I briefly mentioned this yesterday during my miscellaneous photo dump blog post in the section about visiting the Yamaha shop in Ginza, but I am very much a music person. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve played a lot of different instruments. I started with piano lessons when I was young (very fitting to the Asian stereotype), took cello lessons alongside piano when I got a little bit older, and then played woodwind and percussion instruments in band when I was in middle school.
The Min-on Music Museum was basically a combination of a small museum with a live performing arts exhibition. When I showed up, I was told that admission was free and that there was a piano performance in progress in one of the rooms. I was scurried up to the piano room on the second floor, and after waiting for the second-to-last song to end, I was allowed in so I could watch the final song of the performance. At this point, I felt very fortunate that I had made it just in time to at least see one song.
The performer was skilled at playing the piano, but she seemed like she was just a regular staff member at the museum—she was wearing what looked like a uniform that all other staff members were wearing. I found her piano ability quite impressive within the context that usually, in the United States, regular employees like this generally aren’t held to a high qualification standard if you’re just staffing a museum.
There was signage that asked spectators not to take photographs until the conclusion of the set. My guess is that this policy was implemented due to the industry self-regulation in Japan of cell phone manufacturers forcing a shutter sound to play when taking photographs with Japanese-made phones in order to combat non-consensual or privacy-intruding photography, and such shutter sounds would interfere with the performance. Even though I have a United States phone with no shutter sound, I still avoided taking pictures until after the show, upon which I checked out all the different pianos on the stage.
After taking a look at the pianos, I headed over to one of the museum exhibits where they showcased various different instruments from around the world.
Shortly after I finished going through this section of the museum, a staff member came up to me and asked me to head down to the first floor to watch the music box performance. This is when I realized that they have routine recurring mini-concerts happening throughout the day at this museum on one-hour intervals. Once an hour, there is a piano performance that takes about 15-20 minutes, followed by a small 10-15 minute break to allow patrons to explore the museum. Afterwards, there is a music box performance that takes another 15-20 minutes, followed by another 10-15 minute break for more self-guided exploration. This cycle repeats several times per day.
The music box performance had similar guidelines of no photography during the performance. Although the performer was providing commentary on the music boxes in Japanese, I was provided a brochure with an English translation so I could learn about the different boxes being played and on display.
I forgot to take a wider shot of the piano performance area, but I remembered to do so for the music box area. As you can see, there are a lot of swiveling stools arranged in a grid, which allows for spectators to spin around and watch the performer play the various different music boxes available in the room.
After enjoying this performance, I had a short opportunity to check out some more of the artifacts on display before it was time for the piano performance again.
Because I only had a chance to hear the final song of the prior performance, I joined in on the piano set again so I could listen to the entire thing. It was a different employee playing the pianos this time, which further added to me being impressed at the baseline level of talent of all the museum staff. She played a variety of different songs that were curated to fit the time period of the piano on which the song was played.
After thoroughly enjoying the live performances, I checked out the final few rooms before wrapping up my museum visit. A bunch of sections in these exhibits had signs prohibiting photography, so I was only able to capture pictures of just a few items in this final area.
This is a view of the museum from the second floor looking down. The center was fairly wide open, with all the notable rooms—such as the performance halls, museum exhibitions, and meeting spaces—being lined along the edges.
Next door to the museum was the Min-on Music Library. I saw from the website that reservations are required to access the library, and it seemed like the library was more geared towards academics who were going there to conduct research and study (as opposed to being geared towards casual visitors or tourists), so I chose not to go in as to be considerate to those actually using the library for its intended purpose.
I was in this museum for around an hour and a half, and right as I was done and heading out, there was a bus full of people that had just arrived at the front entrance and were filing indoors, all wearing professional business attire and some carrying briefcases. My guess is that they had some sort of special event or conference going on, and I was lucky enough to just barely dodge the congestion.
I’m glad I stumbled across the Min-on Music Museum online so I knew that it existed, and I feel fortunate that I had a chance to visit it. It was one of the more serene and blissful tourist activities I did while I was in Tokyo, and I think it was a very unique experience that I otherwise would not have been able to have in the United States. Yes, I can buy tickets to scheduled orchestral performances in the United States, but that’s not quite the same as being able to go to a free museum and unexpectedly have live piano and music box performances throughout the day.
There was a lot of stuff I saw and did during my trip to Japan; some were multi-hour adventures during which I took enough photographs to warrant a full, dedicated blog post (a few of which I’ve published already), but some were much shorter and quicker. I still want to post about the simpler activities I did, so I wrangled up all my miscellaneous pictures in order to share them across two photo dump blog posts.
On the day of my flight into Narita International Airport, my original plan was to head straight to my hotel, check in, take a shower, and go to sleep. By the time I deplaned, cleared customs and immigration, figured out how to purchase a Welcome Suica card, rode on the train to Ginza, and made it to my hotel room, it was 7 PM JST, which is the equivalent of 2 AM PST back home.
However, one of my friends who was already in Tokyo at this time wanted to come visit me in Ginza upon my arrival. 2 AM PST isn’t too late relative to the range of times between which I usually fall asleep, so I agreed to spend a few hours with her. She picked a ramen restaurant nearby that we walked to for dinner.
She opted for regular ramen, while I picked dipping ramen.
On the kiosk where we put in our orders, I had to make a selection of what size I wanted—regular or large. Both were the same price, so I figured that I might as well just get the larger size if it’s a free upgrade. I couldn’t tell whether or not I had made a misplay by doing so, because when my plate of noodles came out, it was absolutely gigantic.
During one of my evenings, I joined some friends to go shopping in Harajuku. I wasn’t particularly interested in buying anything, but I did appreciate being able to see what retail stores in Japan were like. I did end up making one singular souvenir purchase in Tokyo later on, which I will share in the photo dump post from my second week in Tokyo, but for this session, I was mostly just sightseeing while being the designated shopping bag and purse carrier for my friends.
