We just got back yesterday, and I wanted to put together my thoughts while they are fresh. Overall, it was a fantastic trip. We absolutely fell in love with Japan—what a fabulous country. Everything is so clean, safe and run so efficiently. I'd return in a heartbeat.
Our ABD was a lot of fun. It easily won for the best overall food, and the Peninsula Tokyo was probably my favorite ABD hotel ever (although I think China probably had better hotels overall). We also had two of my favorite guides of all time—we loved Ken and Tomomi—but the trip itself didn’t knock China and Scotland off my favorite spot. It’s a solid trip, and probably one of the best ABD offers, but group size and pace was a big issue for us. It really feels as if ABD is moving away from the VIP/special type of family “adventure” product, to a more multi-generational family less active travel platform, which is fine—and would be great if we were traveling with my mom—but that’s not the travel experience I’m looking for right now. There were many times I thought enviously of my friend
@Calfan's summer 2020 to Japan with Thompson that will have much smaller numbers. I'll be anxious to hear how her experience compares. Was it "worth" it? So subjective, but I think it was for us. Still, I'm not sure I'll be booking another ABD unless they change the group sizes or I can be sure of a smaller group.
PRE-TRIP:
Flights: If you are on the budget board, you’ve heard me talk about our flights already, but this was one of my best travel hacking successes ever. I was able to get $55k worth of flights for about 554,000 miles and $1300. Originally all four of us were all on the same JAL flight from SFO to Haneda (two in first and two in business) but when the amazing VS redemption option opened up for two tickets on ANA, I was able to switch DH and DS to ANA, one-way in business and one-way in first for half the JAL miles. Also, that way all of us had at least one way in first.
DD and I had the JAL round trip flight in first, and it was amazing. We had Cristal champagne, caviar, and a multi-course Japanese meal. Our flight attendant was stunned when we both ordered the Japanese meal rather than the western meal option. Repeating what I wrote about in the budget board, we (two casually dressed western women) stuck out like a sore thumb on the mostly black-suit-clad Japanese businessmen on the plane. We only saw a handful of westerners on the entire flight. All the other first class passengers were Japanese businessmen, and I only saw one businesswoman in business class, although there could have been more. I saw one other western woman getting on the plane, and didn’t see any young kids or families at all. It was very strange. Something to think about, but I would have been very anxious if I’d had young children with me in either first or business. It was extremely quiet, and you know how when you walk into a cabin you exchange smiles and sometimes chit chat with your cabin mates? There was NONE of that. We weren’t uncomfortable, but we definitely felt as if we stuck out.
The way back was slightly less Japanese Businessmen focused, and there were only 6 of 8 first class seats filled. The boys were the only 2 in first on ANA on the way back and were basically treated like royalty. They loved first on ANA, but weren’t as impressed with the business class service going out. DH said they were pretty much ignored and had to use the call button a number of times for service. Weird and not what we've heard about ANA at all. Probably a fluke.
Here are the girls enjoying our JAL suites
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My Cristal and caviar. I love Cristal, and they kept my glass full. Caviar I'm not sure about. I've had it multiple times, but I think it's that acquired taste thing
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Pre-days:
We had two pre-ABD nights in Tokyo. As the boys were flying into Narita, and the girls were flying into Haneda, I wanted a hotel that was central to both. The Tokyo Station Hotel seemed to fit the bill. I’ve wanted to stay at the Tokyo Park Hyatt since LOST IN TRANSLATION, and I could have gotten it fairly cheaply on miles a few months back so I debated changing hotels. I’m so glad I didn’t. The Tokyo Station hotel worked out perfectly.
DH and DS made it all by themselves on the Narita Express without me navigating (quite a feat!) and were met by hotel staff at the station. DD and I zoomed into the station on a monorail and a quick subway ride. We were there about 80 minutes after our flight touched down—and that was with customs, luggage, and us waiting in line to send our luggage on to the first ABD hotel in Kyoto! [A quick aside on that: I’m a control freak and the last person to trust a baggage service with luggage, but Japan is different. They are so efficient, and I’d read really great things about the airline’s baggage service. Given the limited size of the train luggage racks and the crowded trains, it was awesome not to lug our huge bags back and forth. Shipping via JAL was easy, and the agents who helped me immediately inspired confidence. While in Tokyo those two days, I didn’t worry once about losing luggage, which is saying something. To jump ahead, it was waiting for us when we checked in.]
Back to the hotel … not only did the Tokyo Station Hotel live up to it’s fantastic central location promise, it was gorgeous, stately, and had a fabulous concierge who was able to secure us a lunch reservation at the most famous sushi restaurant in Tokyo the day after our arrival. The hotel ended up being our second favorite hotel of the trip.
View of the hotel from the plaza--it's literally connected to the station and our room looked out over the ticket lobby.
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For dinner the first night, we broke an unspoken family rule to try to eat local when we travel. As it was 9pm, we wanted something quick and relatively cheap given our big budget lunch the next day so we hit the very close to the hotel Shake Shack for dinner. It was pretty much the same as the US, although smaller portions and not as greasy and sweet. I know, it’s shameful, but at least it wasn’t McDonalds, LOL.
For breakfast we needed coffee but didn’t to eat much. “St. Arbucks,” the great patron saint of coffee from Seattle that was a block away, fit the bill. We’d heard the Starbucks food was surprisingly good in Japan, and it was. They had really good pastries that are both smaller and not nearly as sweet as in US. I never eat scones or cinnamon buns, but both were delicious. We ended up eating that both mornings. The hotel buffet was about $45 a person and we all ate for that price at Starbucks. We knew we’d be doing a lot of buffets in the next 12 days so it ended up being a good decision.
