Tokyo 2019 – The highlights.

Carrying on from last weeks post, it’s hard to put every place we went into a numerical order of what was bestest to… not bestest? Today I’m feeling Tokyo, so let me share some highlights (and I’m happy to answer any questions!)

Tokyo was the second part of our journey after Narita. We met up with some friends here, and did various activities together. Tokyo is huge and every time I went to plan out our time in Tokyo, I normally ended up closing the browser entirely, because compared to “large” New Zealand towns, Tokyo is huge, on top of that, the population is almost double the size of New Zealand, in a single city! crazy!

Accommodation: I won’t dwell on this too much. It was a tiny room in a Super Hotel in Shinjuku, about a 1.2km walk from the main Shinjuku train line. To get from the train line to our accom, we walked right through the busy town, which for someone whose grown up in small town NZ – was a little scary! Anyway. The accomidation – nothing much here. Really small. Not greatly priced, but close to stuff.

Activities and stuff:

You can tell I’m not normally a travel blogger – “activities and stuff?” IE: Shit we did in Tokyo. As I said, we met up with two groups of friends when here. We did a lot eating and a lot of walking!

Takeshita Street: One thing on my must do list was defo Takeshita Street. Now, there’s no way I’d fit into any of the clothes or even have luggage to cart it around if did buy stuff – nope, what I wanted was the food. And I only have two pictures of what I ate there, which is upsetting, yet its colorful so it makes me happy anyway!

The sights of Harajuku were pretty cool, we saw a lot of school kids (or YA?) walking around in Harajuku type clothes – not as much as I’d seen on all of the travel guides though. I little underwhelming, if I’m honest. The food was neat (the candy floss was flavored!)

teamLab Borderless: This is an interactive walk through… group of rooms (A lot of rooms?) where you can squish light bugs (they die if you step on them :() move water around you, get some cool pictures in some awesome light and ah… well, my friends said it was cool but it’d be better if they were tripping.. honestly, I’d have no clue. it was cool. Got some nice photos – The cellphone was better than the expensive camera. That’s the way life goes, isn’t it?

Robot Restaurant: Can you go to Tokyo without at least trying this place out? The answer is no. Lights, sound, people pretending to be robots, what more do you want? The only disappointment? It’s not a damn restaurant! They had intermission snacks, but not actual restaurant food. 🙁 I’d recommend taking ear plugs if you have sensitive ears, and a camera which is good at taking photos in low light.

Tokyo Tower: Next and last activity we did (I know, we probably missed out on so much, but we only had a few days!) was Tokyo Tower. It’s a tall tower where you can go right up the top and see the city. It’s expensive, but worth it! I’ll let the pictures speak.

Monster Cafe: We didn’t pick a proper show time. We also chose the cheapest seats. It was such a disappointment and not worth the money we spent. It was cool to see all the bright, weird and fun stuff they have there, but… eh, I think it was overrated.

Food

Two stand out locations in Tokyo (well, out of the food I remember). Niether I got pictures of, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Butagumi Shokudō (Roppongi) I’m not going to lie – I had to go back on my Google Timeline to find this because it was our friend that found it, and all I know is that they do damn good pork tonkatsu but I had no idea what the place was called. Look, I didn’t even know what pork tonkatsu was before I went here. And now I am disappointed that nothing in New Zealand will ever live up to it. Ever. Ever ever. There have cheap cuts and expensive cuts (I think we had one of each and both are certainly amazing! 10/10). You sit around a long tables while chefs prepare the pork in the middle of the room, it gets deep fried out back, then bought back out, cut and served. I really wish I could go back, please someone take me back!

Cafe Aaliya (Shinjuku): A very small resturant which cooks the best french toast, hands down, I’ve ever had, and it appears the reviews all around the web agree, too. Mate, if you like french toast. Go here. I nothing but good memories and regret that we only went there once while we were in Tokyo.

Random Tidbits

  • No one online ever said that Tokyo smelled like sewerage, and no one else seemed to be mentioning it around us except for our group. Maybe it was us? Maybe it was the unprecedented heat at that time of year – but the odour was present in all the areas we visited in Tokyo. Not overpowering, just unpleasant.
  • The trains are as busy as all the Youtube travel guides make them out to be, yet somehow I never got inappropriately touched, no one stood on my shoe, no one smelled unpleasant and even if they did, I don’t remember having to stand nose to armpit, anyway.
  • The area that the Robot Restaurant is in – is a little dodgy, especially at night. There were people trying to peddle something (unsure what, we didn’t stick around too long). The same type of people were also in Takeshita Street, but during the day – trying to sell fake goods. In both instances these people were not Japanese. Please be careful!
  • Tokyo was almost too much to take in – I didn’t get to hit up all the restaurants or sweet (baked and candy) places I wanted to. We could easily go back for a whole week to explore more
  • The subway stations are damn confusing but SO SO conveniant. You can get anywhere by train
  • I’m unsure if we went to the wrong crossing or what, but Shabuya crossing was kinda “meh” and that was the only reason we went to that area, too! (actually looking
    • I checked with Jared. And with Google Maps. We went to the right place. It was just.. underwhelming. A quiet day in Shabuya I guess.
  • We visited some nice parks and shrines, and took some other interesting photos so I’ll include those below as “misc” things (otherwise known as “things I don’t remember until i saw the photos”)

If you want any tips, feel free to comment below! I might be able to help or at least point you in