Back in June of 2018, I applied for, was accepted into, and put a deposit down on obtaining my TESL/TEFL (Teaching English as a Second/Foreign Language) certificate at California State University San Marcos. At the time, I was planning on leaving the country and moving abroad to teach English. I knew I couldn’t miss any classes or go on vacation until the end of May, so I decided to use up all the vacation time I had accrued to spend in Japan.

I spent a couple days in Tokyo with my dad and my great aunt Mitsuko when I was in my early teens, but I don’t remember a lot of it, so I decided I wanted to spend a couple days there. Tokyo’s an expensive city and I knew most of what I wanted to do involved spending a lot of money (shopping, visiting TeamLabs Borderless), so I limited my Tokyo trip to two days before spending 10 in Okinawa with family.

I flew directly from San Diego to Tokyo since that’s a new service offered out of SAN the past couple of years. Well, I shouldn’t say directly; I chose a cheaper flight where there was a layover in Vancouver, Canada. Of course, I packed carry-on only, because ain’t nobody got time for the drama and chaos of baggage claim when you just spent 12+ hours on an airplane and only have 2 days in Tokyo. Well… Anyone who has followed any of my air-travel stories for any amount of time knows I ain’t never got time for baggage claim…

Thanks to technology and Facebook, I’ve been able to keep in touch with a friend who used to also visit his grandmother in Okinawa every summer when we were children. Rui lives outside of Tokyo with his wife Aoi, and we arranged to hang out for a day since they both had that particular day off of work.

I stayed in 9hours in Kanda, a women-only capsule hotel. I had stayed in another branch of this chain when I was in Osaka, so I was already familiar with the format and knew that’d be okay for a place to sleep and shower and keep my belongings. Especially for about $30/night. The hotel was a 5-minute walk from the JR Kanda rail station, which would make travel easy. The stay was perfect, except for when some girl came in drunk AF and puked in our SINK on the first night. Girl. The toilet was literally 3 feet behind you.

Shibuya

Thanks to jetlag, I woke up super early on the first day. I took my time getting ready but decided to head to Shibuya and walk around before meeting up with Rui and Aoi. I stopped at the Lawson’s convenience store caddy-corner to the train station and had some nikuman, onigiri and coffee for breakfast before hopping on the train.

Shibuya is a popular fashion and shopping district in Tokyo. It was on my list because of Terrace House (a Japanese reality show on Netflix I got hooked on), because I wanted to witness and participate in the Shibuya Shuffle, and because I’ve been interested in updating my wardrobe since I started dating my boyfriend Eddie.

I arrived in Shibuya Station, which is on the corner of the famous Shibuya Crossing. That early in the morning, it wasn’t very chaotic, but I still spent a couple rotations at the train station window overlooking the intersection, just for sheer entertainment.

I finally met up with Rui and Aoi at the Hachiko statue, where we took the obligatory photo. I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t seen Rui in 12 years! We went into a store to pick up some cookies for my aunt, before walking to Harajuku.

Harajuku

If Harakuju sounds familiar to you, it might be thanks to Gwen Stefani when she came out with  L.A.M.B. and her Harajuku girls. Harajuku is another fashion district in Tokyo, but more focused on youth culture. Takeshita Street is the main pedestrian street lined with crepe shops and clothing boutiques. I kind of wish I had spent a little more time here but I always feel pressure when shopping with other people, like I don’t want to inconvenience or bore them. But we did stop at Aoi’s favorite crepe shop and enjoyed some famous Harajuku crepes while talking about how I also came to Tokyo to see the TeamLab Borderless exhibit at the MORI digital art museum that I kept seeing pictures and videos of on social media. It turns out that it was a museum that Aoi also wanted to go to but hadn’t gotten around to doing so. So Rui and Aoi planned out our route and we hopped on a train to Odaiba.

Odaiba

Odaiba is an artificial island in Tokyo Bay. We found our way to the MORI Art Museum and got our tickets for the exhibit. Lockers were available for our belongings, so we stuffed our purses and bags in the locker before heading in and being completely immersed in digital art.

