Japan 2015
Tim and I flew to Japan a little over a week before Christmas in 2015. Tim had just graduated from collage and still had flight benefits from a co-op job with Delta Airlines. One of my older brothers, J. had started on his master’s degree at the University of Tokyo a couple months before. That is really what made this trip possible for two new collage grads. We flew standby which meant there was no guarantees we would be able to go but we also only had to pay the tax of the ticket if we did make it on. My brother had a roommate in a nice 2-bedroom apartment in Tokyo and they were both more than happy to let us stay there, especially since we were bringing a few items that are hard to find there… such as their favorite candies.
My brother moved to Japan with two suitcases and that was it. So this trip was also about bringing him some of the basic items he could use. He mostly just brought clothes, school supplies, and a small blanket. When we came we fully utilized the fact that we could each bring two bags. We packed together in one of the smaller bags and the other three were all filled with items for J. and their apartment. We brought sheets and a bedding set, air mattress, some hard to find or favorite food items. The list goes on and on, everything from a crockpot to towels to pillows.
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Now that I’ve explained the back-story I’ll get to the good stuff! We left from Atlanta in the morning and flew to Los Angeles, California. From there we had to hang out at the airport for a few hours because there weren’t any open seats. We managed to finally make it out and arrived in Honolulu just before midnight. Our flight into Tokyo was leaving around 8am. To us crazy kids it didn’t make sense to get a hotel for less than 6 hours. (Since you need to be early for international flights especially) However, (again we are crazy) it didn’t make sense to us to not see some of Hawaii while we were there, even if it was in the middle of the night. Which meant we rented a car! We got some food at one of the few places open at midnight and then started driving around the island. After a day full of travelling though we were exhausted, so us being the crazy people we apparently were/are we found a park and pretty much took shifts sleeping for about three hours. We made sure we were on the beach for the sunrise though. It was beautiful and totally worth it! Then we headed to the airport to fly to Japan!
As I mentioned before we were flying standby. Tim was on his own benefits and I was using my own through my dad. This meant that even though we were married and travelling together there was a pretty good chance we would not be sitting together. My dad has worked for the company longer so I had a higher priority than Tim. Poor, poor Tim. I was seated not only in first class but on the upper level that only has 10 or so seats and a private restroom. It was the seats that lay completely flat; you have your own good size TV screen and kind of your own little cubbie hole so you aren’t actually sitting next to anyone. Tim had the opposite version of my situation. He was in the back of the plane in the middle of a set of four seats. We had intended to switch half way through the flight but were told that would not be allowed. Tim was more than little bitter when we landed in Tokyo. Thankfully he got over it quickly since we needed to focus on getting to a certain train in a foreign country that speaks a language we know very little of.
The flight from Hawaii to Tokyo was about 8 hours. Between traveling most of the day before and sleeping only a couple hours in a jeep (the only car that was available at midnight) we were exhausted. I had planned to sleep for a good portion of the flight but you never really know if you will be able to or not so I also brought some Benadryl with me. We flew on a 747 from Hawaii to Japan and a triple 7 from Japan straight back to Atlanta (which was about a 13 hour flight). Here are some ideas in one of my Gems from a peach post about how to pass the time on a long flight.
Once we landed in Tokyo we needed to get our bags and figure out which train we needed to get on. We did not have an international phone plan or wifi to get in touch with my brother so he had given us his best guess on instructions based off the last time he was at the airport. We also needed to exchange our money because we did not have time to do this before hand. Typically it can be more expensive to make the exchange at the airport but we didn’t have much choice. So once we did that and found the ticket counter and the actual train we were good. It was about a 45-minute train ride to the stop we were meeting my brother at. Then we got on another train with him to go to the area he lived in at the time, Ugusadani. Japan is an incredible place to visit! After living in downtown Atlanta and walking around the city often for school and various reasons I was amazed at how safe I felt the entire time in Tokyo. I’m sure like every big city there are plenty of places you should avoid but we didn’t come across any of them.
My brother was still in school at that time and also had research hours to complete so he wasn’t able to show us around the whole time. Luckily we were there over a weekend and went down to the gaming district. We learned a few little differences to pay attention to while we were there. First off, do not eat or drink on the train, people will stare at and shame you. People are going to stare at and or move away from you. This could be for a lot of reasons but I like to think it is because they assume you have been traveling a lot and could have possibly come into contact with a lot of germs. You will also see several people who wear surgical masks on the trains or walking around the city, this is again about germs. Next, most people do not eat while walking down the sidewalk.