Part-way through our shopping day, we stopped by a crêpe shop to buy a strawberry and whipped cream crêpe. The flavor of the chocolate drizzle on the crepe was a little overpowering, but apart from that, the rest of the crêpe was incredible. The strawberries had a refreshing sweetness to them, and the texture of the crêpe’s surface was dense enough that it was satisfying to chew, yet still somehow the flakiest crêpe I’ve ever had.
We also stopped by a café. This is my friend’s matcha latte; she received a seemingly radioactive piece of bread to go along with her drink.
I opted for a guava fruit juice mix, which I selected because guava is not as common as other fruits in the United States, and I wanted to get the most out of opportunities I have in Asia that I wouldn’t have back at home.
I liked how it tasted, but they gave me so much ice that it felt like I only had a few fluid ounces of drink.
One thing I noticed about big-brand stores in Tokyo is how they basically design their store as if it is their most important flagship location. On top of that, because Tokyo has limited sprawl space, a lot of buildings are built upwards, so these stores will have multiple floors of retail space, with each floor being dedicated for a certain category or type of product.
I’m not a fan of the Nike brand whatsoever, but my friends wanted to check it out, so I still tagged along. This Nike store in Harajuku was nicer than basically any sportswear store I had ever seen in the United States. I also liked the gigantic LED wall that stretched upwards across multiple floors.
Here are a couple random photos I took of some random streets while I was waiting for my friends to wrap up and finishing checking out with their final purchases.
Most train stations are underground and are accessed by going down a flight of stairs. However, this station that we took after shopping was upstairs instead. This served as a nice vantage point for me to take a photograph down Tokyo Prefectural Route 433.
For dinner on one of the days, I joined some friends at a yakiniku restaurant. We ordered a lot of meat, all of which had incredible marbling and orgasmic flavor. The food was so good that I forgot to take photos up until this bowl of beef tartare, which I’m pretty sure was the best tartare I’ve ever had in my entire life.
Usually, tartare comes out as either minced beef or beef cut in much smaller squares, but this dish had longer strips of raw meat instead. We mixed in the egg yolk and green onion, which complemented the beef perfectly. Everything was sitting atop a marinade, which had the perfect level of sweetness and saltiness to enhance the rich, umami flavor of the beef.
For brunch one day, my friend took me to the Tsukiji Fish Market southeast of Ginza in Chuo City. When she told me that we were going to a fish market, I pictured a place where fishermen would bring their fresh catches to a marketplace and auction off whole fish to the highest bidder. Instead, it ended up being closer to a sushi and seafood market that also sold prepared meals.
One of my favorite things about these stalls was that they showcased what appeared to be taxidermied models of what they were selling so that people can get an up-close look at a visual representation of the products without the vendor needing to risk contaminating any of the actual fresh food. I didn’t touch any of them, but the models were impressively realistic.
One of the stalls had charcoal grill where, if you buy eel and want to eat it right away, they will cook it for you right in front of you.
Sushi and seafood wasn’t the only thing they sold; there were plenty of stalls that sold fruits, nuts, and other packaged snacks, as well as some stalls that sold nicely-designed and decorated pastries and desserts.
For brunch, my friend and I decided to dine at a sushi restaurant. There was a bit of a line outside their door of people waiting for them to open; we joined this line and were among one of the first customers of the day.
My friend and I ordered one entrée each and split them half-and-half; one entrée was a chirashi bowl and the other one was a sushi combo.
Because I mostly maintained a general modicum of my United States sleep schedule without fully adjusting to Asian hours, I usually went to sleep early and woke up early. In the early mornings, I would handle whatever Tempo work tasks needed to be done, and then when the Tokyo sun rises, I would go out to be a tourist.
I usually don’t use the hotel’s housekeeping service because I don’t like strangers coming into my hotel room. However, for some of the days, I let one of my friends stay with me in my room, and she liked having the room tidied up by the maids once in a while.
Because I leave to go on tourist activities pretty early, I also usually get back to my hotel room fairly early as well for my mid-day break. On one of the days, I ended up returning while the maid was still cleaning my room. We had a comical language barrier problem because she didn’t speak English, and I thought she spoke Japanese, but I ended up gathering that she actually only speaks Vietnamese.
Regardless, we managed to get through to each other that she needed only five more minutes to wrap up, so in the meantime, I went upstairs to wait in the rooftop lounge, which had some nice views of the surrounding area.
The highest floor of my hotel wasn’t the only spot I was able to get some nice views. Ginza has a few streets with pedestrian skybridge walkways, so I was able to get some nice photos of the surrounding area from a slightly elevated vantage point.
Even though I would sleep pretty early in the evening or night, my friends still convinced me to stay out relatively late once in a while for dinner. On one of the days when I had plans to go out in the late afternoon and evening, I woke up early, got some work done, then joined a friend for a quick lunch prior to going to the train station to grab a ride to my activity of the day. She picked a nice and cozy curry spot situated in the basement of a building in Ginza.
Prior to arriving to Japan, I had heard stories about how they had been having issues with foreigners. Apparently, a lot of foreigners were disruptive and inconsiderate, and locals thought that they were being disrespectful during their periods of tourism. More broadly, a lot of locals also thought that foreigners were just driving up the prices of things in Japan due to a lot of Western countries (such as the United States) having more spending power in their currency. As a result, a lot of businesses had allegedly taken some degree of corrective action, some of which involved having two separate prices depending on what language of menu you request.
When we arrived at this curry restaurant, we were warmly greeted and given a Japanese menu. I was fine browsing through and just using a translator, but after the waitress realized that we were using our phones to translate everything, she offered an English menu for our convenience, which we accepted.
Because I had the “different prices for different menus” concept in the back of my mind, I quickly memorized a few of the prices on the Japanese menu, and then compared them to the same dishes on the English menu. I found out that there were indeed different prices for the same bowls of curry, though there was barely a difference. Strangely, the Japanese menu showed very precise prices, like 1,677円, while the English menu showed rounded prices, like ¥1,750. I’m not sure if that had to do with tax-exclusive vs. tax-inclusive pricing, or if they rounded the numbers because they assumed that foreigners are less likely to have exact change, but the difference was so small—literally less than the value of two quarters—that I had no issue paying the “foreigner price.”
