Japan Diaries: Arrival in Tokyo
To quote Taylor Swift, it's been a long time coming
Hi and Konnichiwa! I will be sharing travelogues of my and Kurt’s recent adventure in Japan in the next several newsletters, on a weekly-ish basis. If you would like to receive these posts directly in your inbox, subscribe for free below. You can also show support by sharing with friends, hitting that heart button if you enjoy what you read, and leaving questions for me in the comments. Thank you for reading!
Before I landed in Japan in late February, I’d almost convinced myself I’d never actually make it there. In my early twenties, I almost moved to Japan to teach English for a year but reluctantly turned down the job offer when I was selected for a competitive writing program at Second City. Nearly twenty years later, I planned a vacation in Japan in April 2020; that sentence finishes itself. After clicking all those cancellation buttons while the world went into lockdown, Japan began to feel like my travel white whale.
I was initially drawn to Japan for the same reason as thousands of other Westerners: pop culture. In college I became enamored with the lush animation and storytelling of Studio Ghibli movies like Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. In my early twenties, loving the Sofia Coppola film Lost in Translation became a load-bearing part of my personality. I sought out novels by Japanese writers like Haruki Murakami that would transport me to the country and familiarize me with its customs, mythology, and reverence for nature. When I was too poor to travel, international films and novels were a fantastic way to see the world.
Ever since emerging from the lockdown era of covid, I started planning a big adventure every year, and Japan sprang back to the top of the list. I still longed to hike through misty forests along paths lined by moss-covered stone lanterns, to gaze at scenery framed by vermilion torii gates, and to drink a cocktail in a twentieth-floor bar overlooking the neon lights of Tokyo like Bill Murray. I wanted the challenge of not knowing the language or the alphabet and to test my navigation skills on the Tokyo subway system. It was time to rebook our trip to Japan.
Since Japan reopened its borders in 2022, there have been many headlines about overtourism, especially in popular spots like Kyoto. We decided to book our trip during the off-season in late winter/early spring, before the cherry blossoms would be in bloom. The scenery might still be stark and wintry and the weather chilly, but we’ve camped in Wisconsin during a blizzard; we could handle it. Still, a not-small amount of anxiety lingered over my research and planning version 2.0 (if avian flu became a global pandemic, would it be my fault??). At long, long last, our flight day rolled around, I folded myself into my economy class seat for thirteen hours, and finally set foot on Japanese soil.
We arrived in Tokyo at 6pm local time, God knows what time in Chicago; I had watched Interstellar on the plane as an inside joke to myself about wormhole time travel. Groggy and sleep-deprived, the interior of my puffy jacket damp with my own sweat, I was only able to function thanks to the surge of adrenaline I felt upon seeing the Arrivals sign written in Japanese. We’d made it! The first orders of business: proceed through Immigration, pick up our reserved pocket wifi router, go to the ATM to take out yen in cash, and find the shuttle bus bound for Shibuya.
When we reached central Tokyo, it looked just how I imagined during all those months of research and scouring Lonely Planet guidebooks, travel blogs, and social media. Neon lights flashed past the tinted bus windows. Electric signs blared ads we couldn’t read. Our first hotel sat right upon the famous Shibuya Scramble, an intersection in which an estimated 2,500 people cross every two minutes during rush hour. We scrambled our way to our hotel lobby with our luggage on our backs, sweaty and disheveled.
I felt a strong urge to do and see everything immediately. These two weeks would fly by in an instant. Suddenly awake, we dove into exploring. Go into a Gashapon shop: check. Visit a Japanese record store: check. Check out the snack offerings at a konbini: check. Take a photo with the Hachiko statue near Shibuya Station: check.
By the end of the night, we ended up in a fourth floor bar where a DJ was spinning Japanese reggae. A woman tapped my shoulder and showed me her iPhone set to Japanese-to-English Google Translate: “Where are you from?”
“Chicago!” I replied, and we ended up chatting with her and her friend for the next ten minutes, all through Google Translate. We talked about live music, ska bands, favorite artists, and our planned itinerary. My previous belief that the language barrier would make the trip feel a little lonely was disproved within a few hours.
When we said goodbye, she typed a final message: “It would make me happy if you would fall in love with Japan.”
That conversation was a perfect reminder to set aside the checklists gleaned from influencers and to let our trip unspool organically. Travel isn’t about collecting checkpoints like Pokemon, it’s about letting myself be forever changed by a new place and new experiences.
I had pre-purchased tickets to Shibuya Sky on our first morning, so we could start our trip with a bird’s eye view of the biggest city in the world. From the observation deck on the top (forty-seventh) floor, we could see Tokyo stretching in every direction, the crater of Mt. Fuji visible in the distance. I hold two contradicting truths: 1) I have a stomach-clutching nervous-sweat-inducing fear of heights, and 2) there’s nothing I love more than an incredible view. Let’s just say that both were in effect at Shibuya Sky.
From Shibuya, we took the train to Shinjuku. Before departing the U.S., I had a feeling I’d quickly be won over by Japan’s extreme devotion to punctuality. A rule follower down to the molecular level of my DNA, I am also aggressively punctual. As the internet message boards foretold, Google Maps was a dream to use in Japan, sharing accurate data on which platform number to stand on, which car to board to make for the easiest transfer, and the total cost in yen. (I wonder how I would have fared if I had moved to Japan on my own in 2002 before smart phones existed—I can easily picture 23-year-old me in flared jeans and a Paul Frank t-shirt, lost and crying in a konbini ).
