Two years ago… – A Belated Trip Report Part 2

Hi folks, back for another trip report entry. Link to previous entry will be in the comments.

Day 3 – Lights Out – Saturday, March 23

I woke up in Unplan Kagurazaka (Tokyo) after only two hours of sleep and with a huge day ahead of me I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive. I was meeting my old friend Hiro in Odaiba today but first I wanted to leave my bag at the next accommodation and spend the morning near Shinjuku. I took my time eating breakfast at the hostel first before leaving: toast, hard boiled egg, coffee and orange juice. The bread was so thick and fresh I had to have two pieces and the egg was so tasty it didn’t even need salt or pepper. If there’s any mediocre food in Japan, I’ve yet to encounter it. I called my girlfriend to catch up for a bit, then headed for the subway.

Quick Hostel Review: Unplan Kagurazaka. I spent two perfect nights here. The staff were very friendly, the rooms were very clean and the food was great. Location was a little out there, but Kagurazaka was definitely worth exploring. The price at the time was 4500 yen a night, which is probably the most I’d pay for a hostel before just upgrading to a hotel room, and this place was worth it.

After getting lost in some alleyways I managed to find Global Hotel Tokyo, a capsule hotel where I’d crash for one night before heading to Hakone. After unsuccessfully waiting for the front desk attendant, I instead opted to find a coin locker to leave my bag in instead. The nearest lockers were at the bottom of a dark garage entrance and seemed kind of sketchy so the thought of returning there late at night had me just a little worried. Across the street were countless Korean restaurants and lining the curbs were empty gochujang pails waiting to be picked up by trash collection, the rumbling in my stomach started as I began to crave Korean food. After walking around this idyllic neighbourhood for a bit I hit the subway again and headed for Odaiba, it took 40 minutes to arrive and I was reminded again just how big Tokyo was. It takes 40 minutes to ride Toronto’s subway from the western most stop all the way east and at both ends you would find nothing but quiet suburbs.

When I arrived in Odaiba I struggled to find the TeamLab Borderless building so I ended up walking all the way around the huge complex taking some pictures. I eventually found the line-up and of course it was…extremely…long. Something you should know about me is that I will go to great lengths to avoid line-ups or just skip things altogether if I think I’ll be wasting too much time standing around. But I already bought these tickets and it was the only time my friend could go, so here I am staring down a long line of large families and Instagram kids. I headed for the back of the line and as I was messaging Hiro about where to meet I noticed him already waiting — quick note about Hiro, we haven’t seen each other in seven years! We worked together at a Starbucks in Toronto and quickly became pals but he returned to Japan after one year of working abroad — we immediately recognized each other causing our faces to light up as we both threw our arms out and hugged with joy! It was now 1:30 pm on Saturday, the time I had been warned to absolutely not go to Borderless but the line moved very fast. Within ten minutes we were entering through a curtain into the exhibit and immediately our minds were blown. I was most looking forward to the Infinite Crystal Universe and it didn’t disappoint at all, truly amazing stuff. We then decided to wait in a 30 minute line for a special exhibit, we didn’t mind as we had lots to chat about to help pass the time. In this exhibit you lay in a large rope nest that holds about a dozen people and watch projections on the ceiling, it was pretty enjoyable though one amazing part gives you the sensation that you’re moving. We also really enjoyed an exhibit in a large dark room featuring projections on hundreds of panes of glass and agreed that it evoked a similar feeling to Satoshi Kon’s work somehow. I can’t really explain Borderless, I can only recommend that you must go. Throughout my trip I encountered a couple TeamLab projects and my advice is that anything with that name attached to it is going to be an extremely satisfying experience.

After we left the exhibit we took the subway to Shinjuku. At this point I had been here many times already, but honestly I could’ve spent my whole trip in this neighbourhood and never complained about it. Hiro was looking for a yakitori joint on his phone and as he walked through the station and the streets with his eyes glued to his phone everyone just sort of moved around him the way water flows around rocks in a river, I was following behind him and laughing at how oblivious he was. Hiro was born and raised in Odawara, just outside of Tokyo, and whenever I asked him about “rules” I always came across on YouTube he said he didn’t care about such things. I’ve read so many times about how ‘Japanese people do not eat or drink while walking!’, but I noticed constantly that there’s often someone enjoying a coffee or pastry while strolling down the sidewalk. It’s important to try to adhere to the unwritten rules of Tokyo, but if you forget once in awhile it’s not the end of the world.