They were out of some ingredients for the day already so there was a limited number of options we could pick from. My curry came out in a very hot ceramic bowl, which helped it maintain its temperature and also added a bit of a Maillard reaction along and around the edges. I’m normally not the biggest fan of cheese, but the cheese in this curry was mild, smooth, and not excessively greasy. I also liked that the spoon they gave me was in the shape of a shovel; the pointed edge made it easier to scrape off all the rice and curry that was stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
If you know me, you know that I am very much a music person. I’ve played a lot of different instruments ever since I was a kid, and I currently have a collection of quite a few string instruments, including various different acoustic and electric guitars of different specializations, a bass, and a ukulele. One of my friends who knows this about me highly recommended that I check out the Yamaha shop in Ginza.
This was a fantastic suggestion, because this was basically just a gigantic adult playground of musical instruments. I remember there being around eight floors accessible to the public (the building itself is taller, but some of the floors were reserved for staff offices and for their music school). All the floors had some kind of theme or topic, one of which was a café and another was basically a library dedicated to musical literature and sheet music.
I did not end up buying anything, but I appreciated being able to walk around as if this was like a music museum.
One of my friends told me that one of her friends from back at home in the United States had requested for her to buy some contact lenses in Japan on her behalf to bring back to the United States. More specifically, she wanted contact lenses from Don Quijote. I offered to accompany my friend while she went shopping, but she said that she didn’t want to “put me through that” as if I would be suffering if I went to Don Quijote. I told her that I wouldn’t mind, and that my experience so far has been so great that I was happy to experience more of Tokyo, even if it entailed more shopping.
When we arrived at Don Quijote, I was incredibly confused.
This is what the inside of Don Quijote looks like:
As a point of context, I do not purchase products from or support expensive designer brands. I believe that they are not luxurious, but rather, designed and marketed specifically so that poor people can waste their money and pretend to be rich. My beliefs were further reinforced not too long ago when it was revealed on social media that a lot of designer handbags are just purchased for cheap as white label products from Chinese factories and then “finished” in Europe.
Truly wealthy people don’t buy from designer brands; instead, they hire and commission tailors to make bespoke clothing, or hire craftspeople to make bespoke accessories. Those who genuinely care about the quality of their products won’t leave it in the hands of a designer brand, but rather, will be more diligent in following the manufacturing process. For example, all of my custom exotic leather goods like my belts and wallet (made from stingray, hornback saltwater crocodile, and python, just to name a few) are made by smaller and independent leatherworkers who share the process with me and allow me to have agency over the creation of my desired product so that it comes out perfectly to my preference.
Now, up until I arrived at Don Quijote, I had thought that it was a luxury brand because of its fancy-sounding name, similar to Louis Vuitton or Dolce & Gabbana. When I was told that she was going to buy contact lenses from Don Quijote, I thought that it was similar to how some brands like Christian Dior will make luxury eyewear. Although I personally would never buy from brands like this, I still want to make sure I stay well-informed about their offerings (sort of in a “know thy enemy” way), so I was looking forward to seeing what “luxury contact lenses” looked like.
It was a comedy of monumental proportions when I found out that she wanted Don Quijote contact lenses not because they were a luxury product, but because they were cheap and had good value for money.
If you can’t tell from the photographs, Don Quijote is apparently a chain that is known for stocking an astronomical variety of different items in a densely-packed space. The closest thing I can think of to Don Quijote in the United States is Walmart I guess, but with like four times the product density.
I’m not sure if the concept of Don Quijote would even work in the United States, considering the United States’ rates of obesity; I genuinely don’t think obese people will be able to comfortably navigate through this store without being highly disruptive to other shoppers.
Apparently the Don Quijote in Ginza is on the relatively small side. It had multiple floors, but my friend told me that the Mega Don Quijote in Shibuya was even taller and had even more stuff.
… What a surprise, we went to the one in Shibuya too.
To clarify, no, we didn’t go all the way to Shibuya just to visit their Don Quijote location; we just happened to be in the area and popped in for a moment when we were walking by. The Shibuya location was a lot busier, though it still retained the same spirit of having a lot of densely-packed products to squeeze every last bit of value out of every last square meter of retail space.
Here is a random photo of Shibuya. I liked this area because the plethora of lit-up signs lining the street reminded me of the Las Vegas Strip back home.
That wraps up my first week of miscellaneous photographs from Tokyo, but this is far from everything I have to share from my trip. I’m still on my grind of pumping out blog posts, so check back again in a few days for even more pictures and reviews.
One of the things that I found incredibly convenient during my trip to Tokyo was how easy the public transportation system was to use. Apart from one singular instance when my friend called a taxi and I just joined her, I exclusively took public transportation throughout the entire two weeks I was in Japan.
There are a lot of train stations and a lot of different train lines that have great coverage of the entire Tokyo Metropolis. However, obviously, not every train line goes to every station. Even though Ginza, the neighborhood I was staying in, has access to many train stations nearby, it doesn’t always have direct, non-transfer service to every single small station. Now, taking transfers isn’t that huge of a deal—the train stations are usually intuitive and easy enough to navigate that you can easily make transfers. With that being said, sometimes, if you just walk a kilometer or so (or less), you can make it to a different train station that does have direct service to Ginza.
On one of the days when I was out being a tourist, I faced this exact same scenario where I could take a ride from the closest train station, transfer part-way to Ginza, then take a different line to my destination… or, I could walk a bit and take a direct line instead. Because of how nice it is to just walk around and sightsee in Tokyo, I opted to walk to a different, further-away train station instead.
On my way there, I noticed an area where people were going through a security checkpoint. I figured that whatever was on the other side was important enough that it needed security, so I spontaneously decided to stand in line. After a short wait, I made it to some metal detectors, so I emptied my pockets and walked through. After passing the checkpoint and emerging into a little opening, I was guided to a ticket booth to purchase admission to the premises.
