Day 1: Tokyo
There’s a 6 hour time difference between Japan and California at the moment; I woke up in the middle of the night, took 1 mg of melatonin and some Tylenol PM, and managed to sleep almost all of the way until morning, waking up shortly before 4 AM, which isn’t at all bad for me.
I had vague plans of running into Tokyo today, but hadn’t decided exactly what I wanted to see and do - but given that it’s cherry blossom season here, that was the obvious choice. I have an ancient ICOCA card (i.e., an IC card, or a physical stored-value card that’s widely used in urban Japan - historically, you’d load cash directly onto that card and use it for train fares, vending machines, and such) but didn’t take it along, figuring it’d be easier to Upgrade To The Future (TM) and just use Apple Wallet with a virtual Suica card. However, I had no success buying one on my iPhone because it was just before 4 am and that system’s down from 2 to 4 am every day (but the app doesn’t tell you that!). By the time I figured out the problem, it was 03h59, so easy to wait another minute to get that up and running.
With the day’s transportation figured out, the first order of business was to change into my ‘hotel clothes’ (many Japanese hotels offer either pajamas, yukata, or some kind of clothing that is meant to be worn around the hotel), in this case Villa Fontaine gear, size M (which thankfully just barely fit me) as well as the pair of lightweight plastic Birkenstocks I brought as Japanese disposable slippers are inevitably way to small for me (I wear a US size 13 shoe most of the time). Then, moderately ludicrously attired, I headed off to the rooftop onsen (Japanese hot springs baths), hoping to watch Mt. Fuji during the sunrise while lying around stark naked in some kind of allegedly therapeutic water with a tiny towel on my head. That is almost, but not quite, what happened.
The first step for most onsen is to put your shoes in a tiny locker that’s meant just for shoes; this is always tricky for me given my stupid-large shoes. Amusingly, the hotel’s disposable slippers are too light to trigger the locker, so they had a bin of weights to add to your slippers… I’ve never seen that before! Then, armed with a key and smart tag, I traded in the voucher that came with my hotel room for entry to the baths and a couple of towels. Then, off to the men’s baths; I left everything in another, bigger locker and headed in.
Every Japanese bathhouse I’ve been to (and no, I don’t mean gay saunas - those exist, I guess, but I haven’t been to those in Japan) works on pretty much the same principle: get yrself clean and then go soak in water. There’s usually a row of small plastic stools with hand-held shower heads, a small basin, and a row of shampoo, conditioner, and bathing soap; the idea is that you sit yourself down on the tiny stool and get down to business. As an aside, I’ve always found it puzzling as to how you’re supposed to clean your butthole - at least until I remember that washlets / bidet toilets are legion in Japan, so I guess that’s how that works? I mean, it’d be rude to stare at the locals to find out if there’s a secret butthole-washing technique I haven’t figured out yet…
Anyhow: once thoroughly scrubbed, I headed to the outside pools. Sadly, Haneda is no New Chitose and there’s not a view of the runways from the baths, which was a little bit depressing - and it was kind of hazy this morning, so Mt. Fuji was nowhere to be seen, so I contented myself with lying in a shallow pool of hot water, enjoying the cool morning air, and listening to airplanes taking off.
Eventually, I’d had enough of a soak, so I went inside, tried the jet spa (meh), and decided it’d be nice to just go relax somewhere… oh look, there’s a relaxation room (sic)! This was filled with chaise longues outfitted with electric recliners, TVs, and tiny speakers in the headrests. Cool. I stumbled across a TV channel that was nothing but video of cute cats being cute, so that was relaxing af.
There’s also a restaurant in the spa; eventually, it felt like breakfast time, so I headed over there and ordered a breakfast set of clam udon with mochi for dessert. Yum. I can’t remember the last time I had udon, and the wonderful sea-ness of the bowl really hit the spot. Still no Mt. Fuji, though, but whatever: time to get back to my room, get changed, and get going.
My first stop today was the Koishikawa botanical garden, which I picked more or less at random after Googling something dumb like ‘cherry blossom Tokyo today’. That’s about an hour away from the hotel - and the trains were jam-packed at 07h30, which I should’ve guessed based on past experience in Tokyo. Not a lot of fun, but at least I had a seat for most of the way!
I’ve never experienced cherry blossoms like this before; I sat on a bench and was gently covered in blossoms every time the wind kicked up. It felt like being snowed on - and I imagined a very subtle fragrance in the air as well. Magical.
