Well, here we are at our final Shinkansen journey of this trip, in Kyoto Station. Now that we had one of our big luggages with us, the Green Car was indispensable as there is a ton of overhead space for luggage and no need to worry about reserving seats that have access to a luggage storage area.
It was another stunning day after rainy Saturday – the sky was crystal clear as we headed north, whizzing through towns and cities alike.
And we were so fortunate to get the postcard view of Mount Fuji, complete with a low cloud above the base. The rain that was falling on us yesterday was snow up at the top! That would almost definitely be the first snow of the season as it was totally dry when we flew past it a few days ago. Gotta be quick, there’s only a few seconds to snap a photo like this free of obstructions or power poles!
After an almost too short, enjoyable train ride, we were back in Shinjuku, which almost felt like home at this point. It was so nice out that I could have just sat with a coffee and watched the city (and the 3D kitty) for at least an hour.
Spotted this Rolls Royce Phantom across the street. This car costs about the same amount of money as our house.
No more watching. We had lots to do.
So, remember how earlier on I stated that I’d shrewdly brought our second big luggage to the hotel we’d be staying at in Shinjuku on our last night in Tokyo (which is tonight)? Well, last night I was reviewing everything and came to the realization that I booked a different location of a local chain – and the correct hotel was a 40 minute train ride west of Shinjuku in Hachioji, a suburb. After fretting about it for a bit, I remembered that this was all correct as I’d ruminated about whether the diversion would be worth it when I was making the booking. I just had it stuck in my head that we were staying at the “downtown” location. It was too late to cancel it and book something more convenient, and it was a really special room, anyway, so I had to really put on my logistics cap to make this all work and not spend hours or many thousands of yen commuting all around Tokyo with an enormous array of luggage. Luggage shipment directly to the airport was not possible at this stage of the game unless I booked a private car to do it. And, our last night’s clothes that we needed was in the suitcase at the hotel down here in Shinjuku.
So what I came up with was this:
-find a locker somewhere in Shinjuku Station that could accommodate our current big luggage that we’d brought with us on our trip to the west.
-amalgamate as much as possible from our backpacks into that luggage so we didn’t have to spend the day walking around with now bursting backpacks
-deal with the other luggage later
The first part of this worked – sort of. There is a website that I found where you can check real time availability of “some” of the lockers at stations. There were no lockers available with certainty that could fit the big suitcase, so I took it to a tourist centre that offered luggage storage service. I did amalgamate all of the crap out of our packs and shoved it in a locker though so at least we’d be unencumbered for our afternoon and evening with a light day pack again. So here’s our locker in the bowels of Shinjuku Station. Which has hundreds of exits and lockers near many of them.
Ahhh, that feels better. Off we went on the Yamanote Line to Shibuya. And popped outside looking up at Shibuya Scramble Square.
Right adjacent to the famous Shibuya Crossing.
We’re going up to Shibuya Sky, a multi level observation deck at the top of Shibuya Scramble Square, 47 stories up. I wanted to get us tickets (timed entry) that would be suitable for sunset time, so we’d get to see the city in daytime, as the sun went down, twilight, and night. Sunset was 16:30 and I had tickets allowing us entry between 14:45-15:00. It felt almost as hard as getting Taylor Swift tickets to do this, as I had to set an alarm at exactly midnight Japan time 30 days prior. And as I tried to book my preferred time, 15:15 or 15:00, they’d disappear from the booking page as I’d enter my payment info. Fortunately, our time worked out just perfect for this day. I don’t wanna ramble on too long, as the photos will tell most of the story possible without actually being there – but we spent a whole glorious hour up there in the sun before it started to sink behind Mount Fuji, taking many photos and videos, exchanging photographer duties with other tourists at “THE” corner, and laying on the astroturf soaking it all in, or taking selfies.
“THE” corner facing North-West was the best area for photos on the deck, and you had to wait in a strictly controlled queue to use it. First, a photographer from the facility would take a shot of your party that would be available for purchase in the gift shop. Then you’d have 30 seconds (timed!) to do whatever you wanted.
Notice that we were up there in t-shirts and shorts. It was 25 degrees on November 17. Can’t get much better than this.
It was so much fun that we waited in line for the corner twice, and it was well worth it. Only 15-20 minutes to wait, and you still got the awesome views in line. So orderly compared to many other destination around the world where people are taking hundreds of photos in the same spot with different stupid poses for their social media.
As the sun set, Ellie wanted to do some gymnastics on the astroturf. Thanks to timed entry, it’s not overcrowded – and there was plenty of space for her to have some fun.
We went downstairs to the indoor observation halls for something different. The views were just as good.
And after being up there for 2.5 hours which just flew by thanks to the weather, views, and ambiance, we headed down to the famous scramble crossing.
Next up – no photos of this debacle – dealing with the &#@@# luggage again. I concocted another plan. Leave the initial big luggage at the storage room. I stopped by and had to pay them more for an overnight. Then to the hotel over in the Shinjuku city centre by the Government building that we went up last week to pick that one up. I handed over my claim check and got the suitcase, and then we wheeled it back to Shinjuku Station whilst I was checking that damn locker website constantly looking for a large locker for this thing that would be somewhat accessible tomorrow en route to the airport train which departs from the far south end of the station, close to where the other big luggage is stored. Magically, one large one appeared as available in the same bank of lockers as Ellie’s backpack and our other stuff. We’re only a few minutes away! Wooohoo!!! Pulled our overnight stuff out on the floor of the station and put it in my backpack, and locked up the big luggage for the night. Nice!! We can now go on our 40 minute train ride without this stuff holding us back. I love big busy cities but one thing I would not want to do is take check in size suitcases on any of the rail transit in Central Tokyo during any normal time of day. Only super early in the morning or late at night. Here we are waiting in one of those nice orderly lines to get on the train.
