Travel With Phie

Day 2: No Sleep, Only Walking

Well it turns out most of us were officially jet-legged as we all woke up between 3:30-4:30AM. I personally woke up around 3:30AM and could not fall back asleep, so around 4:15, I decided to just get going with the day. Claire (Roomate from Colorado) was also in Tokyo  and told me that I should venture out and go to the tuna auction early in the morning, so I did just that. 

At 4:30AM I decided to make the 4.75mile trek/run to the Tuna Fish auction. It was a lovely run as there was no people or cars around, but the sun was shining and a lot to see. It was a great way to see a different part of the city and not have to wake up any earlier to get to the fish auction. The fish auction started at  5:30AM, but everywhere online said that you should arrive by 5am to get a good view on the “observation deck.” I ended up arriving around 5:15am and got a great view on the deck. 

There were around 20 windows over looking a floor just filled with 100-200lbs Tuna’s while there were people inspecting every inch of each to see which they wanted to bid on. The auction seemly started with the smallest Tuna and work its way up to the larger Tuna. I was not well adversed in the auctioning style, but it was so fast pace and interesting to see, I was glad to have gone. Laura decided to Train to the auction and arrived around 5:45am in time to see the finally few rounds, it was nice to have come company and get to have someone to experience it with. 

After the auction was complete/we felt like we had seen enough, we made our way back to the Airbnb. I walked Laura to the train station and then continued my run back to the Airbnb to be able to stay outside and get a couple more steps in. The run back was definitely a bit warmer, but took a nicer route than the way there which was nice. It was a paved running/walking trail for most of the way which was great.

I arrived back to the Airbnb around 7am and met up with everyone else. Ashley, John, and Nick went on a run by the river this morning and said the views were also epic and even saw a floating stinky ray in the river. We had one shower with only cold water, so all took our turns showering and threw our dirty running clothes directly into the washer, since we conveniently had one right within our unit. After our showers were finished, we of course headed to the 7/11 to get some breakfast before getting on with our day. 

The breakfast mainly consisted of different variation of rice ball things. It was rice filled with eggs or cheese in the middle. Everyone got one of those, while I again went for the Nutella biscuits, oranges in a bag, and a vanilla latte for breakfast. We stood outside the 711 finished our drinks, grabbed a little cash from the ATM and then started walking towards downtown. 

Throughout the day we had main pinpoints of where we wanted to go and then saw things in-between. To get us to the main point of Tokyo, we started with our main objective being Tokyo Station. On the way to Toykyo station, we saw some cool fish tanks outside of restaurants, lots of unique buildings, some canals, and  a few fun streets. 

The unique part of the first part of this walk was the fact that it was only 8:30am and sadly nothing was open, even the coffee shops didn’t open until 9 or 10 in the morning. And coffee was something we all desperately needed. Around 8:40am we decided to make it our mission to find a coffee shop and started mapping to it. We turned down a cute little side street and about 3 minutes later, Nick got pooped on by a bird. We decided it was bad omens and moved off the street and took the next turn to continue to a coffee shop. 

As we walked we did stop at a few vending machines to fill up waters and stay hydrated in the heat. And after around another 20ish minutes or so we arrived at the coffee shop. Laura, Nick, and John all got some cold brew and we continued our walk to Tokyo Station. On this walk we passed a super cute little Coy Pond, snapped a quick photo and continued our journey. 

About 15 minutes later, around 10AM, we had officially arrived at Tokyo Station. We all walked in, not having a clue of what to expect and woah! There were hundreds of stores honestly, probably even 1 thousands of stores. We walked around exploring for around an hour. During this hour, we saw a couple areas of confectionery goods, a market with fast casual food/restaurants, department stores, and unique specific stores (ie Pokémon, etc). 

John and Laura stopped in the Pokémon store, while Ashley, Nick and I kept exploring the vast sea of stores and areas. We ended up walking into Daimaru which was 13 floors of different types of store. Examples: Floor 1 – Confectionery, Floor 2 – Women’s Clothes, Floor 10 – Arts, etc. By far our overwhelming favorite was the fish tanks on floor 10. They were amazing, such cool fish as well as the tank set-ups were so unique. We starred at them for a while, before continuing our journey of exploring Tokyo Station. 

