Hello Tokyo!
We have now been in Tokyo for one week! The flight over from Seoul was a breezy two hours, and it felt quite weird to set foot in Japan without any jetlag. That said, getting to and from the major airports is nontrivial in both cities and our total travel time was about 11 hours. One funny image that has stuck with us from our journey- at the airport, there were many, many signs warning passengers not to bring kim-chi in your carry-on (apparently it counts as a liquid.)
From Seoul to Incheon airport, we
took a 90-minute airport shuttle bus with many stops around the city. Matt was a great sport and carried all three
of our suitcases (2 hand-carries and 1 checked bag) down 4 flights of stairs to
get out of our AirB&B, and then 5 minutes along hilly terrain to get to the
closest shuttle stop. Leaving Narita airport in Japan, there were an
intimidating number of options to get to our AirB&B in the Naka-Meguro
neighborhood of Tokyo. We opted for the
Keisei train and then transferred to the subway, which took about 2 hours of
travel time as well. When we went to buy
train tickets at the airport, the operator sold us tickets for a train that
left in literally 4 minutes. Since we weren’t on the train platform yet, this
seemed quite aggressive but he was confident we would make it. We booked it to
the train platform and located the correct boarding area with about one minute
to spare. I’m not sure we recommend you do the same, but we don’t regret our
choice.
Navigating this situation (and
countless more since), we have really felt a strong difference between
traveling in Korea and Japan. If you recall in our Hangul post, we were both
able to learn to read the entire 24-letter Hangul alphabet in a few days, which
made understanding street signs and menus doable in Korea. By contrast, Japan
utilizes 2 different alphabets (Hiragana and Katakana) and over 50,000 symbols
called Kanji. Matt is showing admiral dedication and persistence and starting
to learn Hiragana, but progress is slow so we aren’t able to rely on that for
now.
But I digress… our AirBnb in Tokyo
is just a 3 minute walk from the subway, but this first time around it took us
about half an hour to find it… whoops. Google maps actually shows the wrong
location for the address. Our host is familiar with this issue and actually
shared a PDF with instructions and photos for getting to our apartment, but we
didn’t realize this until we got lost. We still arrived at the comfortable time
of 7:00 PM.
Perhaps shockingly, there was
absolutely no free water to be had during our trip from Seoul to Tokyo! Like a
true American, Karen tried asking at 3 different airport cafés (including one
where we had bought food) to no avail. Foolishly, we decided just to wait until
we boarded our plane to refill our water bottles. This time around however, we
were flying on a budget airline called ZipAir and learned we actually had to
pay for water! It’s a good thing Karen
asked early on in the flight. We had assumed there would be a beverage service
but were too thirsty to wait. There was no beverage service! The water was only
a few dollars per bottle so we caved and hydrated to our hearts content. I
guess it’s only fair to disclose that we did pass some drinking fountains in
the airport, but opted not to use them since we find them particularly gross in
airports.
Our actual apartment in Tokyo is
TINY. Going into our trip, we knew that apartments in Tokyo were small, but it
wasn’t until we actually started living in ours that we appreciated exactly how
small. Karen measured out some steps around our place and estimates it is 200
ft.². Words don’t really do it justice so check out this video for yourself. Tiny
homes have always seemed a little appealing to Karen even though she knows they
are probably uncomfortable, and this has definitely confirmed the latter. To
the apartment’s credit, there is a sizable closet which we forgot to film, so
factor that into your mental model of it. Karen bought a full-length foam
roller to do physical therapy at home, but we need to prop our mattress against
the wall to make room to do some exercises on it. As a funny side note, the foam roller was
actually marketed as a “beauty stretch pole” and includes a decorative printed
blue sleeve that covers the foam. But
don’t worry about us too much! A few weeks here seems totally fine.
