Wow, only a few weeks have gone by since our last trip. We were so busy that it barely felt like we’d unpacked when we were packing again and getting picked up by an Uber on a beautiful morning to head to the airport.
After a quick and painless check in and security (we were at the lounge entrance 22 minutes from leaving our front door!!) we arrived at the MLL for a little refreshment and rest before our flight.
Sadly, that wasn’t going to happen today – or any day in the foreseeable future. The severe thunderstorm that hit the YYC airport area along with the rest of North Calgary in August had caused damage and leaks to the roof in the B gate concourse of the airport terminal building. The MLL is at the C concourse and didn’t seem to be affected, but apparently a leak was discovered in the ceiling within the last few days that had affected some of the electrical works and was going to take a significant amount of time and effort to remediate. At the lounge entrance the hall was blocked by a table where they offered some drinks and snacks to go. So we quickly moved over to the WestJet Elevation Lounge to see if we could get in, as I also needed to finish up a few items for work and a table would have been preferable to a seat in the general waiting area.
Thankfully we got in. It was the busiest I’d ever seen it in the morning, so clearly a lot of people were using their third party lounge programs to get in here. Good ancillary revenue for WestJet…
Before too long we were up and away on this lovely fall morning. Here we are flying over the town of Cochrane, heading west.
Still nice over the Bow Valley and Canmore.
Here’s the north end of the Spray Lakes Reservoir and Goat Pond. Two of the Three Sisters (Big and Middle) are visible in the lower right.
It became socked in as soon as we approached the Continental Divide and did not really have any more views until we started to descend over the Cascades. Was a mixed but calm day as we passed over Burrard Inlet.
Here’s Bowen Island with the Howe Sound Pulp and Paper plant billowing in the background.
Our layover in Vancouver was about 3 hours, so we had time to visit the AC Signature Suite here for the first time. Ellie really enjoyed the globule type light fixtures in the stairwell up from the main MLL.
There’s a nice view in here, in contrast to the YYZ Signature Suite which has no outdoor views at all.
The AC 777-300ER behind the Flair 737 MAX is the one that’ll take us to Tokyo this afternoon.
We arrived during breakfast time so I just had a cappuccino and we shared some light snacks, saving room for lunch.
The lunch was really, really good.
The food was a bit too fancy for Ellie so she just had an order of fries and a Pink Drink. The woman behind Ellie in the photo brought in a sandwich from Tim Hortons and consumed it with some cocktails from the bar. I couldn’t believe that someone would do that with this quality of food on offer, to say nothing of the fact that I’m surprised they allowed someone to bring in outside food and eat it… whatever.
I had just enough time to squeeze in a little dessert and delicious Hungarian dessert wine before we skedaddled to our flight.
Up and away over the Fraser River delta!
The food service didn’t begin until about an hour after takeoff, so I was a little hungry again.
The onboard food was significantly better tasting than usual. I suspect AC has to up their game a little on this route since they’re directly competing with the two Japanese airlines, ANA and JAL, who are known for excellent in flight food.
I forgot to order a kids meal for this flight until the night before, which is too late, so Ellie just had some snacks. As you can see she was suitably happy about her Kitkat and Miss Vickies chips.
Both of us dozed off at some point over the Bering Sea and then I woke up when we were east of Kamchatka. Still almost 3 hours to go.
Ellie was still happily dozing when they turned on the morning mood lighting about 90 minutes out.
It was weird having breakfast when it was morning at neither the origin (10 PM) or destination (3 PM), but I wanted to try it anyway as it was very different than the standard AC omelette or pancakes options. It was really, really good.
We flew over the east coast of Japan and descended smoothly into Tokyo/Narita airport.
The last time I was in Narita, it was late at night in December 2021 in the middle of COVID transferring from one first class flight to another(LAX to NRT on JAL; NRT to DXB on Emirates) and didn’t get to go out and see anything. It was exciting to be back here for a real visit. One of the ANA “Honu” A380s that flies to Honolulu was parked on the ramp. Would love to ride on that one some day!
Ellie is trying her best to look disinterested. She’s actually so excited that she can barely contain herself!
Border control formalities were a breeze thanks in part to filling out the entry forms online before hand, and scanning the QR code at the checkpoint.
Hello Kitty gave us some tips for Hello Tokyo.
