Totally Tokyo!

What a surprise Tokyo was! Quiet and clean streets where we could walk down the middle. Friendly locals who allowed us to try out our language skills. Bathrooms with toilet paper and soap around every corner. And, not surprisingly, so much to do that we ran full days every day and didn’t come close to going to all the interesting places.

We catered to our audience, of course. So we spent multiple days in malls full of manga and anime stalls. (In Japan, they call it otaku culture, which is roughly translated to nerd. Sounds like us!) And Harajuku is a district full of wild and colorful shops and cafes and the birthplace of the (currently very popular in our household) decora style. It was really fun to see how mainstream some of these things are here, whereas they can feel pretty niche back home.

We made sure to visit some Shinto shrines as well. There is so much we don’t understand about all the traditions and rituals and history. But we try to be respectful and observant. And, gosh, there’s a lot to look at and take in! We did let the kids pay for their fortunes at one shrine. One of them was favorable, and the other one got tied to the fence so the monks could burn it away. Let’s just say, I hope we never have to test the predicted bad lawsuit outcome!

We certainly did some of the big tourist things. Like going up to the top of the Metropolitan Building for the incredible view. (Maggie even got to play the piano at the top for all the sightseers.) And we rushed across the street at Shibuya Crossing at the same time as thousands of other folks. And we watched the cat play games from his 3D billboard at Shinjuku. And we took the train with all the Disneyland goers (but spent the day with hammerhead sharks at the aquarium instead).

Really, though, we found lots of gardens and parks and peace and quiet. Green spaces and pathways and ponds and fishes. Families and dogs and even one lovely old woman who handed us candy because we were simply kawaii (cute).

In general, we spent the week simply soaking in this new place. It’s easy to succumb to fomo in a place like Tokyo (fear of missing out). So let me assure you (and us) that we did a lot, all of it rich, even if we didn’t quite tick everything on our (and popular) to-see lists. Plus, we’ll be back briefly at the end of our trip to finish whatever itch didn’t get completely scratched. In the meantime, we head west toward Mt. Fuji!