We found the basement, which was an overwhelming place of stores and so many people. We kind of got a little lost and spent a fair amount of time trying to find an exit. Once we did, we were pumped to continue to explore the city. 

Our next stop on the agenda was to head towards the Imperial Palace. At this point we were pretty hungry and ready for lunch, but again not a lot of places for lunch opened until 11:30-12. This meant we just had to continue onward and upward. We attempted to cut through Tokyo Station, but quickly learned the fast way through is around for this particular area haha! We walked all the around the station and then continued onward to the Imperial Palace. 

We arrived to the Palace, took in the view, snapped a couple photos, and continued on our way to the East Gardens. We walked around and took in the views of the surrounding moats on our way over to the East Gardens. We were a bit confused walking into the Gardens as we heard a lot of grunting and screaming, but quickly realized there was a building of people fencing (or something along those lines). The gardens themselves were so green and very well maintained. It was beautiful. We walked across the gardens and exited on the North side to find a spot for lunch. 

Nick looked up a couple places and found one with Soba, so we decided to check it out. At this point we were all getting pretty hungry. We finally came across the restaurant and there were a lot of signs outside, however, all of them were in Japanese, so we weren’t really sure what they said. We decided to try it out. 

We walked in and it was a super small place again with maybe only 10 seats. Little did we know that there was a “secret” back room with a table perfectly fit for 5 people. We had to take off our shoes to enter in, which John was not aware of when first attempting to go (oops!). We all took off our shoes and entered in one-by-one. They handed us one menu that was hand-printed in English with what the options were. We were all looking forward to ordering the Shrimp tempura Soba, but they were sadly out of shrimp for the day, so ordered the only other Saturday lunch menu option. Since this option had fish, Ashley used Google translate to order just a plate of Noodles. Yet again, the food was delicious and we got a great experience of a local lunch spot. We chatted, vibes, and ate. 

After lunch, we continued on our way. The boys went to check out some museum, while us girls went to check out the famous Shinjuku gardens. But before the gardens, we obviously needed to stop at 711 to get some sweet treats post-lunch. We all got a smoothie, which was a cool machine that made it from the frozen fruit cups you grab from the freezer, and Ashley got some additional food as the Noodles were not super filling. We sat on the stoop of the 711 and eat our little snacks. 

We then went on our hour walk journey to the gardens. On the way Ashley and I stopped and got this delicious Mango drink. It was a great way to cool off from a long day in the heat. We then continued to the gardens. The Gardens were so well-maintained and even greener than the ones prior. We gallivanted through the gardens seeing the Rose gardens as well as walking through ponds and loads of people hanging out on the grass patches hanging out. We exited out the opposite side of the Garden’s as our next stop was Mister Donut to meet up with our Tour Guide for our Izakaya Food and Drink Tour. 

On our way to the meet up spot, we went into the a store or two to browse around. This was a new and exciting spot of Tokyo. It seemed to be more of the New York / Times Square area. It was a lot busier and the intersections were huge and people were walking in every which direction. We finally arrived at our meet up spot for the tour and waited for the guide to arrive. 

We were unsure if the tour was going to be just us, or if more people were going to join. However, after waiting for 5ish minutes, we noticed a Father Son duo that also looked American and assumed that they were also awaiting the tour. We saw our guide a few minutes later and went up to meet her. It ended up being a group of 10 of us, which was very fun! She asked for our allergies, which our group had unlike the other (ope!). We went around did names and where we were each from before quickly starting the tour. 

It was an Izakaya Tour, so the goal was to experience local food spots as well as see a little different aspect of the city with a local. We started the tour by walking through the Izakaya Alleyways of ~200 bars, each bar had its theme which ranged from “shampoo bar” to “death bar” to “Miso Soup” to practically anything you can think of there is a bar for it. Each bar had a cover, but also only fit 2-10 people max. They were very cool, but the tour guide told us that the streets are no longer legal as they can’t fit a fire truck down the streets anymore. 

