Our stay in China came to a close after attending a relative’s wedding in Hong Kong. We thought we were heading directly back to the USA. Not so fast. The day of our departure, there was a fatal airplane crash at Tokyo’s Narita airport. A Fedex cargo plane slammed into the main runway and burst into flames. Its an unfortunate disaster as the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash. The result was that Narita was shut down for the entire day. We waited and waited in HK for news. Finally, we boarded our plane and instead of heading for Narita, we headed for Nagoya. Once in Nagoya, we were given a hotel room at the nearby hotel. In the morning, we were able to fly to Narita since one of the minor runways was open. But… once there we had a choice. Get a confirmed flight for later in the week or try to fly standby back to the states. Its understandable that closing the airport for one day is going to wreak havoc on the airline schedules. Most of our fellow passengers chose to roll the dice on getting a standby flight. I, however, decided that its not that often I end up in a major international city like Tokyo and therefore confirmed a flight for two days later. We checked some of our large pieces of luggage into storage at the airport, booked a hostel online, and was on our way to bustling Tokyo!

We stayed in Asakusa which is a historical area in the northeast suburbs of Tokyo. First thing on the to-do list for Tokyo: find out where the local Coco Ichibanya restaurant is. This is my favorite chain restaurant in Japan. Our hostel receptionist was a little taken aback from my request but gave us accurate directions to the sweet spot. Once there, I ordered one of the new items on the menu, baby clams and tomatoes in curry sauce over rice. This chain mainly serves curry over rice. Customers can choose from a variety of toppings from pork cutlet, fish, sausage, squid, etc. After lunch, we toured the Asakusa neighborhood. Among the sites were the Sensoji Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo. The streets around this area are lined with small traditional styled shops. Later, we rode the train to the neighborhoods of Shibuya and Harajuku. These two places are perfect for people watching and experiencing Tokyo’s youth culture. We walked into a video arcade that was 5 floors tall. I’m always amazed by how technologically forward the Japanese are. Everything is highly engineered; from toilets to mobile phones to the cities themselves. Video games are no exception as some of them are quite sophisticated. It was interesting that you can even see middle aged men in the arcade relaxing after work by playing games. Later we returned to Asakusa for a dinner at a small mom and pop owned traditional restaurant.

The second day was a cold and drizzly day but that did not deter us from visiting some parks. We visited Ueno Park where many of the cherry trees were just beginning to bloom. The walk around the park was nice but we were feeling cold so we needed to find an indoor activity. We rode the train to the Ginza area and bought tickets for one act of a Kabuki show at the Kabukiza Theater. This one act was about and hour and a half. We felt comfortable sitting in the theater and out of the rain even though we didn’t understand any of the show at all. At night we visited the main observatory at Tokyo Tower. Even with the drizzly clouds, the view at night from the observatory was spectacular. Tokyo is the ultimate urban landscape and there’s skyscrapers and lights in all directions. We were also surprised to see that there is a cafe at the observatory that features live music. A J-Pop band took the stage and we were treated to live music modern Japanese style. After the long day of walking around town, we returned to Asakusa for a sushi dinner.

The final day in Tokyo we only had time in the morning for a short trip into town. It was a beautiful day so we visited the Hama-rikyu Gardens which was a peaceful retreat with well manicured trees, a pond, and tea house. For lunch, we visited the Tsukiji Fish Market where there are many sushi restaurants. The restaurants were a little pricy since they are geared towards tourists. I would have loved to walk around the fish market itself but its busiest times are very early in the morning around dawn. My last visit there was about ten years ago and I can remember the bustle and interesting sights of all kinds of seafoods on display; some of which I had never seen before.

We concluded our unintended visit to Tokyo by riding the train to Narita airport. This time the flight left without a hitch. Unfortunately, when arriving in Chicago we found that our connecting flight was delayed a couple of hours. After all we had gone through, this delay just wasn’t any big deal. We set out to return to the US on a Monday, and finally arrived in New Jersey on Friday close to midnight! In between, we had a great time in Japan and hope to visit again sometime. Here are some pics from the Tokyo visit: