Solo journey to meet in Tokyo & our first few days there

Earth Vagabonds together again in Tokyo! And what a journey it’s been so far.

My last post was two months ago when I returned ‘home’ to visit loved ones. Theo kept this blog alive by writing a handful of entries on his side trips to Thailand and the Philippines.

I’m going to skip over writing about my time ‘home’ and take you right to Tokyo and our first few days there.

Journey to Tokyo

It cost $770 to go from Chicago to Tokyo on ANA Airlines, Japan’s budget airline (would use them again). We used United miles to get me from Cincinnati to Chicago.

I turned on my Superpowers for this adventure. Check out this budget travel jaunt to my final destination:

9:15 a.m., Sunday, July 7: arrived at Cincinnati’s airport to fly to Chicago
7:15 p.m. left Chicago’s O’Hare for Tokyo
13 hour flight – leaping 14 hours into the future
9:10 p.m. Monday, July 8 landed at Tokyo’s Haneda airport
11:20 p.m. finally through immigration and customs (yes, it took two hours)
11:30 p.m. money exchange counter for yen, then bought a public transit card – all with language barriers
11:45 p.m. figured out how to get on my first metro train in Tokyo; it took three trains to get to the Airbnb neighborhood in Shinjuku
nearly 1:00 a.m. Tuesday, July 9, met Theo on the street outside our Airbnb rental

Theo picked out a comfortable Airbnb with adequate seating, fast Wi-Fi, excellent air conditioning for this heat wave, laundry facilities nearby, and the best part: it’s really close to the transit system. The unit is really small — as they all are when you’re renting for under $75 a night in Tokyo. Amusingly, Theo says such spaces are called condominiums.

Theo flew from the Philippines to Tokyo’s other airport – Narita. He arrived at the Airbnb four hours ahead of me.

First few days in Tokyo

My Superpowers continued – no jet lag! I was up early our first day (and all days so far), excited to get going. I got us to Shibuya without any cell data and we had a bit of time to spare before our first free walking tour (tip based). We used GuruWalk for this Shibuya tour.

Shibuya has the largest pedestrian ‘scramble’ crossing in the world. Traffic stops on all sides. Up to 4,000 people have crossed the square at the busiest times of the day.

We saw the trendy youth, shops galore, the music and bar and lovers’ hotel areas, a rooftop park, two statues honoring Hachiko – the loyal dog who waited for his owner to come home despite his owner’s death. This was a two-hour tour so we had plenty of time to check out more in the area on our own.

In the late afternoon we bought SIM cards. It’s a long story, but my intuitive superpowers told me we needed Wi-Fi to finish the self-installation, even though that step wasn’t clear on the directions. We bought 15g over 30 days for navigation around Japan. Otherwise, we’re on Wi-Fi. We went to BIC Camera to buy the ‘Japanese Tourist Sim’ pack for $21.34 each.

We had dinner at a noodle shop near Shibuya’s ‘Scramble Square’. Hardly any English there, but it made the meal better.

Day two featured a longer walking tour through ‘Tokyo Localized’ – this was an amazing tour! I learned a lot about Japanese culture, old and modern. Our guide Hiroshi was fantastic. Highly recommend using Tokyo Localized. We covered a lot of ground – from Akihabara to Ueno Park and more.

The tour started in the Akihabara neighborhood , the center of ‘otaku’ culture. Otaku is Japanese for ‘people with consuming interests’. Consuming interests here include anime, electronics, computers, manga (Japanese comics), and video games.

It’s also famous for ‘maid cafes’ where women serve patrons wearing maid outfits. The feminist in me doesn’t like that, but Theo wants to try it so I might go.

We also visited a Shinto shrine – Kanda Myojin. Shinto is a Japanese religion and the houses of worship are similar to Buddhist temples.

That’s a tour sample – it was long and great. It taught me a lot – including how little I know about Japan.

On our third day, we gave our feet a rest and took a Hop On Hop Off bus tour (by Sky Hop) for $28 each. There were three routes that really helped you see a lot in one day. Connections between routes can take an hour or more, so we started early morning and simply stayed on the buses for each route. It was raining anyway for part of the day.

And then we made it to a free weeknight light show at the Tokyo Metropolitan government building, which also has a free observation deck. We’ll go back for the weekend show because it features Godzilla!

Budget slow traveler Superpowers

We’ll be in Tokyo 10 days. That’ not exactly ‘slow travel’. In fact, we will never stay for a month or longer at any of our stops in Japan. (We consider a month or more in one location to be ‘slow travel’ for us.)

While the yen has fallen dramatically against the dollar, it’s still way more expensive than a place like the Philippines. In fact, Theo is a bit shocked having come from the Philippines to Tokyo, and he wants to share some observations about that in his upcoming post.

As for me, well, I’ve got my Superpowers charged up and ready to go for some ‘fast’ travel around Japan for the next several weeks until we slow down a bit in South Korea later this summer.

And why not go fast now and then? After all, Life is Now.