When reading about Japanese culture before our trip, we learned that because Tokyo is such a dense city where homes are small, people spend more time outside of the home. A tour guide told us that bathhouse culture in Japan developed because not everyone used to have a bath at home. Similarly, it is common for hosts to entertain guests at restaurants instead of at home. Anecdotally, we have found eating out to be quite inexpensive while groceries, and especially produce, are a little more pricey than we are used to. This has created the odd situation where we don’t necessarily eat at home to save money, but rather when we are craving something even though it may cost more and take more energy to shop and cook in our tiny kitchen. We have been enjoying a plethora of very affordable and delicious sashimi, udon, ramen, tempura, tonkatsu, and mochi by eating out (think $7 USD/meal- although we did pass one tempura restaurant with a set dinner menu priced at over $100). But, you cannot take the Californian out of us, so we have been opting to make veggie heavy stir-fries and oatmeal at home on occasion as a “treat”. Fruits are also a treat, costing roughly around $1/banana, persimmon, orange or apple.
Striking a balance between square
footage, cost, location, and amenities can be tricky and what our apartment
lacks in size it makes up for with location. Thanks to a tip from our Japanese
family friend, we opted to stay in the southwestern section of Tokyo in a
neighborhood called Naka-Meguro. We love
it! Naka-Meguro manages to feel more
suburban and “small,” and yet is just about a 30 minute walk or 10 minutes by
subway from Shibuya, the heart of the hustle and bustle of the city. For
example, within 2 blocks of our apartment there is a laundromat, a large
grocery store, and a sento (public bath house). Matt has joined a local gym and Karen is able
to swim at the public pool. (more on
these later) There are dozens of tasty restaurants close by, and considering
all the walking we are doing to explore, it is super nice that our apartment is
just 3 minutes from the subway so we can save our energy. It is also convenient that Naka-Meguro station
is the start of the Hibiya subway line, so it has been quite feasible to get
seats on the subway cars when heading out for the day.
Time and time again, friends and acquaintances told us that Japan would be harder than Korea to navigate with English. Somewhat surprisingly, we have not found that to be true! Karen has pulled out Google translate or pantomimed things on several occasions only to have a Japanese person speak back to her in English! We came across a theory for the difference in expectations from one of our walking tour guides. She said that she spent a LOT of time and energy studying English in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because she had been planning on running a lot of tourism-related activities. Unfortunately, that tourism boom never came since once the 2020 Olympics were delayed due to Covid-19, and once they were held, most events did not have spectators. Needless to say, we have been testing the waters a bit more by going straight to English, and more often than not people understand, even if they cannot speak back in full sentences. Several times a day, we ask a stranger for help with something and they respond in fluent English! In Korea, we had to rely more heavily on picking up some Hangul since people there really did not know what we were saying in English more often than not.
During
Covid-19 lockdowns, we learned how to play a great boardgame called “Tokaido”
online. The premise of “Tokaido,” is that you are on vacation in Japan
traveling down the Tokaido road, which connects Tokyo to Kyoto. During your
trip, you must make hard decisions about whether to go to a hot spring or the
souvenir shop, see a beautiful panorama out in nature or visit a temple,
whether to eat miso soup or splurge on unagi… and so on. It is a very peaceful, noncompetitive game
and we have since purchased a physical copy! I didn’t appreciate the game’s
realism and educational aspect until we arrived in Japan, but it was good
preparation! For example, I knew about a type of charcoal grilled rice cake
called “Dango” from playing Tokaido, so when I saw it at a street vendor cart,
I sprang at the opportunity to try it. Similarly, there is powerful object
called an “Ema” in Tokaido. When we
visited a temple the other day, they were selling wooden “Ema” plaques, where
you could write your wishes and leave them at the temple to be ceremonially
burned with the intention of liberating them into the world. As a fun sort of scavenger hunt, I made a
list of all the cards in the Tokaido deck before we left for Japan and I’m
trying to take our own set of pictures so we can print our own custom deck when
we get back home. So far, it’s made a fun lens through which to experience
Japan.
Charcoal-roasted dango ricecakes. They taste similar to mochi, but are made with a different type of rice flour that is less chewy in texture. Ours was dipped in a sweet soy glaze rigth before serving.
"Ema" or wooden plaques for writing wishes, typically found at both Buddhist and Shinto shrines
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