We had to get to Japan. So, we drove to LA. We rented a car at Sky Harbor and headed out. This should have been a less than 6-hour drive, BUT there was some kind of major road incident in the west valley on I-10 that day and we ended up with over an hour of a detour through the side roads of the area. It was not a great way to start the trip. But after that the car ride was uneventful. We got to a Japanese themed/run hotel that “B” had found and booked. It was very nice and the food was also good. It was a good way to prepare us for the coming stay in Japan.
The next day we headed to the airport for our flight to Tokyo. The four of us weren’t able to sit all together so I got to sit with “G” for the flight. We watched movies, ate food (not bad), and tried to sleep. I think I got about 45 minutes of sleep while watching “The Dark Tower”. That movie wasn’t that good, and that was why I fell asleep. I did get to see “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and that was a trippy movie that was pretty good. I also watch “Marcel the Shell with Shoes” with “G” and that was a really good family movie. I also watched “The Son” which was a sad, but good movie, with Hugh Jackman. I would suggest both “Marcel” and “The Son” for everyone to watch. We landed in Japan the next night (joys of time zone changes), got our JR passes, and got the bus to get to a train station near where we were staying in Tokyo. We got in late, and found our place. It was quite a walk from the station dragging out luggage there, but we made it. I was able to get some eggs and ham for the next day at the connivence store across the street. The place we stayed was a tiny apartment. We barely fit in the room with all our stuff. But we managed.
The next day “B” wanted to spend the day at Harajuku. This is known for people walking around in cosplay at times, and shopping to some degree. On the way to the area we went to a large park and also to the Meiji Shine. It was a fun walk, and we saw a lot. Then it was over to Harajuku. We needed food and “B” was sure there were crepe places that had meat crepe, but we never found them. So, we had some dessert crepes and later grabbed a couple kebabs from another place. It wasn’t great for all of us since it was lite on protein, and we were walking a lot. We hit Kiddy Land which is a store of kid stuff. The girls got some little things. We then continued to walk and look more. We went into the Samsung store and spent quite a while there. They have a cool dinosaur interactive thing that was neat, “B” and I both had custom cases made for our phone (for only 300 yen each, so less than $2).
Then we had dinner of duck meatloaf, eggplant lasagna, and something else I don’t remember now. We then headed back to our place very late, and slept the night. Did I mention that this place in Tokyo had sleeping mats on the floor? It was ok on the comfort level. We ended up walking over 7 miles that day.
The next day we headed down to Yokohama and the Cup-o-Noodles museum. This was a surprise for the girls. ”B” found it somewhere and thought it would be a fun experience. She signed us up for the making noodles experience, and it was certainly an experience. It ended up being entirely in Japanese. Having little to no Japanese understanding, it was a process. The workers did an amazing job helping us figure it all out. They did have an English page to help us understand what was going on. We got to mix the ingredients, kneed it, let it rise, rolled it over and over, cut it into noodles, and designed our own packaging. They flash fried the noodles for us, but we got to watch the process. It was a lot of fun.
After that we wandered through the museum there and had lunch. Lunch was a cafeteria type place where you could choose a region of the world to have a noodle dish from. We chose 4 different countries and shared. It was tasty, but nearly enough food. Did I mention it was a rainy day that day as well. We put our coats back on and got back to the train station to head back to Tokyo. We decided to go to the Imperial Palace after that. So we headed there and it was a bit of a bust. You can’t see much, and it raining made it not so much fun either. Since we were there “B” mentioned that we were right by the Imperial Hotel where she had stay when visiting with work in the past. So we wandered over there and “oohed and aahed” at the fancy stuff in the very fancy hotel. Then we wandered over to the Ginza district and did a little shopping for dinner and sweets. I was very done by this point in the day. Over 22000 steps, a couple hours on trains, and it rained all day. I was happy to get back to our small place.
The next day we had to check out of our room. We did that and headed to the train station to lock our suitcases up so we could spend a little more time in Tokyo. The girls had heard about a “robot café” called Pepper Palace where robots served you food and would interact with you. So, we planned that for lunch. We headed over there and found out you needed reservations to get a robot (even though “B” and I had spent a lot of time looking into reservation and could find nothing online about that). We were pretty disappointed. BUT then the attendant there looked around and talked with some people and said they could get us in if we were willing to sit at a small table. We were more than fine with that. So, we did and we had a fine time. It was fun interacting with the robot. It was a bit silly at times, and the was only so much to be done in English, but the experience was a lot of fun for the girls, and that was what really mattered. After that it was time to catch a train to start our travels up to Hakuba.