This was our second trip to Tokyo, with our first being back in April 2017. If you click on that link, you'll see that the trip was broken into a series of daily posts, but my plan for this trip is to break it up into about ten posts, with each one focused on a location/destination.
On Tuesday, we flew from D.C. to Tokyo on a nonstop ANA flight that took about 14 hours. We sat in the very last row of the plane because there were a pair of seats, whereas every other row in economy was a 3-3-3 configuration (and yes, we flew in economy for 14 hours and yes, it was perfectly fine!). When we arrived, it was a very simple process to get through immigration, collect our bags, and clear customs because C had completed all of forms online for us (it seemed like few people had done so, as the lines were extremely long to go through these processes in person and we were able to avoid all of that nonsense and bypass the lines).
On Wednesday, we took an uber from Haneda airport to our hotel, the Kimpton Shinjuku Tokyo, and after we checked in and dropped our bags off, our first order of business was to find something to eat. This meant walking to the nearest 7-Eleven! As I've shared before, 7-Elevens in Japan are NOTHING like the 7-Elevens in America and we were able to pick up sandwiches, drinks, and snacks and take them back to our hotel.
Unfortunately, between the 13-hour time difference and the 14-hour flight, we fell asleep at 6 pm and woke up in the middle of the night, despite our plan to stay up until 10 pm to reset our clocks!
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honestly one of the cutest welcome signs
we've come across in our travels |
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since we'll be gone for almost four weeks,
we checked two medium suitcases and took these
two backpacks as our carryons |
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the Capital One lounge at Dulles
had a really great breakfast spread |
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| happy travelers |
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it was fun to see four cities where I've lived on
the flight route map |
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| the hotel in Tokyo was beautiful |
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| the hotel staff left us a nice note and some treats |
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it's the little things!
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| our room was spacious |
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absolutely delish...American 7-Elevens
should need to step up their game |
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the very early sunrise and sunset times are
not exactly helping with our jetlag
LOL |
We really only had one full day in Tokyo and the weather was not great, but we did manage some sightseeing! We went to Meiji Jingu, which is one of the Shinto shrines in Japan, we went to the Shibuya area of Tokyo to spend the afternoon exploring, and then we ended the day with a visit to Tokyo Tower. We were hoping for clear skies so we'd be able to watch the sunset from the top, but Mother Nature unfortunately had other plans! The views were still great!
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the Shibuya Scramble is crazy
even at non-peak times of the day! |
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| of course we went to the Hachiko statue! |
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his legs are bright bronze
from being rubbed for good luck |
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| this picture is from our trip in 2017 |
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| 2026 |
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Shohei Ohtani ads everywhere!
#itfdb |
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| walked past this place! |
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| the observation decks were pretty cool |
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| views down to the ground! |
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decided this Sanrio character,
Usahana, spoke to me
LOL |
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I put her on my bag,
just like the locals do! |
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as were we checking out of the Kimpton on Friday morning,
the staff asked us to add to wish to their star festival board |
We were reminded how very cool Tokyo is and we will definitely be back for another longer visit, but as these posts continue, it will become evident that our goal this summer is not the cities we'll be in! Now, on to the next part of our trip!
Happy Tails to you!
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