On to exploring Shinjuku! Goen National Gardens: check. Eating the convenience store egg salad sandwich that Anthony Bourdain had a meltdown over: check. Godzilla hotel: check. 3D cat billboard: check. First stop inside the famous chain store/sensory overload experience Don Quijote: check. First bowl of counter service ramen: check (with the slurp stains on my jacket to prove it).
We capped off our night in Golden Gai, a series of narrow alleys full of hole-in-the-wall establishments that popped up as a red light district shortly after WWII. Today, the area is an entirely legal drinking district, but the vibes remain strong. I felt like I’d stepped back in time or onto a film set, textured by lantern light and a tapestry of different languages spoken by passersby, The bars are split between those looking to draw in Western tourists with rock music and English signage, and others displaying “members only” signs. Most establishments only have seating for a half-dozen people to be closely bellied up to the bar, and we had to poke our head through a few doorways until we found two available stools for us to occupy. Watching Kurt duck through the low doorways and narrow stairwells of Golden Gai reminded me of Gandalf visiting Bilbo Baggins’ home in the Shire.
It was in one of these intimate bars where the transportive spell of vacation was broken by a patron from Australia. “I have to ask,” he said, facing Kurt and me along with another American from Boston as we sipped our Kirins and whiskeys. I braced myself, knowing what was coming. “…Trump?” A single word, a loaded question. All three Americans grimaced. “It’s an embarrassing time to be an American,” the man from Boston said. A few hours earlier, Kurt and I had witnessed a political protest march through the streets of Shinjuku. Loudspeakers blared from a large truck as police officers wrangled pedestrians off the protest route. We had no idea what was being protested until we spotted a few random English words mixed in with Japanese on protestors’ signs, including “Trump,” “Gaza,” and “Never Allow U.S.-Japanese War on China.” As much as I wished I could hide from reality during our trip, it was an unrealistic dream. The current U.S. administration moving further towards authoritarianism is going to have worldwide ripple effects. Part of me felt selfishly relieved that we’d taken this trip now; if Americans become persona non grata to the rest of the world, who knows what international travel will look like over the next four years.
On our walk back to the train station, one more bar lured us in—technically it was a bouncer, promising karaoke. If there is a siren song that will work on me every time, it is karaoke (plus they had a Filipino flag on the front door, which felt like a sign). We shoved ourselves into the shoulder-to-shoulder packed bar for one more beer and for me to sing “Pink Pony Club.” As a second generation half-Filipino American I often have imposter syndrome when it comes to owning my heritage, BUT SURELY, having sung karaoke in a Filipino bar in Tokyo must get me some Asian points, right??
On Day 2, I booked a reservation at TeamLabs: Borderless, an immersive art experience, or what Kurt and I began calling “Japanese Meow Wolf.” TeamLabs uses multimedia to create moving art that flows from one room to the next, even reacting when it intersects a person standing in its path. (For example, touch a projection of a flock of birds and they burst into flower petals.) I was obsessed with this exhibit, and it was our first introduction to Chōjū-giga, or Scrolls of Frolicking Animals, often considered Japan’s first manga. In another room, samurai warriors were projected onto streams of vapor mist, creating one of the most eerily beautiful and haunting effects I’d seen in any immersive art space. We spent over three hours at TeamLabs, including a visit to the Tea House where flowers bloomed on the surface of our matcha and gelato.
When we’d first booked our Japan trip in 2020, I was easily able to book tickets for the Studio Ghibli Museum. However, since covid, it has become extremely challenging for international tourists to reserve tickets, so I resigned myself to missing it. But a great consolation prize was arriving at the Giant Ghibli Clock in Minato City just in time to see one of its four-daily shows.
We spent the rest of the evening exploring Akihabara Electric Town, the electronics district of Tokyo, where Kurt found his happy place amongst six-story arcades full of new and vintage video games. I was delighted to come across a game that I had forgotten ever existed, The Typing of the Dead, which was like Mavis Beacon but if each correctly typed word sent bullets splattering into zombies. The arcades were also my introduction to Purikura culture, or Japan’s obsession with giant photo booths where you can add all kinds of effects and filters to your group pics. The arcade had an entire floor devoted to photo booths as well as changing rooms(!) and a mirrored makeup station with public curling irons(!!) if you wished to get styled up first.
After two and a half days in the largest city in the world, I loved Tokyo more than I expected to. Typically I itch to get out of the giant city with the international airport, seeing it as more of a necessary stopover before setting out on the “real” trip. But starting in Tokyo had quickly immersed us in sensory details that all felt uniquely Japanese: orderly crowds, the polite and frequent train announcements, the bright lights of a konbini, the musical tune as the ATM dispenses your yen, the pleasantness of sitting down on the train when the seat warmers are turned on, the caws of the large black crows ubiquitous throughout the city.
While my sleep schedule was still totally chaotic, I felt a little firmer in my footing. It’s a delicious moment in a trip to have so much time laying ahead in wait, so many adventures to unlock in this incredible country. I knew it would fly by, but I planned to savor it.
Where there is ska, there is Kurt.
Sounds like a trip of a lifetime! And worth the 5 year delay!