Spring in Japan - Part 1: Tokyo

This April I finally took a trip I’ve been planning for almost 4 years – Japan! Last fall, shortly after the country reopened last fall I jumped to get tickets. My trip was 18 days, not including flying there and back. It’s the longest solo vacation I’ve ever taken.

And my goodness this trip was worth it. Fun and interesting and beautiful. The plan was to see the cherry blossoms, although Global Warming had other plans, so I was only able to catch some late-blooming trees. That said, the plants and gardens I went to were still beautiful.

Since my trip was so long, I’m going to break my review up into three parts. Part 1, this one, will be Tokyo. Part 2 will be the middle of my trip, the cities of Kanazawa and Matsumoto. And Part 3 will be Kyoto.

My time in Tokyo was a mixed bag to be honest. However, that was largely due to circumstances, and not the fault of the city. United Airlines misplaced my bag and I wasn’t able to get it back until the 6th day of my trip, the evening of my second-to-last day in Tokyo. Naturally the stress of the situation and the amount of time and energy I had to spend dealing with it and airlines cast a shadow over that leg of the journey. But, I still explored the city and did a number of fun things and enjoyed myself to the best of my ability. So here are the great, and the mixed bag of my time in Tokyo.

The Great

Seeing a Tokyo Giants Game
This was hands down my favorite thing I did in Tokyo. I am a huge fan of my hometown baseball team, the San Francisco Giants. Naturally, as a result one of my life bucket list goals was to see our brother team, the Tokyo Giants, play. And if you enjoy baseball, or just live sports in general, you need to see a baseball game in Japan. There is your standard cheering and chants but also full on songs from the fans. The visiting team’s fans had a small band with drums and a trumpet player and everything in the stands. It’s a fun atmosphere and as a tourist, a blast to enjoy Japan’s favorite pastime.

The Golden Gai

If you want to go drinking in Tokyo, this is the place I recommend doing it. The Golden Gai is an area of the Shinjuku neighborhood, that has dozens of tiny, atmospheric bars. And when I say tiny, I mean there is a small bar with maybe 7-10 stools and that’s it. Some are slightly larger, but these are tiny drinking establishments, each with their own vibes. The places don’t open up until around 6pm or later, and they all have a 500-1000 yen cover charge. The neighborhood gets filled largely with tourists, but I was able to find places with Japanese patrons a few times. I will note that all the Japanese patrons I met were men. However, they were all friendly and respectful and it was fun chatting with them and with the bartenders as much as the language barrier allowed. It was also a fun area to meet fellow travelers.

The National Museum
If you only go to one museum in Tokyo, heck based on my whole trip to Japan, go to this one. The National Museum is a series of buildings, referred to as galleries. The museum complex itself is set within Ueno Park, which itself is beautiful and worth wandering around. I visited two galleries in the National Museum – the Honkan, which is the main building, and the Gallery of Horyu-ji Treasures. If you only see one, check out the Honkan, which has a fantastic overview of Japanese art over the thousands of years of history. A cool thing is that they rotate the displays according to season, so many of the pieces I saw were related to spring and often depicted cherry blossoms. If I’m ever back in Tokyo, this is definitely one place I’d absolutely revisit.

The Mixed Bag

Food
Tokyo is one of the great food cities of the world, but it is decidedly not a city that is friendly to vegetarians. I knew going into my trip that Japan was going to be very fish heavy. What I didn’t anticipate is that Tokyo would be the most difficult, and that even in the tourist areas, most places had literally zero options for vegetarians. Probably ½ of my dinners came from convenience stores. That said, some of the food I did eat in Tokyo was amazing. The best meal I had during my entire trip was at Sougo, a vegetarian kaiseki restaurant with a Michelin-trained chef. I also had a dish that is an Osaka specialty – okonomiyaki – which was insanely good. And my hotel’s breakfast buffet had a number of vegetable side dishes that were incredible.

The Blah

Clothes Shopping in General
I had to go clothes shopping my first couple days in Tokyo, due to my missing bag, and in the process I visited some of the famous shopping destinations of Tokyo including massive department stores in Shinjuku, Roppongi Hills in the Roppongi district, and I stopped by, but did not shop in Harajuku shopping street.  Some of the issue was cost. The giant malls and boutiques had lots of luxury brands. The other issue is the sizing. If you are a woman and bigger than a six 6 – good luck finding pants in Tokyo. This whole experience made shopping more overwhelming and frustrating than fun. And Harajuku was mostly a bunch of crappy-looking stores and other western tourists. Ultimately, I bought most of my clothes at Zara. So if you’re really rich and really skinny, Tokyo might be a fun place to shop. For me, a size 12 pleb, it was blah at best.

Conclusion
Tokyo is a great city that is worth visiting at least once. That said, I’m not sure if I’ll ever visit again. There are things I still want to do there, so there is potential, but there is also a sense of “yep check.” That said, if you’re going to Japan, I highly recommend doing more than just Tokyo. There is a lot more out there and Tokyo is a fairly specific place and vibe.