And we got Ellie’s Welcome Suica card at the Narita Airport train ticket counter from a super helpful worker. The Suica card is a payment system operated by JR East – the railway operator in the Tokyo region, but you can pay for just about anything with it in many places in the country. The reason we got this card in person is, that kids automatically get half price on transit when scanning the card for payment!
We were sitting on the Narita Express train in 40 minutes from stepping off the plane.
Ellie chatted the whole way to Shinjuku Station, an almost 90 minute ride.
Here we are – Let’s Tokyo!
One of the first notable things we saw after figuring out how to exit massive Shinjuku Station in the right direction we were welcomed to Shinjuku by this guy – a giant 3D cat billboard. I’d heard of it before but didn’t realize it was going to be on our regular walk to/from the hotel. So cute !! You could hear it meowing all the way across the square and at night there were always lots of people watching it, filming and taking pictures.
Then a few minutes later went up the elevator to our hotel room for the next 5 nights.
After dropping our luggage at the hotel we went downstairs to grab Boba at Ellie’s request.
I didn’t feel like any more food after having basically 4 meals already today, so we just grabbed some quick stuff at 7-Eleven like this delicious sandwich. Ellie had instant ramen with her bubble tea.
The view from our room wasn’t too shabby. The lights of Tokyo go on forever.
The next morning we woke up at some dreadful time, due to jet lag. The timestamp on this pic of the very interesting Japanese room coffee was 3:12 AM and I’m sure we’d been up for a while before committing to that.
This coffee style was pretty good and we saw it in most of the properties we stayed in – a single use pour-over filter cup. Way better than most room coffee that you get in North America, that’s for sure.
I wanted to go over to Don Quijote to check it out while it was still early, as it can get really busy in there. I’d known that we were staying in a pseudo-Times Squarelike area of Tokyo, with tons of bars and clubs around, and associated… entertainment, but I had forgotten about it when I went out in the morning and as a lone male, was accosted every 30 seconds or so by someone looking to make a sale for whatever services they were offering (I think most of them were from hostess bars, not actual prostitutes), and it was annoying. At 5 AM, there were only a few customers in Donki. Perfect. Looks like it will be Ellie’s heaven.
By 6ish, the sun was starting to come up and it looked like it was going to be a spectacular day.
We were hungry already so we headed over to a 24 hour McDonald’s about 10 minutes away. Breakfast is not a thing that people go out for in Japan, so most “breakfast” places didn’t open until 9 and were more brunchy than anything.
It was easy to order on the app so that there was nothing lost in translation. It definitely hit the spot. Ellie got a kick out of the mural on the wall of the next building.
On the walk back to the hotel, here’s the building it’s in. It’s a mixed use building called the Kabukicho Tower; our hotel was in the middle bank of floors just above the lower spiky facade.
We had the first of many busy days ahead, so we packed up our stuff for the day at the room and headed out into the Metro. Look at this map. And this is JUST the Metro, to say nothing of the “suburban” rail type lines operated by JR which aren’t on here. No need to worry about navigation though; in all of the stations, the directional signage was in both Japanese and English.
Here is our first introduction to the exquisite system of not needing to bring all of your stuff with you for the day. I had brought a special piece of luggage with me that needed repairs, and I was going to get that done at the end of the day. So I left the luggage in one of these lockers at the Ginza Metro station so we didn’t have to lug it anywhere.
Then we hopped on our next train unencumbered by said luggage. Much better.
Today we’re going on an all day bike ride, guided by Tokyo Great Tours. It’s going to be gorgeous.
I’m not sure if they have a lot of kids on these urban rides, but they definitely had the right size bike for Ellie.
And some helpful phrases to learn inside the bike shop.
Off we go into the streets of “downtown” Tokyo.
It was totally acceptable to ride on the sidewalk where there were no bike lanes, which I found a bit odd, but people seemed to be used to it.
Our first stop was the Kokyo Gaien National Garden outside the Imperial Palace.
That’s the Nijubashi Bridge and Fushimi-yagura behind Ellie. It was a very popular spot for photos especially with the calm water.
Lots of room to bike here.
Next, we headed down to the Success Steps leading up to Atago Jinja, a Shinto shrine. There is an ancient Samurai legend that if you can climb up these steep stone steps, you will have success in your career. Ellie was very motivated by this, plus the fact that it was just a cool set of steps!
