That's Merry Christmas in Japanese. At least it is if the Internet can be trusted. We can always trust the Internet, right?
Grand Hyatt Tokyo
An-y-way-Merry Christmas! Let's talk about Tokyo because I still need to wrap up my recent travels and there's nothing else that needs doing in December, is there? For anyone interested, small and slow is my holiday mantra this year.
Tokyo.
We spent a few days in this fabulous city on our way out of Asia because it's a favorite of the hubs and he wanted me to experience it. In a funny coincidence this summer we met the couple building a house just a few up from ours on the lake. We spent an evening together in our home and as it turns out they currently live guess where? Tokyo! They invited us to connect with them when we were in town and we did.
They offered to pick us up at the airport and as we stepped out of Immigration we were greeted with a big 'hey y'all!' So nice to hear after nearly a month away. They pointed out a lot of the city sites as we drove to the hotel and offered all sorts of helpful tips for exploring this place they call home.
Not gonna lie. Mostly we're about the food.
But also the sites and we did manage to squeeze a lot in to a few days.
We had the most fabulous hotel room with a three sided view of downtown Tokyo
and, if the weather cooperated (
which it did on Day 1), Mt. Fuji.
Thursday was in fact a picture perfect day weather wise so hubs and I taxied to the Imperial Palace to see the stone walls, moat, and gardens.
This is the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan so you don't go inside and you really can't see much of the buildings themselves, but the grounds are beautiful.
As an aside, hubs and I did ride the 'metro' (subway) systems in both Seoul and Tokyo and both were easy to use and so clean. The city of Tokyo is enormous and seems almost spotless. You notice.
We also like to walk when we can and ride taxis on occasion because you see more of the city that way.
We left the palace grounds and made our way to the area around Senso-ji Temple which sits in the middle of a busy commercial and entertainment district.
There were throngs of people checking out the vendor stalls lining the walkway into the temple and throngs of people in and all around the temple too.
We sampled a green tea rice cake as we walked and you can forget about the styrofoam-like rice cakes we buy here...
This was dense and creamy and rich...
We wandered around the temple grounds and then had a delicious lunch in a restaurant nearby, chosen for us by the gentleman waving us in from the doorway. I had soba noodles (the more I ate the more they seemed to grow) and tempura veggies which were scrumptious.
Hubs had soba noodles and sushi and we are fans of the food here. Also the presentation. Nobody slings a plate down in front of you, sloshes tea into a saucer so it drips while you sip, or rolls their eyes waiting on you to decide what you'd like to order.
Lunch cost some amount?
There was an area hubs wanted me to see that he knew I would enjoy. It's called Kappabashi and is the fake food capital of the world. Maybe not officially, but it could be. Everything you would ever need or think you might need or didn't even know you'd need to open and run your own restaurant is available in this little section of town.
There are shops filled with nothing but 'fake food', the kind the restaurants use to entice you to come in and sample their version of the real thing. Besides the fake food there's store after store filled with every sort of pot, pan, and cooking utensil you can imagine. I loved it!
After leaving Kappabashi we took a fairly long taxi ride across the city to the most famous 'scramble junction' in Japan. You have to experience this for yourself y'all. Holy moly! I read a half million people might use this junction beside Shibuya Station in a single day, and as many as 3000 people might cross here on
one green light. One!
Essentially it is a multi-sided cross walk through mega traffic in this super trendy part of Tokyo. All vehicle traffic is stopped at the same time allowing people to cross in multiple directions at the same time. The area around the crossing feels a bit like Times Square with all the lights, electronic billboards, and people except there's no scrambled cross walk like this one in the Big Apple.
Ka-razy! but so much fun to see in person.
We'd run out of steam by late afternoon so we made our way back to the hotel for a cup of tea in the main lobby restaurant. The little touches here are impossible to describe or even remember except to say you leave feeling less stressed than when you arrived. There's an art to that and they've mastered it here.
We were in the Grand Hyatt (highly recommend) and people come from all around the city to dine in one of their many restaurants. We had dinner in the steakhouse our first night there and it was superb.
This isn't the steak. It's dessert (raspberry pavlova) and so yummy I had to snap a picture.
Friday morning we awoke to drizzly skies so made a plan to see one of the many museums we'd read about online. We decided on the Edo-Tokyo Museum which did not disappoint. Lock and leave your umbrella here which is so sensible.
The museum features models of Edo and Tokyo between 1590 and 1964.
That's a lot of history.
A lot a lot. There's also a life-size replica of the Nihonbashi (bridge) and we really enjoyed our visit.
We had dinner plans with our neighbors that evening, so after lunch spent some time napping and just soaking up the view from our room.
Our neighbors took us to dinner at the Japanese restaurant in the hotel which featured seasonal Japanese cuisine.
Every morsel was beautiful and delicious. We told them we'd treat them to some Carolina BBQ in our backyard once they're back stateside.
Hey now! That's fabulous in its own way too.
We were flying out later the next day but not before we met up once more for guess what? Another meal! Probably our favorite of all the meals we had the entire month we were away.
We dined in the hotel tepanyaki restaurant where lunch was cooked right before our eyes. This was not like the 'cook at your table' type of restaurant you may have tried elsewhere because
this is Tokyo. Think depth of flavor, stunning presentation, a comfortable elegance that leaves you wanting more. No detail overlooked and your meal a literal feast for the senses.
I could write a whole post about this lunch but here's a peek, minus the flaming dessert that refused to load here-
After lunch we snapped a picture in the hotel lobby then boarded the shuttle to the airport for the long flight home.
What a privilege to see this part of the world. To experience the foods and customs and beauty of a place I'd never been. To taste and see and savor the sights and sounds of somewhere new. To spend time with precious family, dear old friends, kind strangers, and brand new neighbors...
To be reminded once more it's a small world after all.