The experience is kind of hard to explain, because it was always changing. The museum is kind of a maze; the walls black and lights turned out and we were only really able to navigate using the projection of flowers, butterflies, animals and monks that were displayed, moving and changing against the walls. We found the Forest of Lamps and Crystal World, which were my favorite rooms. It was a really cool and beautiful experience, and I 100% recommend it to anyone visiting Tokyo!

After we’d had our fill, we decided to stop at the mall across the way (where a life-sized Gundam statue stands. I’ve never watched it so it wasn’t really of any particular interest to me but Rui was loving it). Rui asked if I’d ever tried cow tongue (the answer was no), so we went to a restaurant that served it. I wish I hadn’t known what I was eating, because even though it tasted like beef, knowing what it was made me hyper-aware of the texture. Still, I’d eat it again.

Minato

We closed out our day with a trip to the iconic Tokyo Tower. Inspired by the Eiffel Tower, the Tokyo Tower is a communication and observation tower, offering a 360-degree view of Tokyo. The views were pretty stunning, being able to see the areas we had visited that day. It was crazy to see how big, and dense Tokyo is. Inside the tower, of course, were souvenir and gift shops, particularly one themed from the manga One Piece. I’ve seen pictures of it on Instagram and Pinterest but I’ve never seen the anime or the manga, but it made me kind of curious. I mean it’s about pirates…

We walked back to the train station and Rui and Aoi accompanied me back until we got to Kanda, my stop. We said our goodbyes, which is always sad. Social media is great but who knows when we’ll be able to see each other again. I hopped off and they remained on the train to head home, and I walked back to my capsule.

Asakusa

The next morning, I had “breakfast” at Lawsons again before getting on the train and heading north to Asakusa. I was surprised when I walked out of the train station and the Tokyo Skytree (not to be confused with yesterday’s Tokyo Tower) was directly in front of me.

I made my way to Senso-ji, Japan’s oldest temple, and one I have apparently visited before, based on photos from that Tokyo trip I took with my dad. It was early so I beat most of the crowds, and most of the food vendors. But I did get a plate of takoyaki to eat and enjoy as I people watched and took in the splendor of the temple. I walked down the temple grounds and shops that led up to the Thunder Gate, and even found some white strawberries to try. It’s crazy these shops leading to the temple have been there for centuries (of course, having been destroyed and rebuilt after earthquakes and WWII).

Ginza

I walked around a bit before deciding to head to Akihabara, but on the way, I made an impromptu decision to stop at Nissan Crossing to have a latte with my picture printed on it (thanks again, Pinterest). I was totally surprised when I stepped off the train and was already IN Nissan Crossing.

Nissan Crossing is a kind of information center built by Nissan to share their future vision. So they’ve got a bunch of interactive exhibits and prototypes on display, and a coffee bar where they screen print your photo (or a photo you bring) on top of your latte. I had a photo of me and Eddie printed on my latte while watching the action in Ginza, Tokyo’s high-end, luxury shopping district.

Akihabara

My final stop in Tokyo was Akihabara, or “Electric Town”. This part of Tokyo is known for its anime/manga-centered games, toys and electronics. What was surprising to me was that the entire street was closed to traffic because so many pedestrians roam the area; there’s no way all of these people would have fit on the sidewalks! The buildings were all lit up like Vegas, showing off their ads and brands. Of course I was looking for all things DragonBall, but really didn’t find much. It could be because I was exhausted, but I felt overwhelmed by everything, including the Gatchapon shops I had hoped to visit (gatchapons are those little 25-cent capsule toy machines). I did find the taiyaki shop that sold the Magikarp taiyakis.

I turned in for the night after Akihabara since I had an early flight to Okinawa. In retrospect, I crammed too much in too little time. I definitely would have like to visit more historical areas and eat more cute and yummy food. Tokyo’s a huge city and there’s millions of people going too and from; definitely a high-paced place to visit. Personally, given the option, I’d go back to Osaka/Kyoto, but I also kind of want a do-over of Tokyo to finish the activities I didn’t get around to.