Our next step was the first of our official stops on the tour, the first Izakaya. The place was an Okinawa style Izakaya (Yanbaru). We walked in and sat down at a table already set for us. We didn’t know what to expect as this was our first official tour spot and we had zero expectations.  The first of the dishes was like ‘seaweed eggs’ as I am not sure the normal name. You dipped them in Soy Sauce and they had a unique texture, but were overall very good. The second dish brought out was fried purple sweet potato, it was so flavorful yet the breading was so light which made it fantastic. The third dish was an egg cucumber salad. It was unique – the cucumbers were very bigger, but the eggs were cooked very well. Mixed together was glad to have tried. The fourth dish was a peanut butter based Tofu. This due to the texture, I was not a fan of. It was a unique consistency, and almost watery but not. Not entirely sure how to describe it. The final dish of the first stop was a squid ink pasta. The guide told us that it was a lot better than it looked, which was entirely true! It was one of my favorite dishes of the first location. 

After we all finished eating, we went on a little walk through the ‘Times Square of Tokyo’. It started with walking down the street of visiting Godzilla. The guide told us that he was placed there not only have the anniversary of the movies but also that the area used to be a big place for the mofia. The government knew that if they were able to attract tourist there who take photos of everything the Mofia would leave the area due to not wanting to get documented doing illegal activities. Whether or not it was a myth it was a fun story to hear. 

We all took some photos and continued along our route. The next stop was hearing about ‘rent a girlfriend or boyfriend.’ Apparently this was a semi-popular thing for people in Japan and there would be billboards of the current top 10 to rent. A very interesting thing. 

After walking through the ‘pink light district’ as the guide said we continued to get a little appetizer. This was from (Suzuya Shinjuku) which was known for its pork. We got two pieces of wagu pork. The sauce on one was quite spicy, and the meat was very thick. Overall I am glad we got to try it, but probably wouldn’t get it again. 

Then we walked around 0.5-1.0 miles to get some more steps in and get hungry for the second real sit down place.  We passed a ~casino~ which the tour guide explained that the government made it legal due to it contributing to 4% of GDP and that you don’t get money, but rather a gold coin that you can exchange for cash a nearby store. 

We continued onward to the next restaurant that specialized in fish. This place was called Yonjyuhachi Gyojyou and was some peoples top choice of the night. When we first arrived we received our first dish of Seasweed & Tuna. The second was our tour guides favorite meal – a savory Japanese pancake. The third was one of my favorite items of the night, noodles with veggies and a delicious sauce. The final round of this restaurant was a Sashimi Platter. There was around 8 different types of fish (Salmon, Tuna, Sea Bass, Octopus, Yellow Tail, and a couple more. I think we all agreed the Tuna and Salmon were the top 2 choices. However, the best part of the meal here was that we got to try two different types of Sake. At this point in the trip, these Sakes ranked #1 and #3, the hotel bar had the second best. 

We were all stuffed from this place and couldn’t really imagine getting more food, however, we had one last spot. The last spot ended up being my all time favorite. They specialized in Gyoza and had recently, allegedly, won an award for the best Gyoza in all of Japan. This place was called Gyoza Ichigoro. We all walked in and again had the back two tables perfectly set up for our group. 

We took a seat and got our first order which was a Cilantro salad with a peanut dressing. It was way better than any of us had imagined. The second platter was the Pork Gyoza – by far my favorite meal of the night. It was delicious and I probably had 4-5 of them. The final real food before dessert was a pork stuffed chicken leg. This is as also incredibly delicious and I would for sure recommend to all. The final item of our tour was a Mango Sorbet. It had little Mango chunks and was also amazing! 

By the end of the tour we were truly stuffed and ready to head back to get some rest. Instead of walking the ~8 miles back to the Airbnb, we hopped on the metro. We were all tired, especially Ash who simply fell asleep in the corner. We rode for about 30 minutes before getting off, grabbing a snack at 7/11 and heading to the Airbnb. 

As we were approaching the Airbnb, I realized I was at 48,450ish steps and decided I needed to get to 50,000. I strolled up and down the street near our Airbnb until I reached the conclusion of 50,050 steps for the day. 

I headed up to the Airbnb, changed and immediately headed to bed, ready to take on day 3. Today was truly crazy day of adventure and the best way to spend the second day in Tokyo. 

Goodnight!!