Japan - Day 10: Farewell Tokyo!

Our flight wasn't until 9:30pm, so even though it was technically a "travel day," we figured we still had time to enjoy. Starting off with another lovely breakfast buffet. This time with berry smoothies!

I think Baba was really hoping for a curry lunch today. In fact he went out searching for a spot even ... but...he underestimated the endurance levels of tween girls for shopping. By the time we returned, it was already 2pm. Luckily margarita pizzas at the lounge were quite good. I think we probably ate two whole pieces between the four of us. 

I then spent a good hour or more strategically packing all of our items to stay within the 7 kg per person weight limit. The twins chose to spend that time on the hotel scavenger hunt instead. Here's their victory shot with the prizes. 

We had to check out by 4, but luckily we could stay at the pool/spa even longer, so off we went for some pool/relaxation time before the flight. 

Baba wasn't so keen on the traditional onsen portion of the spa, so he took the girls over to the bar while I enjoyed the steam rooms and saunas. Last drink of the trip!

And just like that, we were on the plane and in the air. Thoughts on zipair: very satisfied customers. Definitely would fly with them again. I actually appreciated the fact that no food or drink was included because it meant there weren't "services" happening all flight and disrupting those of us trying to sleep. It also meant the bathrooms never had a line (and maybe this is true of all Japanese airlines, but they actually had heated seats, smelled not bad and were pretty clean the whole flight!). Once again the inflatable cushion was a BIG thumbs up from me. I managed to sleep about 4-5 hours, I do NOT think that would have happened without the foot rest! I tried watching a drama with the twins but fell asleep less than one episode in. This cool nighttime sky photo was taken by the twins while I was asleep. 

 

I woke up about an hour before we were supposed to land. This time it was the twins' turn to sleep. 

Timing wise I think we really lucked out on both flights. We got back to SFO at 3:30, basically first in line at customs (tried to do the twins global entry upon arrival, somehow R's application was cancelled, so we only succeeded in getting L's done. Slow and steady I guess? At least there was no line!).  It's 11pm now and I'm still feeling fairly alert, but Baba has been asleep for a few hours now. Crossed fingers for the jetlag transition back to go not too painfully!

Japan was a LOT of fun for us, if you haven't been able to tell from the blog posts. I suspect it makes the twins new top trip spot or a close second to China. They said they liked the food better in China (hilariously, they said not only the duck restaurants but because there are so many "lao laos" around so the homemade food is always good) but the shopping better in Japan -- not because it was cheaper per se, but China has gone so far into online shopping that you really don't have that in store try on things experience anymore. It's just not the same! We didn't get a ton of "cultural educational learning" in this time...but hoping a return trip to Kyoto/Hiroshima would have more of that. The biggest surprise was how easy the jet lag and plane travel seemed to go. Maybe I just have had bad luck in China lately, but these flights felt SO much easier, even though it was only a few hours shorter. 

Back to school and work for us now...but already counting down the days until the next vacation! (Alaska cruise time!)

Japan - Day 9: Teamlabs & Shopping

The Tokyo Grand Hyatt has a number of positive qualities: close to various subway lines, lovely breakfast buffet, tea time & happy hour in the club lounge...but have to say, the beds are a bit on the small side. We shouldn't have been surprised, I've known this is normal for Japan and Asia generally, but I guess we just had such good luck with all of the other hotels so far this trip that it was a bit of a jarring surprise when we saw the two truly "double" sized beds. 

But! As mentioned, the breakfast somewhat made up for the beds. I sadly forgot to take any photos, but it was a nice mix of Japanese and Western options. Though no sashimi courses -- that must only be at ryokans! 

Today our only itinerary item was checking out Teamlabs: Planets. I've heard of these immersive digital art exhibits in lots of cities -- I think DC has some, Vegas has a few, but Japan, and Teamlabs in particular, seems to be the leader.  I will say the experience was less than ideal because it was SO crowded. Next time, if we check out one of the other Teamlabs exhibits elsewhere, we will be sure to pick a weekday. 

Was I impressed? Yes, the rooms were definitely impressive. Some of the more interactive exhibits included a trampoline that created sound and colorful image based on how accurately you jumped on the digital ball. Here's a more passive exhibit...just lots of strands of light and endless mirrored reflections.  (I took this shot pointing up to the ceiling). 

Some of the other exhibits were just kind of...odd. Like this one with huge balloons. 

This was one of my favorite rooms because all the orchids were 100% real. The kids liked ducking down and finding hidden spaces behind the "curtains" of orchids. 

Me pretending to be lost in the flowers...there were too many people to actually get too tranquil. 😆 

This exhibit has a bunch of eerie eggs in a field which would make unique noises if you pushed them...leading eggs around them to them also echo those noises. 