This is when I finally found out that the place I entered through was 迎賓館赤坂離宮 西門, which translates to the West Gate of the State Guest House, Akasaka Palace. Unfortunately, I arrived too close to closing and didn’t have enough time to go inside the building, but I was welcomed in to explore the outdoor garden area instead.
After I continued walking south alongside the western facade of the building, I saw the 迎賓館 主庭, which is the Main Garden of the State Guest House.
The main garden area allowed me to face northwards and capture a photograph of the south entrance to the state house.
The main garden was a very popular spot for people to congregate, which made sense due to the nice fountain that was situated in the center.
The fountain had statues of griffins and turtles surrounding the basin. The griffins were carrying a shield, which I imagine implies that they are defenders and protectors of the palace. As for the turtles, I am guessing they are supposed to symbolize longevity, wisdom, and stability.
It’s possible that they were apposed beside each other to visualize balance, as griffins are more active in their strategy compared to turtles. Or, due to the history and purpose of Akasaka Palace as it pertains to its usage in welcoming important guests as a diplomatic center, the griffin represents the West while the turtle represents the East. … Alternatively, I might just be overthinking all of it and there isn’t that deep of a meaning to it.
After capturing plenty of photos of the fountain, I continued walking eastbound and snapped one final picture of the southern facade of the building from an eastern vantage point.
I saw on the map that there was another building to the east—迎賓館赤坂離宮 和風別館「游心亭」, which is the “Yushintei” Japanese-style annex of the State Guest House, Akasaka Palace. I wanted to take a look at that as well, but the path to reach it was blocked off and the signage near the annex implied that a special tour reservation was required for entry.
So instead, I took a photograph of the flower bed nearby, then retraced my steps back to the west towards where I originally came in.
At the fork in the path, instead of going south, I continued east into the front yard. From here, I was able to get some nice photos of the northern side of the guest house.
There were some statues of birds atop some of the structural pillars of the guest house. They look similar to eagles, but they seem to be wearing little hats, so maybe my speculation isn’t entirely correct.
A lot of people were taking photographs near the front north entrance to the state house; after the group cleared up a bit, I walked up so I could get a close-up shot of the decorations adorning the gate.
The building had a section to its northwest and northeast that jutted out a bit; the doors in these sections had a white and gold canopy overhead that resembled the design of the gate.
There was another nice flower bed near the aforementioned door and steel awning.
I noticed that there was a closed gate on the eastern side of the front yard, which I imagine is there to allow guests in from the East Gate, the opposite counterpart to the West Gate through which I had entered the property.
Here is another shot of the guest house’s north facade from a northeastern vantage point, with the setting sun peeking through above.
In this “courtyard” area (if you consider fences to be sufficient surroundings to define the boundaries of a courtyard), I saw on the map that there was a restaurant called パークカフ, or the Park Café. It seemed to take up the entire northern half of the stone-paved section of the front yard.
Food in Japan was so good that I had been taking basically every single chance possible to try different snacks and meals whenever the opportunity arose. However, I had just finished eating at this time, so I opted to pass on dining at the Park Café and just took a photograph of the umbrella tables instead, which were a nice shade of dark red.
On the opposite side of the café was another nice gate, this one being gold and light blue.
This is a photo I took at the threshold of the aforementioned gold and blue gate, facing north in the direction of 若葉東公園, or Wakaba East Park.
Continuing north, I saw another fountain and building to my east. It wasn’t labeled on the map, so I wasn’t able to figure out what it was, but considering that there was a guard patrolling the area, I deduced that it wasn’t open to the public.
After making it all the way north, I turned around and took one final shot of the state house.
This is the gate protecting the northern entrance to the grounds, just north of 記念品販売所, which basically translates to the palace’s souvenir store.
I wanted to be diligent and make sure I saw everything I was allowed to see, so upon noticing that a side pathway near the souvenir store wasn’t blocked off, I doubled back about 50 meters. I saw the western equivalent of the fountain and building I saw from the east; this one didn’t have a patrolling guard, but it did have stanchions at the intersection of the footpath, so I didn’t take my chances to get closer.
As I was wrapping up my visit to Akasaka Palace, a plane flew overhead and left behind a condensation trail, so I seized the opportunity to juxtapose this street lantern in front of it and snap a photo.
And finally, this is the northern gate of the front yard, which was being used as an exit only, presumably due to the security checkpoints and ticket stations only being set up at the West Gate.
Admission to see all this was only 300円 for an adult ticket, which, as of today, is less than US$2.00. I’m very glad I randomly stumbled upon this during my walk to the train station; even though I didn’t get to tour inside the State Guest House, I think the sightseeing outside Akasaka Palace was still well worth it.
When I decided to go on a trip to Japan, I picked the dates to overlap with the travel dates of a few friend groups of mine who were also visiting Japan from the United States. However, although I wanted to spend time and do activities together with them, I didn’t want to formally join as a member of any travel groups because I wanted to retain a degree of personal freedom. As a result, the underlying nature of my trip was basically a solo trip.
More specifically, I wanted to make sure I would have agency over my own schedule, rather than feeling an obligation to do everything together with the same group of people, i.e., I wanted to be able to split off from the group and do my own thing if something else piqued my interest better. I also wasn’t a fan of lodging together in a gigantic Airbnb, sharing rooms, and splitting the cost; instead, it was important that I had my own hotel room so I could feel like I had my own private and uninterruptable space.
Upon taking all that into consideration and carefully planning dates together with a bunch of different people, I finalized the two-week period during which I would be traveling to Japan on my own. Then, my friends would be able to invite me out to do things on a day-by-day basis, and I would join whichever group was doing the more interesting activity… or just be a lone tourist if I wanted to do something different.
After booking my flight and hotel, I later found out that another one of my friends, and someone who I had not coordinated travel dates with at all, would also happen to have a few overlapping days with me in Japan—Doug Wreden. We figured that it would be fun to meet up and spend a day together in Tokyo when we were both free, so we tentatively penciled that into our calendars.
