We flew Virgin Australia in to Tokyo from Brisbane, changing at Cairns. We’d splashed out on a PremiumX seat – lots more leg room, priority boarding – all felt very luxurious, though you get the usual Virgin additions (ie., bring your own food and drink, blankets, etc). We sat directly behind Business Class who are treated like royalty – you’re not allowed to use their loos, either. But it was a good flight, and our first sight of Tokyo by moonlight (above) emphasised our enormous the place was – as we discovered when we tried to navigate the metro to our hotel. Sure enough, we got lost almost immediately (in our defence, the train we were on was the right line – we just weren’t expecting it to branch off in a different direction. Luckily, a wonderful couple of locals asked us if we were lost, and offered to come with us to make sure we got on the right line and got off at the right place (otherwise we’d probably still be somewhere on the Keikyu line heading for oblivion). The map below gives you a good idea of how complex Tokyo’s metro is.
So after a good night’s sleep in the Henn Na Hotel at Shintomicho station, we set off on our first day of exploring. Our first job was to collect the Japan Rail Pass which we had bought back in Australia but which can only be collected in Japan. Our nearest collection point was the main station in Tokyo, which is terribly grand at surface level, while underneath it is a absolute rabbit warren of shops, food outlets, corridors and metro lines. The idea of the JR Pass is that you can travel on most of the famous Shinkansen bullet trains and some local lines for no extra charge.
The outside of Tokyo station looks like a rather upmarket hotel (which is not surprising as the central section of the building is now, in fact, an upmarket hotel, while the two halls at either end of the old building are still part of the station)
Rail pass booked, it’s time to see what we make of the shops. We were staying on the border of the Chuo and Ginza districts. Ginza is a famous home for some of the top retail names in the world – think Louis Vuitton, Hugo Boss, Tiffany’s etc – and some of Japan’s oldest and most famous department stores.
The department stores are both huge and spacious. Six or seven floors above ground seems to be the norm with food halls spread over one, two or even three basement floors. And those food halls have to be seen to be believed. Japanese staples – Sushi, Surimi, Salads – jostle alongside patisseries and ice cream parlours, and the ever-present Bento Boxes. These are a meal in a box, with all kinds of variations. And, even in these upmarket stores, they’re not expensive. You can get a good meal for less than A$10 – eveh less towards the end of the day when the prices are discounted.
Even the entrances are rather grand:
Night-time excursion
After an afternoon rest to catch up with ourselves, we thought it would be fun to visit Shibuya, the famous shopping and nightlife area. What we had forgotten was that it was Halloween and we arrived there along with what looked like half the population of Tokyo and most of the Tokyo police department. Every other person was dressed in costumes – not just traditional halloween costumes, but people were dressed as anime characters, pokemon characters, superheroes – and one person was even dressed as X (formerly known as Twitter).
We’d squeezed a lot into our first day – time to fall into bed.