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| Smiling because they're seeing me? Or because they're off the plane?? |
A year and a half ago I never thought I'd ever visit Japan, chances of my parents visiting Japan...0%. But the day we found out we were moving to Misawa and I made the call to tell them (sobbing) they said they'd visit. And here they are!
A little after 8:30 pm they made it through immigration and customs and got to where I was waiting patiently. I had woken up during the night and saw the email from them saying they were delayed so I had taken my time getting to Tokyo and the airport.
The next couple of hours were spent getting to the hotel and involved a lot of moving parts and was a bit crazy...train, subway, taxi, walking and a potato salad sandwich. The sandwich was just my snack, nothing else significant, other than it being odd and delicious. Getting to Tokyo Station and the subway was ok, it was after getting off the subway when we ran into some difficulty...the station had a few different exits and I wasn't sure which one would get us closest to the hotel. To anyone that hasn't experienced it that might not seem like a big deal. How far apart can the exits be, right? Well, pretty far. Sometimes you walk almost 1/2 mile underground toward an exit before making your way up to the street level. So we chose an exit, there was no elevator in sight so we had to carry luggage up several stories of stairs to get to the street. Pulled up the walking directions on my phone, still 1/2 mile away, and it was raining. We hailed a cab and I showed him the map of where we wanted to go...he didn't have a clue. I tried directing him where to turn to get us there, but he didn't understand and just drove us to a random place. Finally I told him to stop and we were still almost 1/2 mile away! Ahhh, by now the rain had mostly stopped so we just walked. Finally got to our hotel between 11 and midnight.
Welcome to Tokyo, Mom and Dad!
Being up late and the stress of a long travel day allowed my parents to sleep pretty well and not be too affected by jet lag their first morning. I had a plan to show them some of Tokyo's sites for their first full day in Japan.
Our first stop was Shibuya Station and the famous intersection known as Shibuya Crossing. It's one of the busiest intersections in the world and can be crazy! It's sometimes referred to as Japan's Times Square. Today we were there mid-morning and it was pretty calm.
A famous landmark and meeting place in Tokyo is the bronze statue of Hachiko in Shibuya. Hachiko (1923-1935) was an Akita dog and he is remembered for his loyalty to his owner even after the owner's death. Each day Hachiko would greet his owner at Shibuya Station as he came home from work. One day in 1925, his owner passed away and did not return from work. For the next 9 years, 9 months and 15 days the dog appeared each day at the station at the time his late-owner's train was due to arrive. Commuters began to notice his behavior and he became famous after a newspaper article was written about him in 1932.
The first statue was unveiled in 1934, but was recycled during WWII. The current statue was placed in 1948.
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| Navigating the subway lines... |
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| Ah, yes, I warned Mom there would be "squatty pottys." |
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| Parents on the bridge. |
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| What was left of the roses. |
From the garden we were on the hunt for lunch. I had a restaurant in mind and there was supposedly a location at Shinjuku Station. We searched for it but couldn't find it. I got the address of another location inside of Shinjuku Park Tower and we walked there. It ended up being farther than any of us really wanted to walk, but I thought the food was pretty delicious and a good experience for Mom and Dad to try several things.
We went to Saboten, a chain that specializes in tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet), a traditional Japanese dish. They have a selection of other breaded and fried foods too. Meals come with all you can eat rice, miso soup and cabbage salad. I'm a big fan of their ponzu dressing for the salad, it's light and citrusy.
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| Did really well with their chop sticks for first timers! |
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| My meal included a pork cutlet, shrimp and a cream croquette. |
After a very filling lunch we walked over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, it was just a couple blocks away. Building No. 1 has a free observation deck on the 45th floor to check out the view from above. The 45th floor is 202 meters high (662 feet), about 30 feet taller than the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
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| Buildings are all you can see in any direction! |
Our final destination of the day was the Tokyo Skytree. We got there and unfortunately the clouds/haze were low enough that we couldn't quite see the top. It's the tallest tower, and second tallest structure in the world currently. The Skytree is 634 meters tall, that's 2,080 feet! To put that in perspective, compared to the Tokyo Skytree, the Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) in Chicago is 630 feet SHORTER and the Empire State Building in NYC is 830 feet SHORTER. It's insanely tall! Supposedly it is very earthquake resistant and during its construction the top swayed an estimated 4-6 meters during the 3/11/11 earthquake. No thanks! Don't think I'll be heading up to the observation decks...ever.
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| After doing it all day they're getting the hang of the tickets in the subway station! |
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| The Skytree! |
At this point it was time to head back toward the hotel, we made a stop at Tokyo Station to buy our bullet train tickets to Sendai for tomorrow morning. Since we'd had such a huge lunch we didn't get anything for dinner, just some ice cream for Mom and Dad and a pastry and beer for me! It was a long day with A LOT of walking, a couple frustrating moments when I couldn't find what we were looking for, we only got on the wrong subway one time...and I realized it in time for us to hop off before the doors closed! Tokyo proved to be a crazy, busy, overwhelming city to my parents, but I don't think any of us expected it to be otherwise, it still overwhelms me sometimes too. Overall though, I think it was a successful day, we saw a lot, experienced the hustle and bustle AND flawlessly got back to our hotel at the end of the day!
Up next: My Parents' Visit! - Part 2 - Sendai/Matsushima Bay
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