Up until this point, I had experienced a fairly organized and structured trip. My other friends wanted to eat, see, and experience the best that Japan had to offer, so they diligently conducted research ahead of time and picked out activities that they thought would maximize their happiness. Even I did this to a mild extent—I leisurely browsed Google Maps using in-flight Wi-Fi during my flight to Narita International Airport and tagged interesting spots as “want to go.”
On the other hand, my friend Doug has been to Japan many times before, so he approached his trip in a more relaxed fashion. He wanted to be more spontaneous and do something that most other people would never do, while also experiencing the more “normal” side of Tokyo away from the concentrated, tourist-centric areas. Doug is a creative person who is great at gamifying everyday life, so he proposed that we do “IRL Bingo” where we make a Bingo board and then walk around a neighborhood of Tokyo we’ve never been to before to sightsee and check off items from our grid.
I was very on board with this. I’m someone who doesn’t pick “favorite things” as often as other people; instead, I like having a broad breadth of experiences and will prefer to do a wide variety of new things that I haven’t done before. This spontaneous IRL Bingo idea was great because the uncertainty of its outcome was a stark contrast from how I had spent my previous days in Tokyo, so it was a fantastic way to mix things up and keep things fresh.
In order to get to a new neighborhood to start our journey, we met up at Shinjuku Station, got on a random train, and got off at a random stop.
After exiting the station, we walked around the corner into a residential area so that we wouldn’t be in the middle of the sidewalk.
From there, Doug and Alex started coming up with ideas and assembling them together into a Bingo board.
One of the spaces was to see a car with a siren, but they further added a stipulation that the siren-bearing vehicle had to pass by in front of us. We almost checked it off right away, but unfortunately, the truck turned away from us and drove in the opposite direction.
From here, we turned into a residential area again and walked deeper into the neighborhood.
As a point of editorial commentary, I included a lot of random photographs in this blog post that don’t showcase anything particularly notable or special. This is because, just like how we wanted to see what “real” Tokyo was like away from the tourist zones, I wanted to showcase a more accurate representation of an average neighborhood of Tokyo. People share memorable experiences all the time—both positive and negative—but often don’t post about the mediocre. In the spirit of trying to portray realism, I made sure to mix in a lot of mundane pictures so I can ensure that I’m not accidentally sensationalizing anything.
One of the spots on the Bingo board was to find people playing baseball. We stumbled across a baseball field, so that was easy, but we were hoping to be able to check off two spaces by also seeing someone wearing Los Angeles Dodgers apparel. Unfortunately, everyone here was wearing their own uniforms.
Apparently my camera decided to focus on the chain link fence instead of the baseball gameplay, but I guess it looks sort of artistic, so I included it anyway.
We used this sign here for our “incorrect English” space. We suspect that they intended to write “landmark” instead of “randmark,” but because Asian languages often merge together their “r” and “l” sounds, this unfortunate error was born.
Upon doing some more research after-the-fact, I found out that this building is called ランドマーク宮澤, which reads as Rando-māku Miyazawa and translates to Landmark Miyazawa.
Here are some more photographs of the surrounding neighborhood.
Compared to the United States, these power lines were pretty chaotic. However, Doug and Alex didn’t want to count this for the botched power line space because apparently power lines in Japanese neighborhoods can get substantially worse than this.
With that being said, even though the power lines seem disheveled, I noticed that they were somehow still organized, just in a very messy way. When I followed each line, I realized that they were all orderly; it just happened to be that the power company seems to have not put in any extra effort into aesthetic cable management.
One of my favorite things about Tokyo was the abundance of convenience stores, and how convenient they actually are. In the United States, convenience stores are very inconvenient because they tend to just overcharge for everything, they are often fairly dirty, and they sometimes have suspicious individuals loitering around the property. In Japan, convenience stores are basically like miniature high-quality grocery stores that are reliable for taking a rest stop whenever you’re on a long walk.
In a 7-Eleven, I found this Super Mario gummy candy, which checked off the “Mario” spot on our Bingo board. I never really figured out how to do the “build your own level” activity that the wrapper advertised, but the candy itself tasted pretty good.
After a quick snack and water break, we ventured back out into the street.
One of the Bingo board spots was to find a Japan flag. In the United States, you’ll see national flags everywhere all the time, but in Japan, we did not see a single one. What was extra funny was that we found a US flag before we ever encountered a Japan one.
This store in itself was also amusing, considering that they advertise selling gun shooting gear, even though guns are generally broadly illegal to have in Japan.
By this point, we had been steadily achieving spaces on our Bingo board during our walk. For example, we saw an advertisement featuring a white man, we saw a Black construction worker, and we found an Indian restaurant.
You may have also noticed that one of the spaces involved me correctly identifying a police officer. This is because I kept on confusing construction workers and security guards for police officers, because I never quite found out what police uniforms look like. However, even a broken clock is correct for two minutes a day, and eventually, I was able to point out a real Japanese police officer.
We came across this gym that teaches martial plarts. At first I thought this was another tragic case of an incorrect English translation, but then I realized from the tagline that it was intentional—it was martial arts, with plants. Although that is a reasonable play on words, I don’t think they quite understand how goofy the word “plarts” sounds to a native English speaker…
One of the items on the Bingo board was to see a torii gate. I believe we had already seen a few by this point, but I found this one that was a gateway to a statue instead of to a temple.
By this point, it was starting to get darker.
I took a picture of this gas station because it was the first gas station I had seen since arriving in Japan. I had spent a majority of my time during the prior days in the denser cities of Tokyo, so I had seen a ton of convenience stores (which are often associated with gas stations in the United States because the retail section of gas stations are often convenience stores), but I had not seen an actual gas station yet.
At this point, we were only one space away from our first two Bingos—we would get a Bingo if either (1) we saw a McDonald’s, or (2) Doug gets jouzued. To be jouzu (jōzu, 上手)ed means to be told by a native Japanese speaker that one is skilled at speaking Japanese. Apparently this had become a meme in Japan, and it is now sometimes used more as a sarcastic statement than to actually tell someone that they’re genuinely skilled.
