Our First Week in Tokyo

Handy Quick Links to our Blog Highlights

How We Got Started | How We Do It | USA Adventure | Iceland | The UK Adventure
Our Travel Club Arrives in Paris | Russia and the Trans-Siberian Railway
South Korea | Japan

Our flight from Sapporo was painless...including the dreaded luggage weigh-in.  Our two hour flight landed us in Narita International airport...only one hour northeast of the city.  We quickly acquainted ourselves with the train system and board what would be our first of four transfers.  Two and a half hours later we arrived in the western suburb of Komae.  We were met at the station by three young women staying at the hostel who also work as part time staff--one from France and two from Argentina--and we guided through the narrow streets to our apartment.

Our Tokyo Airbnb

Our home for the next 30 days is a quaint, efficient three room unit made up of two really good sized bedrooms and a nice kitchen/dining area.  It's pretty basic and sparcely furnised but there are four beds and a TABLE AND CHAIRS - yippee!  We quickly settled in and made an inventory...and a list of things to buy at the second hand stores the next day.  Another shoppping trip to improve our living conditions is on the horizon.  For roughly $28 a day we got ourselves a pretty darn good deal.

We've got another one of those amazing soaking tubs in the bath, two heating units...and the weather here is in the 50's...so NO SNOW or biting cold.

Our host, a gentleman our age, invited us out for drinks and introduced us to some visiting Canadian friends.  We settled in and enjoyed some TV via yet another stellar wifi connection.  Xfinity comes in loud and clear.  Yippee!

The next day we did a bit of research and found a few stores nearby, did some serious grocery shopping to get us through the next week, and went on a treasure hunt for a few kitchen items.  Riding the subways is getting easier...in spite of a daunting subway map...we got around easily.  Everything once again is in both Japanese and English...including the announcements.

Marlena flew up from Okinawa and joined us for a few days before beginning her trek back to the USA.  We enjoyed a couple of really long days walking all over the city exploring a Shinto temple, a great city park with ice sculptures, busy shopping streets full of cosplay shops, amazing architecture, and a pretty grand formal garden.

That evening Marlena treated us to a traditional folk music venue.  Along with five locals we were the only other guests in the restaurant/club.  The staff were also the performers and we had quite an evening with good food and company, an amazing show, and even got to participate a bit.

We took a few long walks in the neighborhood exploring the nearby river area and found more shoppping and better grocery stores.  The further you get away from the train stations the better the prices improve.  The selection in Tokyo is a bit better and we are finding more familiar things to cook and eat...along with a larger assortment of interesting new stuff...especially the veggies!

About two miles away from our home is an open-air museum of Japanese architecture...some of the buildings dating back to the 1600's.  We made a day of it and visited the park.

While at the park we happened to meet a woman from San Francisco traveling alone and just beginning a nomadic journey or her own.  Sasanna is a delight and we invited her to join us later at home for a meal.  It ran late and since she was couchsurfing on the other side of the city, we offered to let her use our spare bedroom.   Our first week was both eventful and memorable and we made new friends!  What fun!