April 10

Our trip to Japan is coming to a close. Headed back to Tokyo today. It is a rainy day and very gray. Matt and I were up earlier than the guys again and got our proverbial 7-11 lattes and breakfast. Matt did the sausage sandwich again. Not me. I decided on a yogurt berry smoothie. I’m trying to be nicer to my body. It was good and seemed to sit decently well in my stomach.

We decided to take a taxi to the Shinkansen, instead of battling trains in the rain with our luggage. We got to the station pretty early and spent some time in Tully’s, eating and drinking. 

Boarded the train and headed to Tokyo. The trip was uneventful. I spent the time reading and blogging. We were in Tokyo in about 2.5 hours. When we arrived, it was lightly raining. We decided to Uber to our AirBnB to leave our luggage before setting out to explore. 

Mohan wanted to shop today. He was clear that he was happy to do this by himself as he was pretty sure we wouldn’t enjoy it but nobody had a better idea; we all decided to tag along. Our first stop was a Ramen restaurant for lunch where we enjoyed some delicious noodles. And then we headed out to shop. Tokyo has so much shopping. Oh my. Not for me as I’m not a shopper but if you are, you’ll never tire or run out of shops. The first shopping district we went to was beautiful but so ridiculously expensive. We bought one tiny ice cream cone for a ridiculous price there and that was that. Nothing else was even worth looking at in a place where a pair of jeans cost 600 dollars. 

Mohan wanted to shop at a store called Unicqlo. We began our trek there in the pouring rain, umbrellas in hand. Apparently, we have these at home but I’ve never heard of it. This store had 12 floors and every single floor was wall to wall people. It was incredible. Cashiers and lines everywhere you looked. But Mohan enjoyed it and found clothes to buy. We all tagged along and tried to be supportive. I was glad he enjoyed it because it would pretty much be my worst nightmare. After that, we headed to another store which I cannot remember the name of…Mohan wanted to make sure we had a place to sit and have a coffee while he continued to shop. That was nice. The three of us chilled out, drank coffee and ate ice cream on the 9th floor, while he spent some time in this multilevel store. The store had beautiful gardens but difficult to enjoy today as the weather is pretty awful.

After Mohan had made his purchases, we moved on to explore a part of town called Akihabara. This is the electronic part of town where towers with Anime screens are everywhere. It is quite the experience. 

We have a 9 pm reservation at a fine sushi restaurant tonight and it is now time for us to make our way there. We went back to Tokyo Station and boarded the train to the area of town where our restaurant is located. Toyota Station is beyond description. Part of it is very old and beautiful and much of it is very modern. The trains in Tokyo are something you have to experience. Over 100 different lines and they transport about 40 million people every day! It is way of life. And trains are what everyone uses to get everywhere. Very, very different than our way of life in the United States. 

Our sushi dinner was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. We ate every kind of raw fish you can imagine and it just kept coming. This was a fixed menu so no ordering needed. I enjoyed most of it but there was some I would not eat, including oysters and others in that family. I do not like oysters, clams, mussels, mollosks. Yuck. Not for me. But most of it was delicious. And it was truly an experience. Mohan made this reservation for us before the trip on a friend’s recommendation. It was a great way to spend our last night in Japan.

After dinner, the rain has completely stopped and the night is beautiful and warm. It is so nice to see the city in the beautiful warm night air. Mohan and Daniel were thinking to spend some time in the city but it is already really late and the people are so thick everywhere, they changed their minds. We boarded the train after 11 pm for our trip back to our place and the trains are packed with people like sardines. It is just incredible. 

Finally got back to our place and got to bed. This is my least favorite place we have stayed. The bed is really hard and the pillows are hard too. Matt wanted air conditioning on but I simply could not tolerate the cold air blowing on me. And he was sweet and let me turn it off. I did sleep decently. 

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