Out of nowhere, I saw a Harley-Davidson store. This was amusing, because I wear a lot of Harley-Davidson boots, so it was nice to see something familiar in Japan. I have comically wide feet that aren’t compatible with many shoe brands, but Harley-Davidson boots fit me well because their wide sizes tend to run extra wide, and they’re made out of real leather so they stretch and mold around my strangely-shaped feet.
We stagnated with only one space to go for Bingo for a while. After we wondered if all hope was lost, we suddenly saw a McDonald’s in the distance. In perfect storyline fashion, the train barriers lowered moments before we were going to cross the street to add to the suspense, but after a couple trains passed and we waited out the brief delay, we walked up to the McDonald’s and marked off the final square we needed for our first Bingo.
Our dinner reservation time was rapidly approaching, and we thought that we might need to call a taxi to get to the restaurant on time. However, as if the plot was pre-written, there was a bus that just happened to be parked right around the corner that was headed to Nakano Station, perfectly in the direction of where we need to go.
After a brief bus ride, we made it to Nakano Station. I had never seen this kind of indoor/outdoor hybrid mall before, which I thought was pretty neat.
After finishing dinner, we continued walking around the area. Because Nakano was far more densely populated than the residential area we were in earlier, we were able to check off a lot more squares on our Bingo board back-to-back.
We randomly stopped by an arcade, and I noticed that one of the machines had Fanta in it as a prize. I have never seen that before in the United States, and I thought that was a brilliant idea that American arcades should adopt.
I’m not a fan of claw machines because I know how they work—there is a way to set up the strength of the claw so that, even if you get a perfect grip, you won’t get the prize unless the machine rolls the proper number to activate the appropriate pressure to retain the prize all the way to the dispensing funnel. If you check the owner’s manual of these claw machines, you can see that operators can set a profit margin to make sure that they’re not losing too much money. There are some machines that can be cheesed, but for a majority of the straightforward claw machines, they almost all work in this configurable way.
With that being said, even if I was a fan of claw machines, I still wouldn’t play them because I don’t care for any of the prizes. I don’t really like stuffed animals, and I usually only want physical possessions if they have some kind of useful function or sentimental value. So, having soft drinks or food items as prizes for claw machines is brilliant, and I think it is a great way to potentially convince people like me to try it out a few times. I’m sure that winning a beverage from an arcade machine will be extra satisfying if you’re thirsty after a long walk and want a drink.
Alex remembered that there was an ice cream shop in the basement, so we went down to check it out. Unfortunately, the store was already closed (as was most of the other spots in the area), but there was a little bench area that was still open and not blocked off by a metal door, which I found to be amusing.
Eventually, in desperation, Doug decided to go to a bakery right before getting on our train and started speaking in Japanese to the cashier to try and get jouzued. He said exaggerated statements like “I’ve only been learning Japanese for one year” and otherwise pointing out how bad he was at Japanese, in order to fish out the jouzu compliment. After much of his embarrassment, he succeeded, and we were able to secure our second Bingo.
This is what our Bingo board looked like at the end of the day. We managed to be one square away from three more Bingos beyond the two we achieved.
Overall, this was actually one of the more fun days I had during my trip to Japan.
Although I enjoyed pretty much every single thing I did in Tokyo throughout the entire two weeks, I especially liked IRL Bingo because it felt like I was able to get a more authentic and unfiltered look at what Tokyo was like. At one point, I had been enjoying Tokyo so much that I was concerned whether I was accidentally going to only well-curated tourist hotspots that were manicured just to look nice to tourists, but after seeing everything I encountered during my day of IRL Bingo, it reinforced and helped make me feel more secure in my broad appreciation for Tokyo.
Yesterday, I wrapped up a trip to Japan and returned to the United States. In case you missed it, the blog post in which I review my flight and travel experience also has a lot of relevant context surrounding my trip. I’m in the process of going through my photographs now and catching up on blog posts.
One of the first tourist activities I did in Tokyo was visiting 代々木公園, or Yoyogi Park. Yoyogi Park is a very large public park in Shibuya in the Yoyogikamizonochō district, or 代々木神園町. This is the same district housing 明治神宮, or Meiji Jingū, a Shinto shrine.
I went together with some of my friends who are more familiar with Japan, and throughout my visit to the park, I mostly just followed them around and allowed them to lead the way. Unfortunately, after browsing some online resources while putting together this blog post and editing photographs, I realized that the park was quite a bit larger than I thought, and there was a decent amount of stuff that I seem to have missed out on. I definitely could’ve taken more agency to be more diligent in exploration, but because I was still a very new arrival to Japan at that time, I was a bit overwhelmed and wasn’t as meticulous as I could have been.
With that being said, I still enjoyed my time seeing Yoyogi Park and Meiji Jingū. Having grown up in the Chicagoland suburbs and now living in Las Vegas, it’s not common for me to see what is functionally a gigantic manicured forest in the middle of a dense city. I think that made it feel even more special—the park was important enough that they took space in an area that demonstrated how scarce the land was, and still built a very serene and soothing piece of nature on it.
After taking the Chiyoda Line from my hotel in Ginza to Harajuku Station, I met up with my friends and we entered the park through one of the side entrances.
This area had what appeared to be a series of special installments. They had flower arrangements…
… miniature dioramas…
… and bonsai trees.
After walking down a long path with these exhibitions, we made it closer to the temple.
There was a nice flower arrangement at the entrance of the temple.
Close to the temple, there was what I believe was the roundest tree I’ve ever seen, if you consider it as a ratio of its size.
It made me wonder whether this tree is somehow just naturally this perfectly spherical, or if it is pruned and maintained to be as such. I think it’s fairly impressive either way—it’s both amazing if a tree manages to grow in such a pristine shape, and it’s just as amazing if there are groundskeepers who put in the effort to climb to such elevations to trim the branches and leaves.
Unfortunately, the interior area of the temple had signs asking people not to take pictures, so the best I could do was to capture this from a distance in a way that didn’t show the photo-free area.
I also did a round around the stone-paved area to grab photographs of the surrounding buildings.
I couldn’t quite confirm for sure, but this appeared like an area where people could write messages and leave them hanging in the designated areas to dedicate them to the shrine.