Very glad not to have the luggage with us here. Oh, and by the way, it’s a Sunday at 7 PM. Not rush hour. But it’s not considered busy until the central handstraps are in use, not just the side ones.
Ellie’s a pro at this.
Another map of the fantastic rail system around Tokyo – this is the JR system of “suburban style” trains that doesn’t include the subway.
The train progressively emptied out about 3/4 of the way into the ride, and we had seats for the last while. It was nice. We arrived in Hachioji which was festive, and much much quieter than Shinjuku.
After long last, our luggage was safe and sound behind us in Shinjuku, and we made it to our hotel – Keio Plaza Hachioji. Given the VERY special room that I’d booked, it was well worth all the hassle. This girl just loved it!
We spent as much time in the room as possible. For two reasons… Ellie just loved it; and it was the most expensive room of the trip 😛
I did venture out early in the morning for a walk and a stop in at Donki which was all decked out for Christmas.
Then some more photo ops before breakfast…
They had maple syrup right from Canada (bilingual label!!) beside the French toast station at the breakfast buffet!
Curiously, this guy seemed to be the mascot of the restaurant for the holiday season… anyone know what that says?
We left the room at 10:59 for an 11:00 checkout and headed down to the railway station. This is something we’ve not seen yet in Japan. An empty entrance concourse.
And an empty train car!!!!
After popping out in Shinjuku 35 minutes later (we had an express train), we again dropped some of our stuff in a locker.
And then stopped in at one of the giant claw machine emporiums. There was all the usual stuff that you would expect plus some more risqué items…
And then afterwards, a lovely conveyor belt sushi restaurant where you ordered from a virtual conveyor belt (behind us on the screens) and it popped out on the belt at your table moments later.
It was pretty good. There doesn’t seem to be any bad food in Japan!
Even penguins recommend the Sake – so I had to order it!
The view from the restaurant wasn’t too shabby either – in the back, you can see Kabukicho Tower where our first 5 nights were spent. It feels like so long ago that we had that first night in Shinjuku.
Ok, it’s 12:55 when we finish up at the restaurant and we have a few things to do before our train to the airport departs at 14:39. Let’s see how it goes! Kerry and Ellie’s Amazing Race!
A journey down to Harajuku. Stopped by the famous Takeshita Street.
A stop at I’m donut, a super popular spot that’s part of the Tokyo donut phenomenon.
It was 13:26 and the line was pretty big as you can see.
But, as many other things, they were very efficient and took our orders while we waited in line.
Freshly made donut was a misnomer as they were ALL freshly made compared to normal standards… like maybe half an hour ago. The “freshly made ones” were made on the spot.
I got my donut at 13:40 and it was worth the diversion and wait. Thanks for the recommendation, Brady!
We also stopped into Uniqlo to look for some Ellie clothes and even tried them on. Then back to the Yamanote Line.
It was 14:55 when we disembarked at Shinjuku on the Yamanote Line. We had 44 minutes to do all of these things:
-locate and walk back to the exit with our locker bank
-retrieve large luggage from the locker
-repack the stuff from the small locker into our backpacks and the big luggage
-retrieve large luggage from the storage facility at the far end of the station
-convert our train ticket to an actual reservation
-repack the second large luggage on the floor of the station
Well, we made it through all of these things and were comfortably sitting on the Narita Express at 14:36. I felt proud of our mini-Amazing Race.
The airport was uneventful, we didn’t visit the lounge as we went to the duty free shop to spend the last of our Suica cards and coins.
We had only a few minutes to sit around at the gate and then we were onboard. I think Tuxedo Sam will be my new travelling mascot, as Veria needs a rest.
Sayonara, Japan. We’ll see you again soon!
I had the Japanese options for both dinner and breakfast after sleeping about 3.5 hours during the night.
Ellie slept about 6 hours. With Tuci.
As we approached the south Coast of BC, some forested hills of Vancouver Island peeked through the thick cloud bank.
We had an uneventful 3.5 hour layover in Vancouver, then got on our last flight to Calgary. This was on a refurbished A321 that amongst other new features has a tail cam!
It was a nice afternoon in the Lower Mainland.
We had a short break in the interior cloud as we flew over Panorama Resort near Invermere.
And my friend Dwayne on the ground got a pic of us from down below. How cool is that!
We flew over Kananaskis Lakes. More cool tailcam.
It wasn’t so nice in Calgary.
We’re home.
But the trip isn’t over yet! Unbeknownst to us, since it was very much winter in Calgary and windbreakers were not needed, Ellie had left her windbreaker in the pod on the flight from Tokyo to Vancouver. I always do a cursory check of her pod to guard against things like this, but she must have shoved it down in the footwell and being black, I was unable to see it. I was very surprised a few days later to be receiving a call from a Vancouver phone number with the name of Air Canada. A super helpful agent asked me if we were missing anything from a flight from Japan, and I said I didn’t think so… he then described the jacket and said that on one of the inner tags the label was marked Vizbar in Sharpie. So they proactively tracked us down and sent the jacket on the next flight to Calgary! Thanks so much to the Air Canada team in YVR for this, and also to Auntie Julie for labelling the jacket inside (it was a hand me down from Ellie’s cousin Brady).
What an awesome trip. Ellie said it was the best trip ever. I’m not going to argue with her. We’ll be back again – maybe Spring 2026! Our hearts are full!
Ellie's Adventures 