Japan has been on the top of our list whenever we discussed vacation spots. I don’t know exactly what the draw was, the culture, the food, the history… but all three of us wanted to make this trip. Admittedly Alex mostly wanted to go to Japan because “it’s the home of Pokemon, they will be everywhere.”
A few days before we were leaving, we turned on the news to see that lots of Japan was hit hard by flooding, there were almost 100 people missing or dead. We weren’t sure whether we should cancel the trip, or go anyway and just have a back up plan in case things went sideways while we were there. We kept a watch on it, and waited since the worst flooding was in the south of Japan, we modified a few of our day trip plans and just stuck with our main plan. 4 days in Tokyo and 3 in Osaka. .
The first day was a long day of traveling. It’s only 3 hours between Shanghai and Tokyo, but we still had to get to Shanghai. The morning started with a Didi (Chinese Uber) ride that got caught up by construction, causing us to almost miss our train. I’m a little crazy about time… ok, a lot crazy about time. I come by it honestly, my dad is the same way. He always told me if you’re early you’re on time and if you’re on time you’re late. Mark has a much more causal approach to time, more of a you get there when you get there approach. Needless to say then, that our travel styles are also a little different. I’m happy to get to the airport 3 hours early and just sit in my gate waiting, and Mark has, on at least one occasion, been the person running to catch the plane before they close the doors. Catching this train was more Mark’s style, while we were riding the escalator up to the platform the train was pulling in. 40 min train ride, lunch in the train station and an hour-long metro ride to the airport. I had the whole day planned out perfectly.
We landed in Tokyo and got the metro from the airport to our hotel, a relatively short walk from the station and we were there.
Our hotel was in the Ueno area and right around the corner from our hotel was a strip that was full of places to eat. We picked a sushi place and settled in.
The hotel room was fairly small, but very clean. It had a fancy toilet, and a huge bathtub for Alex. One of the best things about the hotel was the distance to the metro. Just about two blocks away, and along the way, we found something special for Mark that became our ritual when we would go out in the morning or come back at night…
A local eye-glass place had several glasses cleaning machines outside their store. And every time we passed it, Alex would insist that Mark get his glasses cleaned (because Mark likes clean glasses and Alex likes pushing buttons). It was such a great marketing idea, if I had to buy glasses I’d go there first.
The next post will be about our first full day in Tokyo.
Traveling Expat Family 