Japan – Episode 1 (Tokyo)

We left Taiwan this morning a little sad saying goodbye to our Taiwanese family and apprehensive about diving into one of the largest cities in the world. The flight from Taiwan to Japan was just 2.5 hours. After we landed, we bought train tickets (Tokyo is about an hour away from the airport) with surprising ease. As we were heading towards the train station, David gets stopped by a camera man, reporter and reporter’s translator. David quickly pulled me into the “news piece” and in a daze we are asked questions such as “why are you here in Japan” and “what do you want to do here?” We tried to answer as best we could and then we were on our way to our rented flat from AirBnB.

We knew that we would be living near Shibuya, an area that is often viewed as the epicenter of Tokyo. If we felt overwhelmed in Taipei, we felt for sure we’d lose our senses in Shibuya. Much to our delight, our flat is in a quiet but upscale neighborhood (Meguro) about 15 minutes from Shibuya. There are several coffee shops, restaurants and a local grocery store nearby. Realizing that we hadn’t eaten in awhile and that dinner was approaching, we walked a few short blocks to a restaurant called Alaska which was recommended by our host. We felt the restaurant selection might have been an unwise decision given its a vegetarian restaurant but out of sheer hunger went in. Inside, the restaurant had a nice homey feel, with a bit of hipster flare. English indie music was playing, the wait staff did not speak English but they were very nice with big, bright smiles. We ordered a vermicelli salad, margarita pizza and 2 soups to share, all of which hit the spot. After dinner, we walked to a liquor store to buy some beer and then to the local grocery store to buy some items for our little home – coffee, snacks, fruit, etc. We headed back “home” and dropped off our bags and were on our way again, walking a bit to explore our neighborhood. We walked over to the Daikanayama area, which is a funky district that has art galleries, clothing stores and other shops. We stopped in the Daikanayama Tsutaya bookstore which is open until 2am. It has multiple interlocking stores featuring different genres in their separate pods. One could easily spend hours here. I even stopped by the magazine section and caught some US magazines headlines such as who the sexiest man alive is according to People magazine!

We are now calling it an early night at home, trying Japanese beer and planning for tomorrow’s day!