I’ve been to Japan a few times, and I return with interesting stories consisting of a silly mix of exploration and confusion. Jonah, after hearing these stories, really wanted to go to Japan someday (and I think his love of Ramen noodles and Samurai stuff helped too). Well, Janet suggested that I take Jonah to Tokyo for spring break, and so we went! Janet and Sterling stayed home (neither of us was masochistic or sadistic enough to take an 18 month old on a 13 hour flight).

We spent a week in Tokyo, with side trips to Yokohama and Kyoto.  We took the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) from Tokyo to Kyoto, and then back again. We also went to the Yokohama Science Center where Jonah played with nearly every exhibit there – until they closed the place down and kicked us out.

Part of Janet’s requirement for letting Jonah go to Japan was that he had to keep a travel journal and write at least one page a day. He kept to his word and wrote some interesting entries into his journal.  It’s interesting to read his perspective of the same events that I saw.  For example, we used to have Krispy Kreme’s here in Albuquerque, but they closed down a couple years ago. They were one of his favorite foods. Just our luck, the hotel we stayed at (Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku – I Highly recommmend BTW) had a Krispy Kreme less than a block away.  He wrote in his journal about the last day and trip home: “It was the best vacation of my life, and I got Krispy Kremes”.  Nothing like priorities!

We have a ton of pictures, but they’re in a protected location on another site. If you would like to access and see the pictures, send me an email, and I’ll send you the URL.

Some helpful hints about traveling to Tokyo:

  • Take the train from the airport to the station nearest your hotel (Narita Express). It’s TONS better than the bus or Taxi.
  • If you’re going to be going all around Tokyo and Japan via the railroad (I highly recommend), stay at a “hub” station – such as Shinagawa or Tokyo Stations. We spend a lot of time traveling from Shinjuku to those stations. Shinjuku is great, as was our hotel, but if you’re going all over, you’ll be going through those stations a lot.  It wasn’t bad - but it would save 20 minutes each direction if you’re travelling.
  • The lines at Tokyo Disney are CRAZY long.  Fast Pass is the only way to go there.  Plus, they don’t have as many “snack” and ”eateries” as the California Disney.  AND, the strange thing is, most items don’t say “Tokyo Disneyland”, they just say “Disneyland” – which makes buying something a little trickier :)
  • Be adventurous – but think ahead. We found a couple neat shrines and parks by just turning down alleys and parks. In Kyoto, we wandered around and found many shrines and temples. Near the end of the day we stopped at the Kyoto Tower to look around. If we had gone to the tower first, we could have mapped out what we wanted to see (you can see pretty much all of Kyoto from the tower).