Japan time! Our December 2013 trip was Tokyo focused; this time we’ll spend some time on the Shinkansen (high-speed train) to see more. Japan’s been on the family shortlist for a while so I’m happy we can make it happen.
We used an app (Timeshifter) to prepare for the time change, so we were up at 5am to go for a neighborhood walk to maximize light exposure. Starting at 7 we were the odd ducks wearing sunglasses indoors at the airport until our attempt to sleep through both the Seattle and Haneda flights.
We landed on time, tapped our phones to get on the train to our hotel, and after a quick refresh were back on the train by around 4:30. It’s nice to go digital. Before going on the trip we simply added transit (Suica) cards in Apple Wallet and now we can top them up as needed.
Our first stop was Shibuya Scramble. We had a couple of false starts on how to exit where we wanted but soon joined the mass of other tourists in the scramble.
The framework for tonight’s walk and part of tomorrow was to see some of the buildings by well-known architects. Today’s favorites were the grand curves of Yoyogi 1st National Gymnasium and the mirrored entrance to Tokyu Plaza Omotesando. We also had a quick look around Meiji Jingu shrine, which offers a 200 acre mostly green respite from the surrounding commercial area. We ate a convenience store dinner; the broccoli salad was particularly refreshing.
Tokyo Metropolitan Government No. 1 Building has impressive projection-mapped shows on its facade every night. We were running late but caught the end of the Gundam one and stayed to watch some of the next one. The goal to stay up until regular bed time was achieved, so I’ll call the evening a success.
(25000+ steps; hard to get an accurate count when it was split over time zones)
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