Like a snap of the fingers, our first month and first RTW destination city have come and gone. On October 23rd, we said Sayonara to Tokyo.
It happened sort of unceremoniously. We wrapped up our days seeing some of the best of the rest, hitting the spots we could, and trying not to lament the places we missed.
In Asakusa, we strolled the famous Nakamise street, dyed handkerchiefs using an ancient indigo-dying technique (note, the color is a national color of Japan and can be seen prominently in Tokyo 2020 Olympics advertisements), reveled in the realness of fake food, and stealthily ditched a free walking tour, only to accidentally almost run into them after trying a strawberry custard daifuku. We viewed the flame atop the Asahi Beer Hall (AKA "Super Dry"), ascended the Tokyo SkyTree, and crept through the Senso-ji Temple. We also took our first water transit to Samurai training (more on that later).
In Kamakura, we walked through expansive and peaceful Buddhist temples, including the Koto-Ku which houses the famous giant Kamakura Buddha. It is massive and stunning. For only ¥20 (less than $0.20), we were able to climb inside and note the wonder of the latticed construction (built over 700 years ago!)
We also strolled along the seaside on Yuigahama beach, grabbed brunch from the Australian restaurant Bills, and took in the rainy night on Komachi street (where we found a store repping Portland!).
In short order, we had to leave Tokyo, but were given one last cultural gift on our way out.
Heather and I knew that the “pusher train” was a must-try experience unique to Japan, and asked my friend Yoshi when the best time to happen upon one would be. But, despite our best efforts, we hadn’t timed it right and it felt like this was going to be a piece for the #QOMO.
And then, the day was upon us to leave Tokyo for Sapporo, Hokkaido. We needed to take a series of trains to the Haneda airport where our flight departed from.
(Side note: if you’ve got United miles wasting away, spend them in Japan! We are doing a couple of in-country flights rather than the bullet train as a result of the excellent miles conversion here. Our rt Tokyo<>Sapporo flight in dollars? $1000. In miles, a mere 20,000 for both of us. And we are flying to Osaka instead of Tokyo saving us a stop and bullet train as Osaka is our final destination. Math nerds, that’s only 5,000 miles for one-way doméstico flight in Japan. Inconceivable! Ok, back to the train.)
So, flying domestic had new weight restrictions, meaning we needed to drop six pounds each out of our checked luggage. To do that, in addition to throwing things out, we stuffed our carry-on bags full of the remaining 12 pounds (reminder, in a previous blog post I have admitted to packing too much).
Our flight was at 11 AM, so we decided to leave between 8 and 8:30 AM. We arrived at our train platform and ...
It was the fullest platform we have ever seen. We watched the first train come and go before we even got in line and people were crammed in with nary an air pocket among the contorted joints intertwining on the train. We got in line. We saw train after full train that seemed without space getting packed with additional travelers.
We made it to the front of the line. Did I mention all the luggage we were toting?
And we let that train go. There’s no way we could fit in there! And then Heather and I disagreed on the second train to arrive and we ended up letting that go too. (They were popping in every few minutes.) Finally, I said, "We have got to get on this train. If we get separated, find me at Shimbashi station."
Remarkably, not only did we fit with our too-much luggage, but several other commuters also squeezed in.
And it was...
Cozy. That’s the best way to describe it. What we had feared as a hot, claustrophobic nightmare had actually turned out to be a better ride than our luggage-laden trip into Tokyo. Why? For one, the tightness of the car made it so that our bags that were hanging on our fronts and backs had their weight shared by the commuters among whom we were squished. Secondly, people were so helpful! When Heather dropped a bag on the ground, a woman picked it up and helped her get reestablished with her belongings. There was really no pushing or shoving (despite being branded as a “pusher train”), complaining or pickpocketing. It felt like the city of Tokyo was just surrounding us in a farewell bear hug.
We transferred once more onto a less crowded train before we got to the airport.
There, there was a scale we approached to confirm our 20 kg checked luggage (we did have to shuffle things slightly) and we went to the check-in machines. Apparently, our passport was no good there, but the machine attendant escorted us the entire length of the ANA ticketing area to take us to the in-person check-in we needed. Heather (again) dropped her empty rolled-up REI pack along the way, and this time the woman picked it up and carried it for Heather (of course she did. This is Japan!).
We checked in and got our tickets without much fanfare, but before walking to security we noted the sign that basically said, “The sum weight of your carry-on bags may not exceed 10 kg.” Wuh-oh. We had just put all of our heavy stuff in our carry-ons to meet the checked baggage requirement. We looked around. The Japanese were basically all traveling with tiny backpacks, flat briefcases, or modest handbags. And we were two Americans, already larger than most in stature, trying to sneak through with a total of 20 kg each on our person.
We debated for a while what to do. Do we throw stuff away? Do we ship stuff to our friends in LA and say goodbye 👋 to our hiking shoes, travel hammock, and reading material for the rest of the trip? Do we just play dumb and bumble through the airport as ignorant giants?
Door number three.
It ended up being basically a non-event. Luckily ANA had no scale at the gate, and so we boarded the plane smoothly. The only embarrassment was when I was hoisting my larger day pack up into the overhead compartment and I almost couldn’t lift it with the weight of contents plus three items carabinered to the exterior.
So we made it to Sapporo fee free. Now the question is, do we throw things away here to avoid potential disaster on our two-legged flight to Osaka? Or do we just try to play ignorant giants a couple more times?
Stay tuned...
Stray Observations
Japan is a great place to do a walking tour, in part, because going to the bathroom is so easy. Clean, public bathrooms abound! No need to procure a small key attached to a large ladle or buy a soda to exchange for a bathroom code.
But, many of these bathrooms are either lacking soap, hand towels/dryers, or both. Apparently, you're supposed to carry your own...?
While we were wearing plastic gloves underneath elbow long, heavy-duty rubber gloves, our instructor at the dying shop literally wrung out the handkerchiefs with his (very blue) hands.
The kegs in Japan are almost all 6th of a barrel or pony kegs. We have yet to see one full-sized #twss. At Heather's Elmira College, if multi-serving containers were permitted, we would have needed at least a baker's dozen of the most common Japanese kegs to throw a proper party.
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