Two days wandering Tokyo.
November 15th I flew out of San Francisco to Tokyo. I was unsure about booking this trip, I felt I had so much to do at work. It had been a while since I’d taken a trip where I just went to go. The reality of leaving didn’t really hit me until the day before, when I packed a few things into a small duffel bag and jumped on BART to the airport. With my bicycle helmet dangling from the top of my bag I was ready to go. The plan was to cycle for about two weeks, and that was about it. To get away and see what I would find. Beyond that there was not much of a plan. In the weeks before I had been looking at possible regions, but it was far from concrete. I had a rough mental plan and that was good enough for me.
Originally I was going to do this trip solo, but a few weeks before, my friend Tom found some free time off work and decided to join. We hadn’t travelled together since we went to Iceland and Norway after graduating university, before starting our full-time jobs in 2022. The thing I like about Tom is that he’s always down for anything. He gets excited by my somewhat crazy ideas and doesn’t overthink the details, we just go and figure it out. As someone who likes to travel on a whim, this works very well.
I was planning to meet Tom in Osaka on November 17th to start our ride. That gave me about two days to explore Tokyo, adjust to the timezone, and see the city.
I stayed at the Dormy Inn in Ginza. I picked it because it had a really nice onsen and was pretty central to the fish market and imperial palace. The onsen instantly became my favourite way to bathe. A nice hot room with showers, hot spring, sauna and a cold plunge. It definitely doesn’t get better than that. There’s something about sitting on a stool in a hot room while showering and shaving my face in the morning that feels so right. I don’t think I showered in the room the entire stay. Starting every day with a sauna and cold plunge is my favourite.
One of my friends from university, Ayu, lives in Tokyo and kindly showed me around the city. I hadn’t seen her in many years and it was kind of surreal meeting her in a packed street in Ginza. We walked around the city, went to a few temples, and ate a lot of food. The thing about Tokyo is that it feels endless. The streets go on forever and the density never subsides. Where is downtown? The whole city is downtown.
In the morning we went to Sensō-ji, a temple built in 645! Around the temple there are lots of food vendors and things to do. It was a beautiful Sunday and we just strolled around. I got my fortune by shaking a stick out of this hexagonal container. The stick corresponds to a number where you pull your fortune from a drawer. I was a tad unlucky and got a “medium” fortune. The piece of paper told me that I should not get married this year, start a new business, or take a new job. Well, good thing the year is almost over!
We then walked down beside the Sumida River and wandered over towards Tokyo Skytree, the giant tower. Along the river there were a few people fishing. Within the few minutes we were there, they pulled in a small fish! At the base of Skytree there was a Christmas market going on with vendors. We sat around there for a bit before heading to dinner. At night the Skytree lights up beautifully. Although I prefer Tokyo Tower—it’s much smaller, but the orange and yellow colours are beautiful.
That night I met my first FamilyMart, the heaven of convenience stores. Throughout the trip, the little jingle when you walked through the doors echoed in my ears. What started as just grabbing some cold teas and snacks late at night would turn into sitting in their parking lots in small towns on Shikoku, eating egg sandwiches and karaage in the middle of 100km rides through the mountains.
On Sunday night we went to this omakase place. It was the nicest meal I had in Tokyo, each piece of fish was so unique. The restaurant was this small room on the 7th floor of this nondescript building. The lift door opens up to the restaurant and teleports you to this small wooden room. We sat next to about eight other people at a corner counter around two sushi chefs. Next to us were a seemingly rich businessman with a woman who definitely seemed paid to be there, and a Chinese couple from Texas who had just gotten engaged. Definitely not what I was expecting in Tokyo, but I guess that’s kind of the point. The food was excellent, and the sake was super fresh and delicious.
The morning I left for Osaka, we went to Tsukiji market before I had to catch the Shinkansen. We walked around stalls sampling different types of seafood. It was my first time trying whale meat, which was really good. Super lean and chewy but with a very clean taste. It was described to me as tasting like horse meat. At the time I hadn’t tried horse meat, but later on the trip I would and can confirm they do taste similar. We also had a ton of tuna sashimi at this little stall where we shared a tiny table with two Japanese men. All the food was so delicious and the owners of the shops were very sweet.
Lunch ran long, as most things do for me, and I was going to miss my train. But turns out you can just change your reservation at any time, which is crazy. I moved to the next train in a matter of seconds. Very impressive. I was even able to book a seat on the right side to see Mount Fuji on the way down.
Before hopping on the train, I grabbed a bento box at Tokyo station to eat during the ride to Osaka. The most impressive thing was that there was a string on it that, when I pulled it, heated up the meal. There’s a little crackling sound in the bottom and within minutes I was eating this hot meal of rice and beef tongue while watching the city disappear. I love trains, so I had a great time looking out the window and drinking green tea from the convenience store. In no time I was in Osaka. Honestly, I wish the train had gone a bit slower. I was enjoying all the views through the countryside.
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