While walking around this area (and the park in general), I noticed that the birds were particularly vocal. It was quite amusing, and it sounded like the birds were making squawking and shrieking noises rather than more subtle chirping and cheeping sounds that I’m used to hearing from American avians.
After exploring the temple, we exited through one of the gates and found this hand-washing station. There wasn’t one by the gate through which we had originally entered, but according to the signage near this one, I believe the idea is that you are supposed to cleanse yourself using this provided water prior to entering the temple.
After a bit more walking, we made it to the southern side of Yoyogi Park.
A lot of this area was basically a forest with very tall trees. It reminded me of some of the forests I hiked through in Washington, Idaho, and Montana, except these trees in Yoyogi Park felt more surreal after remembering that literally only a few hundred meters away, there were mid- and high-rise buildings densely packed together.
After finishing a very peaceful and calming walk, we made it to what I believe was intended to be the main entrance, and the path through which most tourists would start their visit to Yoyogi Park.
We started navigating our way away from the park and towards a restaurant to get some dinner, and in the process, I got a chance to ascend some stairs to a pedestrian skybridge, which allowed me to get an elevated view of the city around the park and snap some nice photos.
As you were probably able to tell, I very much enjoyed my time in Yoyogikamizonochō. The best part was that this isn’t even the only park of its type in the Tokyo Metropolis—there are a lot of “oasis in the middle of a bustling city” kind of spots spread throughout the various cities in Tokyo (and I ended up visiting a few more of them, as you will see in future blog posts).
When I travel, I like to blog in realtime as I explore new places and go on tourist activities. Usually within a few days of doing something interesting, I will have finished preparing the associated photographs, writing about my experience, and publishing the post on my website. I’ve found success in this particular system because it helps me organize my thoughts while they’re still fresh, and it also acts as a way for me to unwind and reflect on my day before going to sleep.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I broke this aforementioned habit by going on a two-week trip to Japan without releasing a single new blog post the entire duration. There were a few reasons why, but the main one is because I enjoyed Tokyo so much that I wanted to get the most out of my limited time there. I packed my schedule completely full with activities—so much so that, when I was done for the day, I was completely exhausted and couldn’t stay up for much longer before falling asleep.
As of today, I am back in the United States. I have a lot of work and rest to catch up on, but in my free time, I plan on spending the next couple weeks going back through my photos from Japan and writing blog posts for all the interesting things I did while I was there. Functionally, it will be very similar to when I blog in realtime, with the only difference being that every post will be going live two weeks late relative to the actual timing of when I did all this adventuring and sightseeing.
So, that brings us to the beginning.
For my flight outbound from the United States, I took United Airlines from Los Angeles International Airport to Narita International Airport. I know that Asian airlines tend to have a much better reputation than American airlines, but I decided to take United Airlines for one leg of my trip anyway because I wanted to experience United Polaris and compare it to the business class offering on All Nippon Airways. United Airlines flight 32 is still cross-listed with All Nippon Airways as their flight 7019, but the actual service is provided entirely by United.
As for the cities, I flew out of Los Angeles instead of my home airport in Las Vegas because LAX offered non-stop service while LAS required a layover; I flew into Narita instead of Haneda because flights were cheaper to NRT, so much so that I deemed it worth it to deal with the associated longer train ride into Tokyo.
The morning of my flight, I called rideshare service to bring me to the airport. I ended up getting so carsick in the traffic that, even though I was supposed to board my flight from Terminal 6, I asked my driver to drop me off in Terminal 1 as soon as possible at the beginning of the horseshoe because I felt like I would vomit if I stayed in the vehicle any longer.
After getting out of the car, I took the escalator up to use the new pedestrian skybridge to the other side of the airport, only to discover that it was still under construction and not yet open to the public. I went back down the escalator and wandered my way to Terminal 7 by cutting through the parking garage. I’m glad I had a chance to walk around for a bit, because helped alleviate some of the motion sickness and I no longer had a pressing urge to throw up.
International flights at LAX often depart from the Tom Bradley International Terminal, but because I was taking United Airlines outbound, I was departing from Terminal 6 instead. This was very convenient because the United Polaris lounge is in Terminal 7, so I was able to get the full United Airlines business class experience rather than needing to use a partner lounge in Terminal B.
Upon arriving at Terminal 7, I had a quick and easy time getting through security using the Transportation Security Administration’s new TSA PreCheck Touchless ID system where you just look into a camera and get allowed through. After only a few minutes, I made it to airside and walked down past Gate 73 where I took an elevator up another floor to the entrance of the lounge.
Even though I wasn’t about to vomit, I was still pretty carsick, so I didn’t eat a full meal like I normally would have in an airport lounge. Instead, I sipped on some Diet Coke and walked around the lounge to take some photographs.
It was pretty busy in the lounge, but I managed to find a relatively quiet and peaceful area in the rear of the lounge near a giant cabinet of alcohol.
After relaxing for a little over half an hour, I started making my way over to my boarding gate. The United Polaris lounge is in between Gates 73 and 75, but I was boarding from Gate 68B, which meant I had to walk to the entrance of Terminal 7, take a long hallway to Terminal 6, then walk all the way to the deepest edge of Terminal 6… literally, because Gates 68B and 69B are the final two gates of the concourse.
I left the lounge a little early to make sure I had plenty of time and wouldn’t be late if I ran into any issues on my trek there. Luckily, there were no problems, so after loitering for a bit between Gates 68A and 68B to wait for boarding to begin, I embarked our Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner without incident.
I almost always take the rear-most window seat in the last row of the cabin because it usually ends up being the seat that offers the most privacy.
However, on this United Airlines flight, I reviewed the seat map ahead of time and realized that the staggered configuration makes it so that the final window seat in the cabin has the seat facing out towards the aisle instead of in towards the window. Because of that, I reserved the second-to-last seat for myself for this leg of my trip. This ended up being a wise decision, as it was much more cozy having a table separating myself from the aisle.
