Sorry I haven't updated. Haven't had much down time.
Arrival
Since we had Business Class, we were able to use the American Admiral's Club in Austin and the Flagship Lounge in DFW. We had to sit on the tarmac for over an hour in DFW to wait for the storms to pass. Business Class was nice, and the food was pretty good. We didn't sleep a ton. I wanted to try to get my sleep in sync with Japan, so I didn't want to sleep the whole flight, which was their daytime. We ended up arriving about an hour late. The fingerprint reader wouldn't capture my prints, so I had to do it again with the actual immigration agent. The QR code didn't save actual time going through immigration, but it allowed us to not fill out the paperwork by hand while being jetlagged.
We found the 7 Bank ATM to get cash. Grabbed some water and snacks. Cheetos are apparently different in Japan and have artificial sweetner in them. They aren't as radioactive orange as the US ones though. Our son did not like them. Husband grabbed us some chocolate. Next we got the Welcome Suica card for our son, since his Android phone can't use the Apple Pay Suica transit option. At the taxi stand, we grabbed a cab to our hotel in Asakusa. It was pouring rain in Tokyo and sort of foggy. Our room has a view of the Tokyo Skytree. It looked really cool with the fog and lights. Should have taken a picture, but there was too much going on.
First Day in Tokyo
We were up really early. We had closed the shogi screens on the windows, but we hadn't closed the blinds. The sun was coming up around 3:30am JT. Oh yeah, Japan is the land of the rising sun. We laid there trying to sleep, then about 6:30am, there was a horribly loud earthquake warning. We both fell out of bed trying to turn off our phones and the incredibly loude phone/remote in the living room. Our son didn't wake up at all. The quake was close and was north of Tokyo in and area that's been experiencing them lately. My husband and son got Starbucks, while I finished getting ready. We had a matcha white chocolate scone, Early Grey cream donut, cinnamon roll, and a glazed donut. The scone was good and not too sweet. However, the Early Grey donut was excellent. I love Early Grey tea, so I knew this would be for me. We liked it so much, we got it again on another day. We had a lunch reservation at Pokemon Cafe and headed out.
Tried to get a Tokyo Metro multiday pass, but we never could do it at the Asakusa Station. We just ended up using our Apple Pay Suicas and Welcome Suica card. Our son's card didn't work at first, so I went back through the gate and took him over to the attendant. She fixed it; it must have needed to be enabled. Since I didn't scan my Suica when I exited, it didn't want to let me scan back in. So, the attendant fixed it for me. We must have looked stupid.
We ended up getting there early and went to the Pokemon Center/Store first. I bought a cool Pikachu hand towel, more like a think washcloth. Many restrooms here have no towels or terrible hand dryers, so many people carry their own little towel. I also couldn't resist a small Snorlax plush. Son bought some poke plushes, a Switch game, pack of cardsd, and mechanical pencils.
We still had time to kill, so we headed to the Flagship Mitsukoshi Department Store in Nihombashi. If you have ever been to the Japan Pavilion at Epcot in Walt Disney World in Florida, you have seen a Mitsukoshi Department Store. This one is huge though. Technically 2 buildings, 7 floors each, with its own Metro stop. The original building has beautiful architecture and an amazing piece of art work in the middle. We just took the escalator to each floor of each building and browsed around when we found an interesting floor. They had everything, restaurants, clothes, art, furniture, stationary, appliances, and even electronics, like cameras and toothbrushes. It was crazy. Our son bought a mechanical pencil. He's into pens and pencils. We crossed the Nihombashi Bridge on the way and way back. It's a very old beautiful bridge, but they built a highway over it.
We got back to the Pokemon Cafe in time for our reservation. As we passed the cafe store, we realized they only had 3 big Patissier Pikachu plush left. My son and a friend wanted one, so we ordered food and went head bought the goods. Another friend wanted a Pikachu plate and the ceramic Pokeball. I got a seasonal tea and dessert set themed to Poltchageist. It was good and came with a little acrylic display stand. I also got melon soda and the mixed rice plate with various veggies and a chicken stew that tasted like Sloppy Joe. They were both good, especially that Sloppy Joe thing. My husband got the curry, which was tasty. Our son got 2 orders of fluffy pancakes and an iced cocoa. He liked the pancakes but not the fruit or cream. It was a lot of food. Pikachu came out and danced to "If you're happy and you know it". It was very cute. We headed back to the hotel and chilled.
We went to the grocery store in the basement of the Tokyo Skytree mall. They had a good selection of things, especially tea and snacks.
We headed out to Shibuya in the late afternoon. Saw scary mural in the subway station and the Scramble. We went to Tower Records and bought too many CDs. Next was the
Disney Store, where I bought a couple of small cute plush for friends, Pooh lemon/honey gummies, and a cool Disney Store Japan reusable bag. The bag is so cool, that I plan to buy more for friends if we get to the main store in Shinjuku. We headed across to a store called Loft that sells a variety of stuff, including stationary and office supplies. Our son got another mechanical pencil.
Then we made our last stop, Mega Donki. That place is a crazy zoo but was worth it for the Kit Kat variety. I was disappointed in the snack selection though. We finally got everything and walked out with a gigantic heavy bag of sweets. Our son bought some cheese bread. It was raining at this point, so we stood outside in the rain and ate it on the sidewalk. We luckily had umbrellas. He was still hungry. We were worried anything he would eat would be closed by the time we got back to the hotel, so he got another. We stopped at the 7 Eleven near the hotel to get water, snacks, and of course, the first egg salad sandwich of the trip. I love egg salad and was surprised to hear about it in Japan. I think I might have another tomorrow or maybe try the onigiri.
can’t wait to hear all about it!
One of the stores had adult games on the upper floor. Our son didn't realize and started heading up but soon realized. He's 18, so he could go. He was a little embarrassed. We headed to a couple of stores that weren't what we were looking for, then we headed to Yodabashi Camera, which was really cool. We found a vintage camera store, Nisshin Camera. Very cool old stuff and some new stuff. Looked at Book-Off, which sells used CDs, DVDs, games, and books, but it was hard to find things in Japanese.
