We arrived in Tokyo at the break of dawn after two flights and a layover, a long day. After taking the train into the city, we dropped our bags at a hotel (not our hotel, but close enough), and started exploring. Our Tokyo adventure began with a free walking tour and continued with lots of fun in Japan’s sprawling capital city. Our introduction to Japan, Tokyo is overwhelming and enchanting and we loved it.
About Tokyo
Tokyo is so big that all the neighborhoods are their own cities. It is massive, both physically and population-wise. In fact, Tokyo has the largest population of any city, with 37 million people. I have lived in big cities, including NYC, and Tokyo still overwhelmed me. It’s bigger and busier and electric. The good news is, it is very safe. If we got lost, we found help, and if we lost something, it was returned to us.
Overview of Our Tokyo Adventure
We had five days and nights for Tokyo, and we did a lot but also barely scraped the surface. Since we planned it so last minute while waiting on our boat insurance, we didn’t book any of the big attractions in advance. Our Toyko adventure was more about experiencing the city.
Free Walking Tour
We arrived in Japan early in the morning, so after dropping off our luggage and fueling up with much needed coffee, we took a free walking tour. The three hour tour hit a couple of neighborhoods, including Akihabara and Ueno Park. Still, the guide gave us some great tips and we got some exercise after our long trip from Australia.
Baseball Game
On Sunday night, we went to a Tokyo Swallows game. Japan is a baseball country, so seeing a game was a must for our Tokyo adventure. Tokyo has two major league teams: The Swallows and the Giants. Tickets for Giants games sell out as soon as they go on sale, and since we didn’t have advance planning for Japan, that wasn’t an option. We bought tickets for the Swallows a few days before. Maybe tickets were easy to come by because the Swallows are a losing team. Yes, they lost when we were there. It didn’t matter. We loved the stadium, the mascots, the food in the stadium (karage chicken!) and the fans.
Tip: If you are visiting cities outside of Tokyo, most have baseball teams. We noticed that the prices for games in Osaka and Hiroshima were significantly lower than in Tokyo. Same game, lower prices.
Food Markets
The food in Japan is incredible – even the lowliest food carts and minimarts offer delicious bites. And Tokyo’s food markets are a culinary experience – colorful, crowded, and appealing to the eye, nose, and taste buds. From our very first day in the city, when our tour ended near Ueno station, we walked the markets and sampled the tasty treats.
Probably our favorite market was Tokyo Tsukiji, busy on a Sunday, where you could line up at any number of stalls for delicious seafood snacks.
Godzillas and Gundams
One of the distinctly Japanese attractions that made our Tokyo adventure so much fun was spotting the pop culture statues around the city. There are more than two Godzillas, and we also ventured to the giant GUNDAM statue on a busy weekend day. We love these little national quirks that showcase some of the Japanese personality.
Live Music
One of our goals when we visited Japan was to see live music. We wanted to go to a music club and hear the local talent. After some online research, we found a show for our Friday night in Tokyo.
The show was at an awesome music club, Shinjuku MARZ, which had a lineup of local rock bands. A crowd of mostly young Japanese and gaijin (foreigners) bopped along to the music, and we joined in. Tokyo has a busy live music scene and I would have loved to see more, but at least we got to spend a few hours rocking with the Tokyo crowd.
Tokyo Sights
There were some things we did and places we visited because they were things we could only do in Tokyo, or at least in Japan.
Imperial Palace
We couldn’t go inside the palace without a pre-booked reservation, but enjoyed the beautiful walking grounds and garden, and impressive moat. As everywhere we went in Tokyo, and most of Japan, it was crowded with lots of tour groups from all over the world.
The palace is very centrally located, convenient for the Emperor and Empress who live there. It’s cool to see the old palace juxtaposed with the downtown office and residential buildings.
game centres
As you can imagine, the biggest city in the world has a huge selection of entertainment. There are cafes for all sorts of animals, maid cafes, and bars with video games. There are entertainment centres focused on baseball batting and karaoke. Take your pick!
While in Tokyo, we visited a video game centre. It was fun, dropping coins in vintage Nintendo games, and watching others play. We also tried – and failed – at the claw machines, which are everywhere! A great way to spend a rainy day, and I would do it again.
samurai ninja museum
We learned a little bit about the ancient culture and hierarchy of Japan at Toyko’s Samurai Ninja museum. The best part was throwing the ninja stars, and I would recommend it for children.
Street Art
Tokyo is massive and even with our transit Suica cards, and walking a lot of steps every day, we only saw a bit. We did explore some street art areas on our Tokyo adventure.
We strolled near the river in Shinagawa City on a Sunday morning, a great area of Tokyo for parks and art.
Shinagawa hosts an annual street art festival and many of the pieces we saw were from various iterations of that event.
If the weather is good, a walk around Shinagawa is a nice way to spend a few hours in Tokyo.
Shinagawa is home to several museums. We visited WHAT museum, housed in a giant warehouse full of contemporary artworks.
Shopping
Japan is a shopping mecca, with good bargain chain stores and high end department stores. Since Tokyo is Japan’s biggest city, it has the best shopping and is a destination for it. You don’t even need to go to a particular neighborhood for Uniqlo and Don Quijote, they are everywhere. Asakusa is the place for electronics and anime, and it’s just a fun neighborhood to look at the multi-story stores, electric signs, and browse.
Having been in Australia and New Zealand for nearly two years, we didn’t need to shop. If we had come to Japan after our year in French Polynesia, this would have been a culture shock!
Even if you’re not a big shopper, it’s part of the Tokyo adventure. We ended up buying interesting flavours of Kitkats, sake, graphic tees, facial masks, and lots of Uniqlo clothes to bring home. In most stores, duty free is easy to do at checkout so you don’t pay taxes.
Getting Around Tokyo
We had SUICA transit cards and we used them a lot in Tokyo, taking the train all over the place. Google maps helped us find the best routes, and even told us which car to use for the best exit. We also walked a lot, especially when the weather was good. It was a nice change from winter rains in Port Macquarie.
Our Tokyo Adventure Concludes
Tokyo is a city that is always changing, so one visit will never be enough. It’s a place I would love to visit over and over for several days each time, just dipping in to explore. Our Tokyo adventure gave us the sweetest taste and there’s so much more to see and do!
Have you been to Tokyo? What do you recommend we do next time we visit?
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Mel – Tokyo is on my bucket list. What an amazing trip!
We loved it, Fran! I am sure you will too. Next time, I want to see more music at night and more art museums in the daytime.
You did an interesting variety of things in Tokyo. We were a bit jet lagged when we first got to Japan and did not see all we wanted. But we did find some of the huge malls for shopping!
That’s the benefit of going to Japan from Australia, Leigh. No jet lag! And yes, the shopping malls are huge!
Sounds like such a fun trip! The baseball game seems to such a quintessential thing to do in Tokyo and a great addition to the itinerary.
Great idea hitting up the baseball game! Tokyo is on my very-near future list so this was great information!
Interesting post!