We went to the grocery store while we were there which was a super cool experience. Since Tim and I only know the basic manners and like phrases in Japanese we knew what nothing was in this store. It was a fun game for us to try and guess what different items were and to see how some brands are very similar throughout the world. Kit Kats for instance were among the easy to spot items. Except instead of milk chocolate flavor there were a variety of new flavors we had never tried or even heard of, such a sweet potato. (Yes we bought and tried some. It wasn’t terrible but I don’t think anyone ate more than one.) Another place we visited a few times was the 7/11 that was right down the street from J.’s apartment. They had free wifi, an atm, and these awesome inexpensive premade meals called bentos. There were a lot of little market places all over and when we asked why my brother told us it was for several reasons. People mostly walk and ride on trains so it would be cumbersome to carry a large amount of groceries at once. The refrigerators there are smaller (as you can see in the photo above) so they don’t hold as much, but they also don’t need them to. One of the meals we had was basically spaghetti because my brother knew it was my favorite and he wanted us to see a Japanese take on it.
J. toured us around the University of Tokyo while we were there and it was a beautiful campus! Based on the reactions of locals and what my brother had come to learn is that University of Tokyo is kinda like an Ivy League school in America.
We went to a few local temples and ate at a few local places as well. I unfortunately am not the most adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. However, I do think you need to jump in and try new things when you are visiting other countries, you may never have this chance again! Thankfully since I know how to read pretty much no Japanese my brother ordered for me and I did not know what I was eating half the time. I noticed a lot of the meals, like ramon, included plenty of root vegetables which I was fine with and I tend to like any type of meat as well. Many places would notice you were American or European and would automatically bring you a fork or spoon along with chopsticks. We tried our best to fit in and use the chopsticks (Tim was a natural at this and I was somewhat of a natural distaster…) There was many times where it became less offensive for me to just ask for a fork than to continue the losing battle with my chopsticks.
Our favorite place on the trip was probably going to visit Tokyo Disney because we are pretty much Disney obsessed. Disney World in Orlando is where we got engaged and we knew this was probably our only chance to go to the Disney Land in Japan. We went on a day when my brother was in school so we had to get to Disney and back on our own. After being there for a few days the trains were easier to figure out. We knew the name of the area J. lived in and we knew where Disney was, my brother had also given us some basic directions as well. The tickets were cheaper than the ones in the states, probably somewhere around $40 -$50 a ticket. There are two parts to this park, DisneyLand and DisneySea. DisneySea is more of a water park and since we only had one day there and it was December we decided to just get the one park ticket, which helped keep the price down.
One cool thing about Tokyo Disney was that it featured Ariel’s grotto as the main castle attraction. It also had Cinderella’s fairytale hall where you could see her throne and glass sipper. The parade was similar but definitely had some different cultural aspects to it as well. When it came time to eat I had been very curious if there would be some of the traditional Disney food there. There were a few but for the most part Japan had put their twist on the food, which was cool to see. My favorite was the Mickey Mouse pizza that had corn and what looks to be mayonnaise on it. It was probably cheese but picky me didn’t order that.
The flight home was a little crazy because we were flying standby again and trying to figure out the best route to take home based on the likelihood we would both make a flight. It turned into a last minute race across the airport to a new gate and ask if they could move our bags over but that we understood if they couldn’t and it wasn’t a big deal, (We were headed home so if it took the bags an extra day or two it wouldn’t be a problem.) They were able to get us on the plane with no promises about our bags but they ended up making it too. You have to be very flexible and kind when flying standby, I mean you are pretty much flying for free or cheap. On the way home we ended up on a direct flight, which I recommend because you are going to be tired from any trip and adding in layovers when you are already exhausted can cause some bad moods in my experience. We landed on Christmas Eve and made it in time to open up Christmas jammies with Tim’s side of the family and church service and dinner with my side.
It was perfect timing arriving right before Christmas with souvenirs for everyone. Tim and I can never go anywhere without getting a souvenirs, its our kryptonite. We brought back chop sticks back for some, Disney magnets for others, those sweet potato and some green tea kit kats for everyone and more! I wish we had had more time there and had been able to do a little more touring and some research before our trip so we would have been a little more prepared. My parents have been since our trip for my brother’s graduation and they were able to visit several interesting sites while they were there so I might have to ask them to share some of their trip highlights in the future!