Hiro exclaimed that he found the perfect place, it was a basement restaurant in Shinjuku and I can’t even recall if there was a sign for it. I was extremely grateful to have Hiro find an authentic experience or I may have been eating a burger at Denny’s. Upon entering the small, cramped space I noticed a guy behind the counter grilling sticks of meat and vegetables while two women were rushing around him serving bowls of traditional soup that contained fatty pork. Hiro told me this was comfort food and that I might not like it, but I in fact liked it very much and it was to a degree comforting as well. I’m also the kind of weirdo who’s taste is so in tune with the Japanese palette that I loved natto the first time I tried it. Hiro ordered us many kinds of yakitori explaining that it’s always chicken (tori means bird), yakiniku means grilled meat and refers to pork or beef. He also explained that many Japanese words are spelled the same but you can tell them apart by which syllables you emphasize (MOmo means thigh while moMO means peach). We ate so much and washed it all down with a couple beers each and at some point I even noticed the yakitori cook smoking a cigarette while flipping skewers, Hiro said this was bad manners but I thought this was an amazing sight and something that I could never see back in Toronto. He ordered a few more items including squid and we had a couple more drinks. After we paid I headed to the washroom while Hiro waited outside of the restaurant, but what I was about to do embarrasses me to no end…even now as I think back on it two years later. As I exited the washroom I noticed a couple trying to get to the seats that we vacated, but this was an extremely narrow restaurant and as I squished myself up against the wall to get by my backpack pressed three light switches which turned the entire restaurant pitch black. From all directions in the darkness rose an ascending chorus of “nehhhhh!?” and all I could think about in that moment were the two women filling up hot soup bowls when the lights went out and how dangerous I suddenly made their jobs. It took a good five seconds to find the light switches again but it felt like an eternity, and forget apologizing in Japanese, I was so mortified I couldn’t even find the words to say in English. I just bowed, red-faced, like an idiot and tried to get the hell out of there. I told Hiro what just transpired and he thought it was hilarious and assured me that it happens all the time (earlier, a drunk man fell backwards and hit one of the switches so he’s probably right) but I was still concerned about the kitchen staff’s safety in that situation.

After we left the restaurant I was becoming painfully tired, I can do one night with very little sleep but two was too much and as we walked around Shinjuku I was starting to trip out a little between the beer, the relentless neon lights and the massive crowds of unfamiliar faces. We went to the Taito arcade for a few games of Gitadora and stopped at a small Izakaya for a couple more grilled snacks but now we were both completely worn out and wanted to end the night with a quick coffee and dessert. A café on the second floor of a building caught our attention, I ordered a very fluffy strawberry cake and Hiro ordered a chocolate soufflé. I tried his and both were amazing, of course. After dessert I walked him to Shinjuku station and we planned to meet in Hakone in a couple of days.

I didn’t catch the name of either of the Izakayas we ate at but they were both delicious, it’s hard to make a bad choice as long as you look for a busy place that’s full of locals. The dessert was from a second floor Hoshino Coffee location. I’m also inclined to say spend lots of time at arcades before they all disappear!

As I made my way back to the coin locker I started getting nervous again about how sketchy it looked, but when I arrived the street was full of couples taking romantic walks — what was I worried about?!

I grabbed my bag, checked into the capsule hotel and got a decent amount of sleep.

Tastiest food: Basement Yakitori
Approximate walking distance: 15 km

Day 4 – Yukata Troubles – Sunday, March 24

Woke up in the capsule hotel and while I didn’t sleep as much as I would’ve liked I was at least grateful that, miraculously, there was no hangover. I forced myself out of the quiet and comfortable little pod, showered, packed and grabbed a quick breakfast of coffee, pastries and fruits. I had been looking forward to visiting Harajuku on Sunday but it completely slipped my mind, and half the reason I even settled on the capsule hotel was because it was in the area…oh well, there’s always next time.

Quick Capsule Hotel Review: My stay at Global Hotel Tokyo was mostly for the sake of trying a capsule hotel. In the end I found that the layout was similar to a large room in a hostel with dozens of beds. The sleeping compartments were slightly bigger and the curtain that slides down does a much better job of shutting out noise and light than the sliding curtain that most hostels provide. The stay at the time was 4,800 yen and it’s located in the vicinity of Shinjuku Station, I’d definitely stay here again if I was last minute looking for a place to crash.

Now fed and caffeinated I headed to Akihabara on the subway, found a coin locker to ditch my bag in and decided to nerd out for a few hours until I had to make my first trek out of town to Hakone. The first store I found was called Retro Camp, I was drawn into the store once I heard the original NES Zelda music playing on the street. It was a small space but the sight of countless retro games and systems immediately put a smile on my face. I have to admit that I have little to no interest in museums when I travel, but when I enter a place like Retro Camp I quickly realize that THIS is my museum. The employees and customers in this store experienced the same joys and struggles that I did playing these games years earlier and hoping to discover something new and recapture that joy. I’m not a retro game collector but looking at every cartridge on those shelves filled me with happiness.

The next store I found was one I had read about, it was simply called Trader and was six floors of manga, figures, video games and even porn, the strange Japanese kind that had elf-eared men pouring honey on each other’s chests — and that’s just the front cover! I spent a long time exploring here, it’s truly an incredible place and the fact that there are numerous locations throughout Japan is mind blowing.

After Trader, I set off to find Super Potato. This is a store that I had heard about everywhere including several podcasts, Reddit threads, etc. It is the holy grail of retro gaming. I had to walk up and down an alleyway a couple of times before noticing its fairly obscured entrance, I was starting to notice that things in Tokyo were tucked away or up on the second, third or even fourth floors of random buildings. If there’s one thing to take away from this, it’s to look up! You never know what store or restaurant you’ll find above you.

