Japan 2019 Day 8 - Back to Tokyo

Mar 28, 2020 4 min read

Back to where it all began.

Osaka

I’m ready.

fug

*shoves clothes into backpack*
This bag is a beast.
I find myself maxing out how much weight I can carry before I can fill up all the space.

Alrighty, let’s see, how do I get back to Tokyo?..

…I think I’m just going to take the Shinkansen.

Still lots to see in the Kansai region. I’ll be back one day.

Oish.

Leg room for days.

Giant solar panel. Also passed a congo line of kindergarteners wearing the uniform.

Tokyo

Tadaima~

Shinjuku

Me: So glad I don’t need to go through Namba Station again.
Shinjuku Station: Allow me to introduce myself.

wtf

Despite visiting Tokyo 3 times, I’ve never really spent any time in Shinjuku.

More loud advertising trucks.

Shinjuku is busy.

Yodobashi Camera owns like half this neighbourhood.
They couldn’t expand any more so they took over a bunch of buildings instead.

Ah, I remember this spot. This is the station exit we came out of during our first trip.
Then we proceeded to have no idea what to do here and walked around aimlessly.
Rokodo found a Taiko machine while me and Noe wandered through a Lammtarra.
GOOD TIMES.

Hey, they have Haribo here.

Somehow I ended up back inside the station?
I was trying to find a more suitcase friendly path…

This restaurant is the only thing at the end of this long-ass corridor.
How much foot traffic do even they get over here?

Shinjuku sure is a city.

Hotel Ibis

Is that a Jojo reference?

Waa~ This is a nice room.
Also the most expensive room of this trip, being in the middle of Shinjuku.

Modern, clean, spacious, USB ports by the bed, foreigner-friendly. Would recommend.
A French girl was the receptionist and it felt weird seeing a French person act so polite and friendly.

The genkan alone is bigger than a New Koyo room.

Free handy.

Back out I go.

Narita Express

Another train.

*pacing up and down the train platform*
“Where’s the unreserved carriage? Don’t tell me…oh fuck it’s leaving. I’ll just jump on.”
So, uh, protip, the Narita Express is reserved only, even if you have a JR Pass.
The conductor side-eyed me and told me to give the seat up if someone shows up 🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️

Narita Airport

Hey, it’s the place where we tried and failed to rent a phone during our first trip.

Now to wait for an undetermined amount of time for my parents to show up.
…
Did I already miss them?
…
There they are. Took them over an hour to get through immigration.

Somehow, Japan skipped credit cards and jumped straight to contactless payments.

Narita Express

Welp, just missed a train and had to wait another hour for the next one.
There’s no option for “I have a JR Pass” at the machines and the human queue was slowww.

Tokyo

Shinjuku

Didn’t expect to spend this much time travelling today.
Past me (idiot): I’ll have so much time to play around before I need to pick up my parents!

The busiest station in the world.

I finally understand all the anime jokes about getting lost in Shinjuku Station now.
We followed some Japanese people and even they got confused.
We kept running into dead ends and locked doors. Please, we just want to get out 😭

This photo came out well.

This one didn’t.

It’s 10:30pm and the restaurant I planned to go is now closed…
I was too preoccupied researching outside Tokyo so I don’t know the area at all.
We just headed into the first izakaya that we came across.

Luckily, it was still good. It’s hard to go wrong anywhere in Japan it seems.

The crowd is not amused.

Gonna walk off the food.

Kabukicho

Welcome to Kabukicho, AKA The Sleepless Town, AKA the neighborhood we were too scared to walk into during our first trip because of its seedy reputation.
I’m a baka. If anywhere is still bustling at 11pm, it’s Shinjuku.
We could have spent more time picking out a restaurant.

Though it’s my first time here and didn’t know Kabukicho had restaurants.
Shame I didn’t play the Yakuza games before this trip. I recognise so many locations now.