Day 1: Tokyo

Van and I left Portland, Oregon, the afternoon of Saturday, April 8, 2023. We has a seven-hour layover at San Francisco International Airport (SFO). During this time, we ate dinner, watched John Wick 3 together and Van availed herself of SFO’s shower facilities. We found a booth afterward for the rest of our wait.

Our ANA flight from SFO left at 1:45 a.m. Van and I sat in separate rows because I’d wanted a window seat but the only ones available were at the back of the plane and Vannie didn’t like being so near the restrooms, so she’d gotten a middle seat further up.

I was pretty pleased with the amount of rest I was able to get for the 11-hour flight; I slept for probably two-thirds of it, waking only when they served breakfast.

Arriving at Haneda #

We touched down at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in the dim pre-dawn light around 5 a.m. local time April 10 and made our way to the lengthy immigration line. Although there was WiFi at the airport, I’m so glad I saved screenshots of the QR code to my online Japan Web registration because my phone refused to connect to the network. The QR code made satisfyingly quick work, though, once I found myself in front of the immigration agent.

With my passport now sporting a new Temporary Visitor to Japan sticker — something we needed to get our JR Passes — we continued on to Customs, where we again flashed our QR code to gain entrance, this time at an automated kiosk.

Once we entered the airport proper, we had time to kill because it was still early and the Japan Rail ticket office where we’d pick up our JR Passes didn’t open until 6:45 a.m. We did a bit of exploring: The terminal we were in had a really neat shopping and dining area designed to mimic old-town Japan. I helped myself to my first vending machine purchase of the trip, a bottle of warm milk tea, which I paid for with my phone — another new and very satisfying development from my last visit.

Eventually we circled back to the ticket office, by which time a considerable line had formed. Vannie wandered around and withdrew some Japanese cash at a nearby ATM (I still had cash leftover from my 2013 trip 😅) while I waited in line for about 45 minutes with our passports in hand. Finally, though, I was able to get my hands on our golden tickets — our not-cheap, but still amazing deals, 14-day JR Passes. (See my calculations on the JR Pass: Worth It? page.)

One big change with the pass since I’d last used it 10 years ago was that now it was the same size as a normal train ticket. This was a fantastic development, because it meant you could stick it into the automated ticket gate to gain entry. Before, the pass had been about passport-sized and you had to flash it to an employee to be able to go through.

This was also a concern because the new JR Passes were not reinforced or made of any special material; they were made from the same paper as single fare tickets.

Between its size, construction and material, I was terrified of forgetting to retrieve this pricey piece of paper when the ticket gate spit it back out, or losing or destroying it. The Japan Rail website is also very clear that you’re out of luck if this happens: “Please note that the PASS cannot be reissued in the event that it is lost or stolen (Conditions for Use, #14).”

We’d been at the airport long enough, though. I shoved the pass into my pocket and together we headed to public transit to get out of there.

Around Tokyo Station #

The Tokyo Monorail is included in your JR Pass access and conveniently, the monorail entrance at Haneda Airport was right by the ticket office.

We sailed right through the turnstiles — so satisfying to stick in our passes and see them spit back out for retrieval — and made our way up to the monorail platform.

By then, it was full daylight so we had a great view of the city as we made our way to Hamamatsucho Station, where we transferred to a JR train that took us to Tokyo Station.

At Tokyo Station, the central transit hub that we would use for all our travels in the area, we had a look around. We scouted out lockers because I knew we’d be needing them several times during the course of our trip. We bought some IC cards — in our case, SUICA cards — for the non-Japan Rail transportation we’d inevitably need from time to time. And we had our first meal, udon for me and soba for Van, at a noodle shop at the station where you inserted cash into a vending machine with tickets indicating your order.

Sufficiently fed and roughly oriented, we made our way on foot to our accommodations, the Yaesu Terminal Hotel, which was a quick 5-minute walk from the station. It was still too early to check in, so we left our luggage with them. I don’t know if the hotel just didn’t have a luggage room, but our suitcases and backpacks were simply left out in the hallway with a net thrown over them to indicate they all belonged to the same party. But that’s how safe Japan is! 😅

From the front desk, I also picked up the WiFi hotspot I’d reserved with eConnect Japan and had mailed to the hotel in anticipation of our arrival. It’s a delight when things work as planned. I put the hotspot to work immediately.

Hitting the town #

Returning to Tokyo Station, we followed Google Maps’ instructions to the bus platform that would take us to Toyosu Fish Market. We used our new SUICA cards to contactlessly pay for the ride: a tap when you boarded, and a tap when you alighted.

We arrived around 10 a.m., hours after the tuna auction action had ceased at 7 a.m. I’d known this going in but was still curious what we might be able to see. The famous tuna auction used to take place at Tsukiji Fish Market but it moved to Toyosu in 2018.

Even though the auction was long over for the day, there were a fair number of others like us who still walked around the huge facility, peeking from the viewing area into the market area. There was a section of shops and restaurants inside the building as well. Van bought some taiyaki, a sweet fish-shaped cake with bean paste inside, that had been on her list of things she wanted to get while in Japan.

From the fish market we walked to the nearby Toyosu Fish & Vegetable Market, which was much less popular with tourists but in a similarly huge building of its own with viewing areas to peek down at the crates of produce below and the machinery used to move them.

Van and I then took the Yurikakome automated transit system (paying by SUICA) part of the way to our next destination: the Ginza area, where we hit a series of stores. I knew we’d be tired from our flight so had just wanted an simple day of sightseeing not too far from the hotel so that we could retire in the late afternoon when I knew we’d be on our last legs.

And that’s exactly what we did:

• Itoya: 12 stories of stationery, pens and office supplies. Each floor a different theme. Heaven! 🤩 I’d gone hoping to buy a very specific fountain pen but its price had risen considerably, so I satisfied myself with some lovely Japanese stationery as well as a plastic card holder for our precious JR Passes. Those holders served us well for the duration of the trip, keeping our passes in tip-top shape.
• Lemon Inc. Ginza: A shop of new and used cameras, lenses and camera equipment. I went in search of a specific zoom lens for my camera but the store didn’t have it secondhand.
• Sanrioworld Ginza: We ate lunch at Cafe Bridge, a kissaten in the Nishi Ginza shopping center that also housed the next stop on my list, Sanrioworld. Sanrioworld was honestly smaller than I was expecting for “the world’s largest Sanrio shop” but it still had plenty of merchandise, and I ended up buying some beautiful cherry blossom-covered note cards absolutely absent of Sanrio characters.
• Pokemon Center Tokyo DX: We went here for Van to peruse their merchandise. It was really busy — getting a reservation at the Pokemon cafe is a whole process — but similarly, not as big as I would have thought. (A consequence of growing up in the U.S., I’m sure!)

Finally having gotten through our list of sightseeing destinations for the day, Van and I returned returned to our tiny hotel room, having stocked up on food from multiple stores in and around Tokyo Station, to eat and crash for the night.