This was one of the more educational spaces -- you walked around the rooms using your phone to "capture" various extinct species and learning about them. We managed to snag the saber toothed tiger at this waterfall!

This is an obstacle course where the balls and walls changed based on which ones you jumped on for the trek across the room. 

The photo below is from a room where you drew animals which immediately become digitized and animated, running around the entire room interacting with other animals (ie, butterflies multiplying around flowers, getting eaten by frogs, etc. This is R snatching a shot with her snake before it darted off in search of more frogs to eat). 

All in all, glad we experienced it, and probably would give another exhibit a try next trip. But I suspect this might be one of those things where it starts feeling like variations on the same theme pretty quickly. 

We grabbed our first bowl of Tokyo ramen at the Teamlabs cafe -- very tasty...would never have guessed what it was vegan!

After recharging our energy, we went off to Ginza for some dedicated shopping time. We hit Gu (big hit for all the women in the family), Ginza 6, Itoya (R was the big shopper here), and Muji (wish I had more time to spend there, but as is, it was getting late so I mainly just loaded up on snacks to bring home). 

Amidst of all the shopping, we managed to avoid a complete rebellion from Baba by bribing him with a traditional unagi meal. Consider it second lunch. 

Proof that the eels were fresh?

We arrived back at the hotel around 7:30, laden with shopping bags and exhausted (physically and mentally). Good thing happy hour went until 8:15. The kids left pretty quickly (no mango puddings today) but Ian and I sat there with our wine and tea until they forced us out at 9. 

Tomorrow, we tackle the daunting task of packing everything we've bought...

Japan - Day 8: Romancecar & Google Tokyo

A nice refreshing night of sleep again followed by our last ryokan meal. These meals were really something else. Here are final shots of our breakfast courses. Sashimi for breakfast too!

After breakfast, we packed up for the train station (one thing to note -- even though we packed quite lightly for the trip, I still think we packed too much. It's so much easier to pack up when there isn't much to gather or keep track of. Will need to continue working on lightening the load for future trips!).

Parting shot of Madoka No Mori. Strong two thumbs up for the ryokan. Yes, it was a bit pricey, but when you factor in the fact that there were elaborate dinners and breakfasts, on-demand shuttles to all the stations, fancy onsen (both downstairs and in room), and the overall service levels, I think it was worth it. 

It is expected to be a bit rainy at times today, which works out great for us since it's mostly a travel day. I'm actually glad we get to use our raincoats otherwise I will have packed them for no reason! 

The ride back on the switchback train was quite nice -- it was much less crowded this time so we got to hear all of the commentary -- second steepest train of this sort in the world!

 

I forget the name of this bridge but the commentary said this view was considered a highlight of the trip.

We got to the station with plenty of time to spare before our Romancecar reservation, perfect for a trek in search of more dango (sticky rice skewers) and smoothies!

Getting tickets for the Romancecar observation deck was another one of those "set an alarm and click things as quickly as you can once reservations open" experiences. The view was very nice...though as you can see, the twins found the view on their tablets more enticing...

I snapped a few shots of the Japan countryside. Though largely the train was moving so quickly that pictures were difficult. I kept seeing groves of cherry blossom trees...and then as soon as I whipped out the phone, they were gone. 

We made it into Shinjuku around 1pm -- the plan was to immediately catch the subway over to Shibuya and grab lunch at the Google Tokyo office before it closed at 2. I'm happy to report that we were successful! I really appreciate the ten little plates of different things for each meal style of eating. 

After lunch, I headed over to the mailroom to pick up the luggage (so convenient, will have to keep this strategy in mind for future travels as well!) and then we headed up to the top 35th floor to check out the city view. That's Tokyo Tower to the right (red and white Eiffel Tower lookalike), the Skytree is hard to see in the photo but it's more in the center amongst the clouds. 

I think we could have stayed for awhile -- comfy chairs, great view, barista with drinks right by your side -- but we were anxious to get our luggage and check in to the hotel. 

As we were leaving, the kids even got to hold one of the official Tokyo Olympic torches that they had on display in the lobby. Pretty cool!

So picking up the luggage was probably the lowest point of the entire trip. Warning to everyone traveling to Japan who use Androids and not iPhones...because you can't load your Suica card (the transportation card, good for trains, busses, subways, and you can also pay for vending machines and convenience stores) on the phone -- you MUST use cash to add value to the cards. There is NO option to use a credit card to recharge the cards. Unfortunately, we did not bring very much cash...so we found ourselves stuck trying to get our luggage out of the coin lockers...which ONLY took payment by Suica cards...and an insufficient balance on the card. This led to a roughly one hour ordeal involving attempts to find ATMs, attempts to explain the situation to the train station attendants, being led around in circles (literally) because they kept not understanding that our luggage was trapped in the locker (they kept thinking we were just trying to leave). Eventually I had to ask a random passerby to change a $20 bill for some yen. There was one attendant at the JR Station that was extremely rude -- he was really the single black mark for the entire trip so far -- even when folks were unhelpful, they were still very nice and apologetic about their inability to help but this guy was just rude! I wish I had gotten his name. 