Another perk of picking a rear seat is that, although it depends on the configuration of the aircraft, the final seats of the business class cabin are usually next to the wing of the plane. I prefer this because it is closer to the center of gravity and results in a smoother ride that is less affected by turbulence, and its proximity to the wing-mounted engine means the loud noise of the engine fans and exhaust will act as white noise and help drown out any disturbances from auditorily disruptive passengers.
Less importantly, and more as a point of personal preference, I think photographs out of plane windows look nicer when there is a little bit of wing or engine in the shot so that it gives some context about the origin of the photograph.
Luckily, my second-to-last seat was still close enough to the wing and engine that I still got all of these perks like I would have if I was in the last seat.
The business class cabin is split up into two subsections. The main section has rows 1 through 8, followed by a divider for the galley and restrooms. Behind that is rows 9 through 12, before a curtain separates the Polaris cabin from the Premium Plus cabin. This means that there are half as many passengers in my section compared to the front section, which adds to the feeling of peace and serenity.
Because I was one of the first people to board the plane, I had an opportunity to pull out my laptop, recline back a bit, and get some last-minute work in prior to our on-time departure.
After taking off, we were offered some warm assorted nuts and beverages to enjoy while the flight attendants prepared dining service. I opted for a can of The Pickle House tomato juice and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.
My can of Coke had 錡 printed on it. I couldn’t quite figure out what it meant in this context, but my guess is that this can is part of the “Share a Coke with” campaign, and the name of the person you’re supposed to share this can of Coke with is Qí.
During online check-in, I pre-selected the Japanese menu for my meal.
For my first course, I received a curated sampling of Japanese appetizers—Kenchin vegetable-stuffed chicken, sweet soy caramelized sardines, and boiled shrimp with egg yolk vinegar.
My main entrée was United’s salmon Namba grill with purple sweet potato, myoga pickles, and gin-an sauce; mushroom pilaf with Japanese pickles; and red miso soup.
In addition to the Japanese menu, United also offered an international menu as well. There was a Japanese family seated in front of me; I assume that they eat Japanese food all the time and wanted to try Western cuisine on an American airline, so they selected the international menu. While one of them was in the restroom, I snuck this photograph of what they were served—it looks like a filet mignon with mashed potatoes and vegetables.
For dessert, the flight attendants came around with United Airlines’ signature sundae cart where you can custom-order your own sundae. For mine, I requested Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream with caramel sauce, freshly-whipped cream, and sliced nuts.
It was delicious, though I wish they had put a bit less caramel sauce on it so it wasn’t quite as sweet. Basically every YouTuber who does a review of United Polaris raves about this ice cream, and now I can confirm with first-hand experience that it is indeed very good.
After meal service concluded, I reclined back to relax and unwind.
One thing I liked about this plane was that they had dimming windows instead of physical shades. This meant that I could darken my windows to the point where the sunlight wouldn’t be disruptive to other passengers trying to sleep, yet I could still enjoy the view of the sky and clouds out the periphery of my vision.
After a quick nap, I got back up and snacked on a grilled aged cheddar cheese sandwich alongside another glass of tomato juice. It was mediocre at best, but I hadn’t eaten a grilled cheese sandwich for a really long time, so I figured I’d seize the opportunity when I had a chance, considering that I wouldn’t otherwise go out of my way to seek out a grilled cheese.
Not long later, breakfast service started, which was very funny, because it was 10 PM PST and 3 PM JST. A lot of flights from the United States to Asia depart late at night, fly overnight, and land in Asia during the local morning, so for those flights, a breakfast as the final meal would make sense. However, I feel like for United flight 32, it would’ve made more sense to serve breakfast or brunch as the first meal, and then save the dinner for the second meal.
Anyway, I had also picked the Japanese menu for this, but without any additional notice or information, I was given the international menu instead, which I assume means that they either ran out or did not properly account for my dining preference.
For my Western breakfast, I received some sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns, a roasted half tomato, a fruit bowl, some Greek yogurt, and a croissant. I found it to be an overall pretty acceptable breakfast, but I particularly liked the fruit. They also provided a side container of jam, which I mixed in with the Greek yogurt; I thought that made it a lot better, and it ended up being my second favorite item of the breakfast.
Not long afterwards, we approached Japan’s coastline.
After just over 12 hours of total travel time (which was a little bit longer than scheduled due to needing to take a slightly inefficient flight path to avoid some weather events), we pulled into Gate 38 in Terminal 1 of Narita International Airport.
Being from the United States, I generally just drive everywhere in my pickup truck and don’t really take public transportation. The only time I’ve ever taken public transportation in the past is when I was still a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and sometimes took the bus between my apartment and the main university campus. Thus, when I went downstairs to the train station under Narita International Airport, it was quite an overwhelming experience.
After carefully reading all the signs and referring to Google Maps for instructions on which train line to take to get to my lodging in Tokyo, I boarded the Keisei Narita Skyaccess, which conveniently converted to the Asakusa Line without needing a transfer and dropped me off at the Higashi-Ginza Station only a couple hundred meters away from my hotel.
At first, the train wasn’t too crowded, but as we got closer to Tokyo, the cabin filled up pretty quickly and ended up fairly packed due to me having landed right around rush hour. Regardless, I still managed to keep a careful eye on the location of the train and got off at the right stop without incident.
As for the flight on United Polaris, it wasn’t bad, but I think it was literally leagues behind the service offered on the flights I took on EVA Air, both outbound from Los Angeles to Taoyuan to Hanoi, as well as inbound from Hanoi to Taoyuan to Los Angeles. I had an American flight attendant tending to my area of the United Polaris cabin, and she didn’t really seem particularly attentive or caring and mostly just had a “I’m just doing my job” kind of attitude. Once in a while, the Japanese flight attendants would come to my area to help out and make up for shortcomings because it seemed like the American one couldn’t really keep up with the level of service that the Japanese flight attendants wanted to provide.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, I’m already back in the United States, and I already experienced the All Nippon Airways counterpart to this flight back from Narita to Los Angeles… but I won’t spoil it yet and I will continue posting things in chronological order. Check back in a few days—I’ll be pumping out blog posts soon.