Our lunch on Saturday was at noon so we didn’t want to eat too much. The coveted reservation the concierge was able to secure for us (the Peninsula wasn’t able to get it for later in our trip) was at the Michelin 3-star Sukiyabashi Jiro Ginza made famous by the documentary JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI. If you haven’t seen the film, look for it on Netflix. It’s a wonderful movie and has become something of a cult favorite. Seeing the dedication this man puts in to the art of making sushi is truly awe-inspiring.
If you know about Jiro, there are some pretty strict “rules” that mostly have to do with respecting the chef and the tradition [if you are interested you can read more here:
https://www.sushi-jiro.jp/dining-at-jiro/]. But one of the biggest is that you must be on time. If you are even one minute late, you forfeit your reservation and pay the full amount of the lunch, which is the same cost as dinner and a pretty penny! It sounds punitive, but it goes back to the respect issue and the perfection of the timing. Each batch of rice is made to be ready precisely on time for each seating.
We were warned that the restaurant can be somewhat difficult to find so I’d sent the boys on a Jiro finding recon mission the night before, as they arrived a few hours earlier than DD and me. They apparently found it, but then decided to look for a nearby Krispy Kreme, which we planned to reward DS22 special needs with if he did a good job the next day at lunch. The boys found KK and got lost going back to the hotel. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it (allegedly) messed up my husband’s memory of the path he took to Jiro. Of course he didn’t tell us that until we were walking there the next day, and he got us lost! I would have literally killed him, if we hadn’t found it. We’d been given maps, but they were pretty useless. Addresses and streets in Tokyo are very very confusing. There is pretty much another city underground in Tokyo with malls, eateries, businesses, etc. often under street level.
Fortunately for my husband’s life expectancy, we’d left the hotel early and ending up finding the restaurant with about 10 minutes to spare. We didn’t forfeit the exorbitant cost of the meal for the 4 of us. It was ridiculously expensive, but a once-in-a-lifetime experience that exceeded my expectations in every way.
The biggest and best surprise of the trip hit us when we walked in the door and saw Jiro standing behind the bar. The famous sushi master is now in his mid-90s and I believe has been either not feeling well or not around much lately. We had absolutely NO expectation of seeing him, and I literally had to control my gasp—and my shaking. I couldn’t even look at my daughter or husband it was so exciting. And then the meal began and all we could concentrate on was eating.
I was very nervous about the meal—it’s a little intimidating as the restaurant is an “Edo style” ten-seat counter and you eat at the bar piece-by-piece right in front of the chefs who watch you for reactions. Both Jiro and his first son Yoshikazu were behind the bar. There is very little interaction with the chefs, although the sous chefs will talk a little.
It’s hard to explain how good the sushi is. The rice, the fish, the wasabi, the soy sauce, the balance, everything just literally melted in your mouth. You eat 20 pieces put out in front of you one-by-one in about 30 minutes, and I’m happy to report that although both kids had slight mishaps with the second piece of broiled prawn (the only one that is cut in two), we finished no problem. I could have eaten more, but due to the cost I refrained
We were primarily worried about DS. He loves sushi restaurants but typically eats rolls and not nigiri. I was worried he might not like things like sea urchin or mackerel and wouldn’t be able to hide his reaction. I shouldn’t have been. Each piece was absolutely delicious. There wasn’t one thing I ate that was “unusual” or “an acquired taste”, i.e. euphemisms for tastes weird, LOL. My son devoured his sushi, oohing and aahing along the way. He’s got a really good palate, which speaks to how good the food was. I really don’t think you need to be an avid or adventurous sushi eater to fully appreciate this place.
Pictures are not allowed during the meal and the chefs won't always take pictures with you, but we were thrilled that Jiro agreed to take a picture with us. We had to wait about 45 minutes while he attended to the next seating, but it was worth it!
Here's our menu and the cherished photo! (Sorry about the sideways picture, but the new DISboards does this to all my iPhone shots taken vertically).
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Our Jiro experience was so over the top amazing, I knew we’d hit the highlight of the trip on the first day. I'm so glad we were able to get in there.
After Jiro we walked around the Imperial Palace area, which is right by Ginza and our hotel (which are also very close to the Peninsula hotel where we’d be staying with ABD on our return). I was mostly interested in the Edo Castle ruins so we headed there and walked around the gardens. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon.
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For dinner, we headed to the famous Ramen Street in the labyrinth that is Tokyo Station. Even with a map and directions it took us a while to find it, but eventually we stumbled on it. DS, DD, and I are huge “ramen head(s)” (another great documentary if you can find it), and I had a list of ramen shops that I wanted to try. We found my top choice and then proceeded to the vending machine, which is how you order. We spent a good ten minutes trying to figure it out before a waitress from the restaurant took pity on us and came out to help. The instructions were all in Japanese, and it wasn’t intuitive. You had to put the money in first before ordering, and then choose the number you wanted before actually hitting the item. But it was worth it. It was the first of many delicious bowls of ramen we had over the next few days. If you like ramen, I highly recommend trying to find this part of the station. We ended up returning to Ramen street on our last full day in Tokyo for lunch.
My delicious "Tonkotsu" style ramen.
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This was the shop we ate at twice.
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Some of the lines in Ramen Street.
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The vending machine that defeated us!
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After dinner we walked around “character street” a little while, where there are tons of Hello Kitty types of stores that are so popular in Japan, and then headed back to the hotel to try to get a long night of sleep. We wanted to make sure we got rid of any jet lag for the start of ABD the next day.
