Welp, I really have been slacking on writing. Its wild how much doing this exercise of writing down a chronicle of my life on this trip has actually helped bring a lot of calmness and peace to me. The last 3 days have been an absolute whirlwind.
My flight from Bali to Japan was a doozy, I traveled all damn day. When I finally arrived at my hotel, 15 hours had passed and my wallet was $36560 Yen Lighter. For those who don’t know the conversion, that’s $365.60 Cad. I was very tired and used to just taking airport cabs all over SEA for basically nothing. Well Japan is not SEA, its Japan, and cabs are f%#king expensive here. I was livid at myself and starving when I arrived at my hotel. That night I had vending machine peanuts and a sweet waffle for dinner, probably my cheapest meal ill have here in Japan.
The next morning I awoke with a bunch of hours to kill, while i was waiting for Hannah to arrive from Canada. Oh I forgot to mention, I booked the wrong airport hotel. Instead of being at Haneda Int, where I landed, it was at Narita Int. where Hannah was landing today. Hence the 1 hour $365 cab ride. All I could say about that f%#kup, was “IDIOT”. Any who, I had some time to kill and wanted Hannah’s entry into the city to go smoothly, so I figured out the train passes and caught a train into Narita city to go have a walk about and some lunch. On the train I met a sweet elderly Japanese man who spoke flawless English, he suggested that I go visit a nearby temple and try a local specialty dish of BBQ eel. Well the temple was incredible and every restaurant I passed had BBQ eel on the menu. After the temple I found myself in a city park that was incredibly manicured and gorgeous, even in the dead of winter. It was a serene place to sit and enjoy nature, the park was in a hollow and basically all city sounds were completely drowned out. It was almost silent. After walking back from the park, I found a restaurant that was full but didn’t have a 50 person line down the street. There is a reason Narita is famous for this dish, It was stellar. Much better than any eel I’ve eaten before.
After killing a bunch of hours in town I went and picked up Hannah from the airport. What a reunion that was, you would think we had been apart for a year. We loaded up and jumped on the skyliner train to Tokyo. The train systems here are incredible. After a smooth 1.5 hour ride with a single train change, and a small kafuffle with maps. We landed at our absolutely sick penthouse suite in a small hotel, just a block from the famous Shibuya scramble intersection. What a spot! after a quick unpack we headed to a local sushi bar to try Japanese sushi. Well we were a little surprised, to say the least. It is not like back home, in the slightest. It was fool hardy to think so. Some of the dishes we thought we knew, were so vastly different in flavor that we didn’t like them. It was really good but kind of weird. And sushi is very expensive in Japan. Like way more than back home, but you know that’s all part of the fun of traveling. We were both bagged from travel and it was sorta late, so after dinner we basically just hit the hay.
This morning, Hannah was up at the crack of dawn. To be expected when your brain and body don’t understand why they are sleeping in the middle of the day, but it is actually 5 am. So we got up and went for an early morning walk around Shibuya before the vast crowds of Japanese locals flooded the streets. The intersection does not look very daunting when there is nobody in it. We have yet to see it in all its glory. On our walk we stopped at a 7eleven and got a pork katsu sandwich to share with a warmed bottle of green tea. 7eleven is shockingly good here in Japan.
after a brief planning session at the hotel, we traveled a stop down the YR line to Harajuku station. What a cluster f%3k that area is, especially when today was a national holiday and there was parades and protests. The area is known for all kinds of clothes shopping, restaurants, and of course Harajuku girls. The shopping was really cool but nothing in Japan will ever be my size, so I was mostly just exploring. Hannah on the other hand, was like a squirrel in a nut factory. She showed some pretty damn good willpower on a few very expensive items. After an hour of exploring we found a very popular ramen place, with an oddly fast moving line to get in. Well Ichiran Ramen is a ramen bar where they serve 2 dishes (regular & deluxe) and you order and pay from a vending type machine at the entrance. That place was efficient, no servers, just a line of bars with a little door at the back of each bar spot. After you sat down a person behind the doors takes your card, and a few minutes later. A delicious bowl of ramen arrives, Hannah and I were blown away. For $30 Cad we were both stuffed and satisfied.
From lunch we continued out wander and accidently came face to face with a large protest, and an even larger contingent of Tokyo police. Nothing violent happened but there was some obvious unrest in the crown of people around the intersection, as the protest marched past. It was wild. Hannah was a little shook. From there we wandered into the tourist trap potion of Harajuku, now at this point it was like 2 pm and people we out. It was mayhem trying to get down the little alleys stuffed with people. It was very overstimulating. When we escaped that craziness we walked to the Shin shrine just on the other side of the train line from the crazy alley area. It was busy but very peaceful. So at this point we had walked like 18km and we were both beat so we hopped on the train to have a chill at the hotel for a bit.
A few hours later, fully rested we set off on a train ride across the city to go up the Tokyo Tower. Now me being the most thoughtful boyfriend in the world, completely blanked that Hannah is terrified of heights. The tower is a replica of the Eiffel tower or just very familiar. Its bloody tall. Well she did great and we went up the tower to gaze over Tokyo. It was not her favorite thing. On our way down to find a restaurant for dinner, our noses directed us to a crepe stand at the base of the tower. We had some delicious savory crepes for dinner, the Japanese have crepes dialed. I had a chicken, curry and cream cheese crepe. Hannah had a chicken teriyaki crepe with mayo. Both were stellar, its not were we intended to eat but it was delicious.
All in, it was a busy day. I cant wait for tomorrow. We are going to Team labs.
Till Tomorrow.
The Great Dopamine Rush of 2025 