Today shall go into history as The Day We Walked From 6.30am Until 2.45pm! It started out as a beautifully sunny and very pleasant day (because of course, the sun had just started heating up). We woke up ugly early around 2am, which is why by 4.30am, the girls and I gave up on sleep and forced Joe into the big bed behind the sliding door. By 5.30am he was out of bed and rearing to go, let’s get out and explore! We snacked on some crustless sandwich pockets filled with strawberry jam, deep fried shrimp patty sandwiches and whatever else we had left in the fridge, before we set out to explore by 6.30am.
First stop for the day was Tokyo Station, so we marched on to find the closest metro station. It was calm and quiet on the metro, even though lots of people were out and about to start their day. I didn’t even consider the fact that it was Saturday, but of course that’s why there was ample standing room… Tokyo Station is definitely city centre Tokyo, unlike our quiet residential area of Sumida City. Skyscrapers, many of them closed for the weekend, and underground networks to get lost in 2, 3, 5 or 15 times, kinda like Toronto, but nobody speaks English.
We finally locate the station, and get Téa’s real IC card sorted. The one we bought yesterday at the machine is an adult card, and children pay less to travel, so we had to go to the office, show her passport to prove her age, and get her a card with her name printed on it. Maylin travels on Tokyo Metro for free as she is not yet 6 years old. Téa now has two IC cards, one for travel, and one to tap and pay for drinks at the thousands of drink vending machines you find EVERYWHERE, or at convenience stores etc. Do you think she’s proud?
Now our real adventure starts. It’s 8am. We’re walking and walking, down this corridor then that one, around and around. We decide it’s time to sit down for some food and something to drink, and after much searching, we find the cafe we were looking for. Joe had a rice ball set (two onigiri, two slices of tamago, miso soup and spinach sesame salad), while the girls and I shared two “toast sets” with one fried egg, “bacon” (it had barely touched a pan, maybe someone put it under a lightbulb for a minute? Ok ok, it was fully cooked, just looked raw. Maybe cured?), yogurt with fruit and honey, and a slice of big, fluffy Japanese toast. Maylin had Téa’s yogurt, begged me for half of my egg, half my bacon, had half of Téa’s toast and drank the rest of Joe’s miso soup. Didn’t I JUST yesterday say she’s getting her own breakfast portion next time?
We rest at breakfast until almost 9am, by which time the cafe is filling up with travellers. We decide to explore some more. And yes, we’re still at Tokyo Station. Public washrooms are hard to find and usually so small there are few stalls, if at all more than one. At this point it’s getting hotter and hotter inside the station, and we’re walking around trying to find the one store we’re looking for. By the time it’s 9.45am, and we haven’t found it yet, we decide to wait for the bear store (for Téa) and the Pokemon store (for Maylin) to open at 10am. There are lineups for random character stores like CRAZY. I mean, some of these lines have been there since we first arrived at 7.30am, bringing stools to sit on, as the stores didn’t open until 10am. Apparently the ones with the longest lines were having product launches, and the amount of staff present, duct tape on the floor to cordon off queues and directions were simply wild. All while completely silent and calm, no Black Friday chaos here! Téa got a couple of bear things, and Maylin her Pokemon, and by 10.30am we set out to locate That One Store inside the maze of underground networks. (By the way, did I mention that AC is not present anywhere, and that they have fans blowing colder air every few metres? Big signs “do not block fans, share the air”?)
We took a left turn we hadn’t tried yet, and suddenly found ourselves in a maze of airconditioned luxury! Didn’t immediately find The Store, so ended up at a cafe for some iced drinks and treats. Found a teeny tiny Don Quijote (think Dollar Store on steroids), our first sighting of the famous store that locals call simply “Donki”.
At around 11.30am we finally found The Store, a Uniqlo about the size of a shoebox. They only had space to carry two sizes of each product, “but you can visit our flagship store only 15 minutes away by foot”. So guess what we did? We took the metro one stop to visit the Uniqlo Flagship Store in Ginza! 12 floors of casual, comfortable fashion! This store was PACKED but still limited on sizing. Canadian Uniqlo size Large is smaller than Japanese Uniqlo Extra Large… Found a couple of tops and some great options for the girls, so happy all in all. Bonus – got to banter in Norwegian with a couple of guys buying the Uniqlo heattech line – in this heat!!
By 2pm we were exhausted but satisfied, and decided to head home. A packed metro ride and hot walk home, and we were back in the AC. I took a nap while Joe and the girls worked and played. Then Joe napped while I wrote, and the girls were bouncing off the ceiling. Maylin looked like she was going to fall asleep sitting up by the time Joe woke up, so her and I ended up walking to the grocery store to buy a few things for dinner. Grocery store sushi in Japan is a world apart from grocery store sushi at home! An ice cream each to keep those eyelids from closing too early, and we called it a night. I kept writing to stay up as long as I could, and hoped for a solid night’s sleep.