The experience was so unpleasant that once we finally got the luggage, we opted to take a taxi from the station to the hotel instead and I poured myself a nice glass of sake once we got to the lounge. I sadly didn't get a photo, but the stress of the afternoon was also smoothed over by the yummy mango puddings served at the lounge happy hour. I'm pretty sure we downed at least a half dozen of them.

No other plans for the day, the rain was now coming down with lightning and thunder too, so we stayed in for the rest of the night. Here's a final shot of the day of random cherry blossoms in the courtyard. 

Tomorrow is our last full day in Japan -- gotta make the most of it!

Japan - Day 7: Hakone Loop

I slept all the way until 6:45 today! The ryokan beds are extremely comfy and spacious too -- we basically get a full size bed to each of us. The kids sleep in the living room on tatami mats they set up every night, Baba and I have a bedroom with raised beds, and the dining room is partitioned off so all the food smells don't permeate over. And the entire area is just so peaceful. No garbage trucks, hotel guests in hallways, just rain drops on trees as background noise. Today, the forecast is calling for rain in the afternoon after 3pm...so our plan is to hit all of the highlights before then and then soak in the tub and relax until dinnertime. 

What are the highlights you ask? First up, we go skiing! 

Obviously just kidding. But it is gondola time! Taking the chair way up over the mountains to get to the lake. The ropeway is very high up...there was some definite swinging from the gusts of wind as we passed through some sections. I can definitely understand why they shut it down sometimes! 

Check out the view of the sulfuric springs below. This is where they cook eggs directly in the water ending up with black colored shells. Folklore says that you extend your lifespan by 7 years if you eat one! I was super pumped by the idea...but we also wanted to do as much as we could before it rained...so we decided to save the egg stop for the trip back and continued on to the next chair way without stopping this morning. 

We did catch a bunch of views of Mt. Fuji from the next leg though! Seems like an appropriate checklist item for a first trip to Japan. The cloudiness makes it very hard to see...the snow capped peaks kind of blend in with the clouds. It was much more obvious in person -- the human eye is clearly better than the Pixel camera still! 

Closer up shot -- see the snow under the clouds there?

After a couple more gondola legs, we arrived at the next transportation method: pirate ship! 

The boat ride wasn't anything much to speak of, but nice as a change of pace. The views of Lake Ashi and surrounding valleys was nice, but again not anything I would make a special trip for. The true destination point on this loop was a lovely 10 min walk through the forest...

Ta-da! Cover photo for the trip! The famous Hakone peace torii photo spot. We had to stand in line for a good 45 minutes but I think the photo was worth it!

The twins had plenty of time to plan their multiple poses...here's the classic heart!

After we finished with that...it was hitting noon. While I wanted to do the reverse loop back for those black eggs, our actual last destination was the Open Air museum, which was only a 18 min bus ride from the cruise port where we were. So...I resigned myself to missing out on those life extending eggs. Onto the crowded Japanese bus experience!

The Hakone Open-Air Museum was a huge hit. So many interesting things to see. Here's the stained glass rainbow staircase (I felt super trained up for this one with my daily stairmaster walks at work!). 

The picturesque foot bath.

Highlight for the twins: climbing net playground -- only open for ages 12 and under. They loved this so much that they sent Ian and I onto the Picasso exhibit on our own while they played around for another half hour. Good reminder that 11 year olds, while they sometimes look and seem super grown up, still count as children for good reason. Can you find R in this net?

There were other structures meant for climbing/playing in too. Here's the cool rainbow frames:

I didn't get a photo of it, but there was also a maze structure. It was actually decently hard to find your way around! A little Triwizard maze feel! The other thing I liked about the park was the number of cherry blossoms blooming throughout. Hakone was closer to full bloom time than Tokyo, we got a lot of photos of the flowers in!

Here's a particularly full one in a random alley on our walk back to the ryokan. Truly just everywhere!

We successfully managed to avoid most of the rain. Made it back to Gora station for the ryokan shuttle with enough time for a quick snack break!

I decided to forego the public onsen today and instead did my pre dinner soak at our private open-air onsen in the suite. Wish we had one of these at home!

Dinner tonight was just as elaborate as yesterday, biggest difference was a wagyu shabu course instead of yesterday's "hydrogen grill wagyu" course. 

The sashimi course had some interesting entries today...I didn't care for it as much as yesterday's, but the clams were not bad. 

Last shot of dusk from the living room patio -- the rain was actually coming down pretty hard now. Glad we were warm and toasty inside!

Tomorrow we return back to Tokyo for the last segment of the trip. 😢