There was a Torii at the bottom which signifies the entrance to a Shinto shrine. We were informed that the custom is to bow before entering and leaving the Torii.
Before entering the shrine proper, we were supposed to purify our hands and mouth at the temizuya water pavilion.
Then we tossed a coin into the offering box, rang the bell, and said a prayer.
There was a nice fish pond with some very hungry fish.
We called this one the Trump Fish.
Another Torii in the stream leading to the fish pond.
Looking around, you’d think you were in the countryside or an expansive park, but not if you looked up.
There’s a gentler path (and even an elevator!) but Ellie wanted to take the steep steps back down for double good luck.
We bowed again after leaving the gate, thoroughly having enjoyed this stop. I’d say it’s a hidden gem of sorts, I had never heard of it before. And it wasn’t busy at all.
Next stop down the road was Zojo-ji, a Buddhist temple complex. Not only was the main temple building cool, Tokyo Tower was right behind it which made for a great contrast.
We walked around the temple grounds and enjoyed looking at the statues and gardens. Did I mention we simply left the bikes unattended outside the gates of each of these stops?! In most other countries, they’d have been gone within minutes if not seconds!
One of the pathways led to this interesting arrangement of statues that were dressed up. Well, there was a story about that.
We partook of some incense on the way out to purify ourselves in a Buddhist manner.
Now for something a bit different. We stopped at a convenience store to pick up some drinks. So many cool drinks here. Ellie selected lychee Fanta.
And then one of our guides picked up Bento boxes for us for lunch, and we had a picnic in Hamarikyu Gardens.
It was a really nice place to walk around after our meal, and another contrast right in the heart of the city.
Ellie even found some trees suitable for climbing, but I had to break it to her that they probably wouldn’t like that….
It was so nice out for mid November. Into short sleeves now.
Alright, now we get into the heavy biking. We passed by the former Olympic Village for the “2020” Tokyo Olympics, after going up and over the first of several bridges.
And stopped by Symbol Promenade Park Flower Plaza, in Ariake now; the symbol means “flower”.
It felt pretty deserted on this broad walkway, but it apparently gets really busy in summer and during times of events. The tall building behind the Dream Bridge that we’re on (this is not a square – the whole path in this section was this wide) is a hotel.
We stopped at the Tokyo Word Mark Monument for a photo.
And then the Unicorn Gundam. This would have looked really cool at night.
We’re basically at the far end of our ride now and have to bike all the way back, but with less stops and more biking now. Most of the ride would be directly adjacent to Tokyo Bay and very pleasant.
The Rainbow Bridge looking suitably beautiful.
To say nothing of Ellie 🙂
Looking up the bay we could see the Tokyo Skytree in the distance.
We stopped at Sumiyoshi Jinja, a small, hidden Shinto shrine that would have been easy to miss. It seemed like a popular spot for bike tours as we saw others with helmets there. It was on a small island.
I loved some of the Japanese warning signs, like this one telling people to slow down and watch out for others.
Back at the shop, we were offered some local beers to celebrate the end of the ride. I don’t usually drink beer but I feel like it was earned this time. 32 km and over 200 m of elevation gained on the bikes. Ellie of course didn’t have a beer but she definitely deserved something too!!
So for her treat, I brought her to the Sanrio store in Ginza to do some shopping.
Remember the luggage being dropped off in the locker earlier? Well, that was reclaimed from the locker and brought to the RIMOWA shop in Ginza for repairs. They were so efficient that I received a text that it was ready for pickup even before we were finished in the Sanrio store. What an excellent service!
Here’s the main shopping street of Ginza. Unfortunately I didn’t get a pic of it when it was only pedestrians before 5:00 PM, so this’ll have to do.
And back over to Kabukicho in Shinjuku for supper. I had made a reservation at a place called Pretty Pork Factory.
It was Pretty Tasty!
Then we walked around lively Kabukicho after supper a bit.
This was a line of girls working on the sidewalk right outside our boba shop every night (and sometimes even in the early morning you’d see a few). Not sure what they were offering, didn’t stop to ask…
And with that, we finished our first full day in Tokyo. Off to bed as we are expiring quickly since we’ve been up since 3.
Ellie's Adventures 