic under Sakura. Alcohol included as it is allowed everywhere in Japan. Japanese are shy people but get comfortable and friendly once high. Their business negotiations happen while drunk so they are comfortable too 😀

• Two main religions in the country are Buddhism and Shinto, with only 3% being Christian. 
• KFC Christmas is a thing here. Apparently Japanese associate Christmas with KFC. So Christmas Eve and Christmas are to be complete only with KFC. Our guide suggested that this is because chicken was expensive many years back and as western culture got popular with family dinners shown on TV, and Japanese had higher incomes in recent years, this phenomenon got popular. 
• 7/11 has the largest number of store in Tokyo compared to any other chain
• You would notice barely any dustbins throughout the city. It was annoying honestly. Apparently, number of bins in public places were removed after the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo Metro where explosives were stashed in a dustbin. You are expected to dispose it at your home 
• Tokyo is not a city but a metropolis that is formed of multiple cities

As we traveled, all the while we could observe fog around us that didn’t provide very encouraging outlook for visibility of Mount Fuji. After a long ride, as we climbed up the mountain, we were informed by the guide that most likely we wouldn’t be able to see Mount Fuji unfortunately. So we went and took few pictures instead (pictures), and headed back. 

As a consolation, our guide took us to Mount Fuji museum that was setup in honor of the mountain being declared a UNESCO world heritage site few years back. It was a quick stop and although we couldn’t read all of it, it got us interested. Here’s a video of a businessman making his way to the top of Mount Fuji. (Video)

What we did learn was that Mount Fuji is considered a holy site by Japanese. It has prominent significance in their lives and hence it is revered.  

 

Now it was time for lunch. I for one was excited for the traditional Japanese lunch minus the meat. It didn’t disappoint (pictures videos below)

Once done, we headed to peace park (Buddhist temple - Indian style pagoda). Now before we even reached there, we were welcomed by a canopy of cherry blossoms. Some other writer would have done justice to it as my words fall short. Similar to yesterday, we were surrounded all around with cherry blossoms and we couldn’t get enough of it. We braved the rain and absorbed the view while taking tons of pictures and videos. 

With much reluctance we moved forward to Hakone gondola ride. It was a generic gondola which was average as we couldn’t see much due to the fog. So much fog cover that we couldn’t see anything beyond the fog. We were also supposed to take a pirate boat cruise but that got suspended due to the fog. Bummer!

We continued on to another tourist hotspot , Owakudani valley for black egg. There are actual eggs sold here that are made by boiling egg in hot spring and take on the black color due to iron sulfate. No change to taste though. Legend has it that eating 1 egg increases longevity by 7 years. Our guide says he must have eaten 200-300 so far and he doesn’t believe he is becoming immortal 🤪 (pictures here)

Our last stop of the day was Hakone shrine which is the oldest shrine in hakone region. It was beautiful with its orange columns and general calm around the area. (Picture)

At this time, we started wrapping up and headed for our train station. We were to have our first bullet train experience and we couldn’t be more excited. japan’s bullet trains are legendary in the world and it was a privilege to board them. As expected, the train started on the dot, and traveled at ~300km/hr. Quite an experience it was. 

As is known worldwide, Japanese trains run precisely on time. If there is even a 2 min delay, they would profusely apologize. So much so that a certificate is given to passengers in case they need to show it to their office and explain their delay (this last bit is info I’ve read somewhere)

Now back to Tokyo station we decided to proceed to Tokyo Skytree which is the tallest building in Tokyo. Our guide suggested that we continue our train journey by taking a transfer and catching a local train. He guided us part of the way and we tried to learn the way to read directions as this was our first experience navigating Tokyo local rails. Once on the platform, we were ready to board the train but there was barely any room in the coach. All of us pretty much crammed in there, so much so that I was right below a tall guy and would have easily smelt his armpit odor 😂😂 I know gross but that made me laugh uncontrollably. This reminded me of a fact our guide told us earlier in the day. Until many years back, there used to be a pusher outside of all coaches and their job was to push people in as doors closed. I’m not surprised given the number of people here! 

Finally we managed to reach our station and located a taxi to head towards skytree. Now skytree all in all is roughly half a kilometer in height. They have two decks and we took some fun pictures on their glass deck (pics here)

We decided to go further up and reached the topmost section allowed to public. Honestly speaking it was nerve wracking to be at that height. It was scarryyy. However, view of the city was worth it. This was the highest vantage point of the city and we could see Tokyo tower, highways, downtown, the bay and lots of twinkling lights given the density of the city. After taking tons of pictures, we were ready to head back. (Picture)

After a rough day, in search for comfort food we ended up ordering from an Indian restaurant. I know I know! We can’t get away from Indian food 😅

But before dinner, we finally decided to explore the hotel garden in the evening. The place is just superb for a date if all the tourists aren’t there. It was prettiest pretty. See for yourself (pictures here)

And this ended another eventful day. Onto Kyoto!