It was only about 11 a.m. by this point and the street was now flooded with maids touting their respective cafes, I had read to politely say “daijobu” in this situation, meaning in this context “no thanks” or “it’s okay” (as in it’s not okay now leave me alone). After finally finding my way inside Super Potato, I felt like I had ascended to heaven. There were neatly stacked piles of hundreds of Famicoms and Super Famicoms, Game Boys, bins of Game Boy Cameras…it was madness and this was only the first floor. I made my way through the place, purchased some Kirby chopsticks for my brother and sister and eventually found myself on the top floor, perhaps the coolest floor of all. Upon entering I was met with a life-sized model of Solid Snake, palm leaves were strung along the ceiling and arcade cabinets reached out in one direction while a small candy and soda shop was tucked away in the other. I circled around the floor, taking in the joys of youth as teenagers smoked cigarettes and read manga in silence, while another group of teenagers challenged each other to rounds of retro gaming. I snapped a few quick pictures before giving in to the pains of hunger deep in my gut, it was finally time to eat something for which Japan is known and somehow I had failed to come across so far — sushi!

Back on the street, I noticed a nice place simply called Ginzo, it had an affordable lunch set which I successfully managed to order in Japanese. It was here that I had my first encounter with chawanmushi, a savory egg custard dish which I fell in love with immediately. My first experience with sushi in Japan was excellent, and with that behind me I decided to grab my bag from the coin lockers and head to Hakone via bullet train.

I had actually exchanged my JR Rail Pass voucher and booked my ticket the day before so all I had to do at this point was find the platform and get on the train once I got to the shinkansen station. I made myself comfortable, which isn’t hard to do on a bullet train, and as it pulled out of the station I saw firsthand that these trains are fast as hell. It was a beautiful clear day and with a seat on the right side of the train car I managed to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji, which from my point of view was somehow small and gigantic at the same time. I managed to be completely present in the moment to take it all in which is usually no easy feat for my scattered brain.

When I arrived in Hakone I decided to walk to the ryokan and take pictures of the surrounding area along the way, it was such a beautiful day and the area was much different than the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. I just knew it would be easy to relax here.

When I got to the ryokan Motoyu Kansuiro, I was greeted by very friendly staff and was given a tour of the facilities and onsens. It was a very old place and looked like something out of a Kurosawa film, it was exactly what I was hoping for. I entered my room and made myself comfortable — here’s a tip, I recently learned that you shouldn’t put your backpack on the floor leaning against the walls but of course that’s exactly what I did! Be sure to shove your stuff in the closet or you might upset someone or something. A woman in traditional garb asked to enter the room and made me tea, she then told me that I should soak in the onsen before dinner which would be served in my room later. I wasted no time, put on my yukata and headed out into the hallway. Another embarrassing foreigner moment is when I walked down the hallway without the sash tied around the yukata, it had fallen in the closet and I didn’t see it so I was simply holding the thing together with my hand. The woman who made my tea earlier stopped me, threw a sash around my waist and tied it up. For whatever reason we were both red in the face, probably because we both knew I wasn’t wearing anything underneath, I awkwardly thanked her and hurried off toward the onsen. Luckily this would be the last embarrassing moment today as the facilities were all vacant, I stripped down completely and tried to remember all the onsen etiquette as best I could then washed myself with a wooden bucket and entered the room that was comprised of tiles with large rocks jutting out of the walls. With only the equivalent of a face cloth to cover my bits (large towels not permitted), I took a good look around the steamy room before submerging myself into the scalding hot water. It was an amazing experience and thankfully the first of many.

I still had time before dinner to visit the other onsen bath, it was outdoors at the end of a short trail which involved climbing a small hill of rocks overlooking a pond. Quite frankly this felt dangerous to traverse in the provided flip-flops which were slightly too small for my giant North American feet.

This onsen was private and you unfortunately had to wait your turn to use it, lucky for me though I noticed the only other guests using the baths were two women leaving the female-only onsen as I was entering the one designated for males. There was another group staying the night but I’m pretty sure they had a private in-room onsen because I never saw them around the building. I bathed again then headed out to the open air bath where the view sprawled out over the side of a hill and across a river. It was simply beautiful.

I returned back to the room and watched some Japanese television while waiting for dinner, the commercials were awesome but most of the shows I watched were just people reacting to things while other people reacted to their reactions. It struck me as incredibly Japanese and was admittedly very entertaining to watch.

I was starving at this point so when I heard the knock on the door I was ecstatic. Immediately the same woman from earlier entered the room and wasted no time setting down dish after dish of food: sashimi, tempura, firefly squids, multiple soups, shrimps, grilled fish, grilled meat, steamed fish, deep fried fish, pickles, more soup and finally dessert. Everything was so beautifully presented and equally as delicious. This was hands down the best meal I’ve ever had and I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for splurging on a night at this place. After thanking my gracious host and digesting a bit, I returned to the indoor onsen and expected to pass out for eight hours when I got back to the room. This wasn’t the case though, I still couldn’t sleep! I visited the outdoor onsen at 2 a.m. then laid awake for a couple hours until I finally fell asleep around 4 a.m.

Tastiest food: Ryokan Kaiseki dinner
Approximate walking distance: 15 km