The gardens were large; I enjoyed a couple of hours there, wandering aimlessly. Of special note were their collection of the endemic plants of the Bonin islands as well as a lonely Banksia serrata growing in a hothouse…
Where to next? Well, it’s a little embarrassing, but I gained a lot of weight over the last six months - something like 20 pounds - and this meant that the hiking pants I brought along for this trip really didn’t fit right, yecch. I thought they’d be okay, but no; although I can get them on, the waist is too small and it’s painful (and I think it caused some sciatica in the past, even) after an hour or so. Yes, I can kind of get them to work by leaving them somewhat unbuttoned, and you can’t really tell what’s going on by looking at them, but they’re Kuhl pants and there’s also a very, VERY annoying design flaw that means that any attempt to take a piss has always left a wet spot there; I think it’s something about the design that seems to make it impossible to empty your bladder AND get your junk back in your pants without leakage. It’s always been gross, so time to get rid of the damn things. And in Tokyo, that means a trip to Montbell. Which one, though? I opted for the one between Ueno and Akihabara, which wasn’t too far from the gardens - thirty minutes or so.
Dear reader: I bought pants. Fat boy pants. Pants that fit and that look pretty sharp. The one downside is that they’re tapered towards the ankles in a way that doesn’t leave my calves much room, but that’s a general problem for me; my custom Langlitz breeches have the same issue, annoyingly. I can live with that, especially if it means I can wear them comfortably for days or weeks at a time.
It’s Montbell’s 50th anniversary so the store was filled with cute bear merch (their mascot is a bear), but no way am I gonna drag that around Japan for nine weeks, so I left it all on the shelves. I might get some on the day I leave in June, though… maybe.
From there, I thought I’d walk down to Akihabara and the food court at Yodobashi Camera. I passed the ramen restaurant I went to last time (known for spicy ramen - yeah, it was good, but I don’t need to do that again) and the cool hipster craft center thingy under the train tracks (sadly closed on Wednesday) and boom, Yodobashi Camera and the same damn pork restaurant I’ve eaten at the last two times I was in Tokyo. There’s basically one thing on the menu: pork steak with cabbage and some kind of Worcestershire-esque sauce. I love the simplicity and I’m happy to report that it’s still pretty delicious and a bargain at US $12 including a highball (i.e., whiskey and soda). Yum.
I’m sure it’s not unique to me, but I seem to have a habit of going back to the same places every time I go back to somewhere I’ve been before. I was first in that restaurant with some of my closest friends - Craig, Adam, Chris, Julian, and Dan, I think - in 2016, went back in 2018 when I climbed Mt. Fuji, and there’s just something calming about being there again. There are probably a good dozen or two places like that for me - the kebab stand in Sindelfingen, the Red Baron wine bar in Paris, this one sandwich shop in Madrid in Chueca - and each of them have some special meaning for me, usually because I was a regular there at one point (Sindelfingen) or because something memorable happened there…
Next up: a quick stop at Hitachino Brew Lab + a Zero Ale enjoyed along the riverside there (verdict: one of the best non-alcoholic beers I’ve had - glad to see that they jumped on that bandwagon).
And then a jaunt across town to 5ban, a cute little shop run by a handsome bear who designs his own T-shirts; although I brought hiking shirts along, I didn’t bring any kind of a ‘relaxing after the hike’ cotton T-shirt along, so figured I’d stop in there and buy one, which I did. Yay. So much goodness in there; I hope I can stop in again on my way home in June.
My next stop was hopefully going to be Higuma Doughnuts, but they’re closed on Wednesday, damn it! Instead, I walked a couple of blocks south to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, figuring it might have more cherry blossoms (it did, but also huge crowds of people) and a shortcut to the train station I needed to get to to get back to my hotel (it did as well). That was fine, but I preferred the solitude of the botanic gardens - no surprise there.
Finally, a couple of trains back to the Villa Grande Fontaine Haneda, a quick stop at Lawson to buy dorayaki, and now I’m resting in my room for a bit. In a while, I’ll head back up to the onsen and enjoy a soak - after that, it’s time to repack for tomorrow’s flight, wander around the Haneda Airport Garden mall (it’s connected to the airport and there are some really good looking restaurants there - and oh man, the Hario store had so many pretty things to buy that I really don’t need!) to find supper, and then call it a night.
Some random titbits:
There’s a cosmetics brand called abSalon here with posters that read IN EVERY DREAM HOME A HEARTACHE. Bryan Ferry wept.
I have not seen even a single cat so far in Japan. I am disappoint.
I’ll never not be surprised that Tully’s is a brand that exists here.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the block of specially branded rooms here at the Villa Grande Fontaine designed in collaboration with JAL also have different carpet - the hallway is designed to look like a runway. Fun!