6-7 Days in Tokyo, Part 1

Our last week in Japan, we spent in Tokyo and we all loved it so much we are already trying to figure out when we can get back there. There is so much to do and see that we only scratched the surface. We tried to get a taste of the different areas so spent a few afternoons (post-school) in specific neighborhoods. We also spent some time enjoying the unique activities Tokyo has to offer–Asakusa Hanayashiki amusement park, Tokyo SkyTree, TeamLab Planets, DisneySea and a dog cafe! It was a jam-packed week, and I won’t try to fit it all in one post. So stay tuned….

Sunday, November 30: We started the morning off with one of our traditions from home–putting up our Christmas tree. Of course, it looks quite different than previous years, but it was important to me that we keep a few of our favorite traditions. And we always get our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.

From there, we walked into town. Right away we noticed how quiet, calm and clean the streets are! In the world’s third largest city, this was quite remarkable. I immediately remembered what crossing the street in New Delhi was like compared to crossing in Tokyo. Two different worlds! First we stopped at a 7-11 for breakfast (fresh smoothies, sushi, onigiri rice balls, etc) and then walked to a nearby park. We ate and played and then headed towards the Asakusa area. Our first stop was Sensō-ji Temple and the Nakamise Shopping Street. It was so crowded!! But also fascinating, and the girls had so much fun window shopping and picking up a few small trinkets.

From there we walked over to the Asakusa Hanayashiki, the oldest amusement park in Japan. We decided to go all in and bought the unlimited rides package for all of us. We thought we’d try to do every ride but we ran out of time. We still had so much fun running from ride to ride and doing some of the “little kid” rides. There was a great roller coaster and a large spinning one that we all enjoyed as well as a few laughs when Steffen could barely fit and we were all shocked by the “Surprise House” when the room started spinning, not the ride. LOL It was a very fun afternoon!

After a delicious dinner, we took the bus to the Tokyo SkyTree for our final activity of the day. The SkyTree is the world’s tallest tower at 634 meters. The highest observation point is 450 meters. The views were incredible!

Monday, December 1: We started the day with another one of our favorite holiday traditions: Advent calendars. I made these a couple of weeks earlier, trying my best to make them as thin as possible so we could transport them and include activities as gifts instead of stuff due to our limited luggage space. The girls were thrilled because they were not expecting them. The gift for that day was a visit to TeamLab Planets. And the place was even more amazing than expected!! It is hard to describe and hard to capture in photos but it was so amazing. It is a full body immersion art experience with water, lights, and colors where we got to participate in every artwork. There was one part where you could draw a flower and then they would project it on to the floor and walls. There were several different rooms we walked through for each separate experience. It was so cool!

Afterwards we walked over to the most amazing foot bath! The water was warm, the atmosphere was so calm and serene and the views were phenomenal. We spent some time relaxing and then had another amazing meal of sushi.