Ye Olde Tyme Tokyo

When I booked our hotel I was a little concerned by how cheap it was. Especially being so close to a major attraction like the Imperial Palace. It was actually very nice. The rooms are small, but so is every hotel room in Japan. It was on a small residential street, directly across from a subway line. It was nowhere near all the pop and parties, but we liked the neighborhood.

The day was half over by the time we checked into the hotel. I had a list of things I wanted to see and I knew we would be wasting an entire day at DisneySea. Pi Chi was recovering from the flu, so she was not as hungry as usual. This gave us much more time. She also must have been a little delirious because she readily agreed to go wherever I wanted to go. I told her there would be shopping, which there was, but I had an ulterior motive. I knew there was also a Krispy Kreme.

The Krispy Kreme in question is very hard to find when you have no idea where it is, but very easy to get to once you know. I knew it was near a station but that was all, and none of the subway maps happened to mention Krispy Kreme. That may seem obvious, but sometimes they mention 7-11 or McDonalds, so it is worth a try. There was also heavy construction between the station and Krispy Kreme, which did not help.

When Pi Chi found out we were looking for donuts, she was less than excited. We walked around the very large subway station and through at least two shopping areas. Pi Chi gets a little grumpy when she has not eaten in several minutes, even if she has the flu, and she does not especially care for donuts. She repeatedly wanted to give up, but I was persistent. She had never had a Krispy Kreme before so I could forgive her lack of enthusiasm.

We eventually went over a bridge and I saw the green and white sign in the distance. It turned out to be rather close to the exit where we originally left the station. Had we simply turned right instead of left we would have found it much earlier. Such is life.

The “hot now” sign was on, so Pi Chi’s first ever Krispy Kreme was less than a minute old. She was unimpressed. I thought about how I should pack my things when I move out. But it must have been the flu because we went to that and another Krispy Kreme a few times on this trip and she ate almost as many as I did. And I found the other Krispy Kreme by accident.

How dough becomes ambrosia

Pi Chi wanted to eat department store basement food for dinner after we left DisneySea, so we went to the Ginza. It is easy to get to by train from the Disney area, and there are more than enough department stores to satisfy Pi Chi. Interestingly enough, everything was closed. Even the seizure lights were off. We left DisneySea a few hours before closing time because it sucked so much, so we assumed finding dinner would be easy. The Ginza is arguably the most popular shopping area of Tokyo. But it either closes at 8pm on Sundays or it was some special holiday we knew nothing about.*

Pi Chi wanted to give up and go back to the hotel. Ordinarily, she would never give up on finding her dinner, but that flu was still lingering. I knew of a restaurant near another subway stop, but it could have just as easily been closed as well. I thought it was worth a try, and I was still confident from my Krispy Kreme triumph. We never found the restaurant, but we found a Shakey’s Pizza. They are almost completely gone in California, but apparently there are quite a few in Japan, and more in the Philippines than anywhere else in the world. This particular Shakey’s was very open. It looked and sounded like a Shakey’s, although with Japanese signs. They had the Dixieland music and lunch buffet. They even had mojos. The most amazing part was that the pizza tasted like a genuine Shakey’s pizza. In my experience it is unusual when somebody opens an American restaurant and the food actually tastes American. But Tokyo Shakey’s has that distinctive Shakey’s sauce and crust. They also have toppings like squid and chocolate and marshmallows, but I generally stick to mushrooms and olives anyway.

It may seem strange to travel to a place like Japan and seek out Shakey’s and Krispy Kreme, but I live in Asia. I eat Asian food all the time. Japanese food is not at all hard to find at home. You can even get bad Japanese food at any 7-11 if you are so inclined. But prior to this trip, Seoul was the only place on the continent I knew to find Krispy Kreme. There is a reason everyone says they are the best donuts in the world. And I grew up on Shakey’s pizza. For me, eating a Shakey’s pizza is probably what it is like for other people to eat their mother’s cooking. I may never be quoted by the tourist bureau, but those pizzas were the highlight of my trip.

Westernland
The Frontierland of Tokyo Disneyland

You may think that we went to the Imperial Palace as soon as we got DisneySea out of the way. You would be mistaken. The next day we went to Disneyland. Nobody knows why. But it was nice to see a real Disney park after that travesty of an imposter. Walking down Tokyo Disneyland’s World Bazaar is just like walking down any other Disneyland’s Main Street. Except the name is different. And it looks different. But there are still millions of Japanese people running around.

I think I already described Tokyo Disneyland, but this trip was different. The park was relatively empty the first time we went. Not Hong Kong empty, but California empty. This time there were a few more people. The ride lines were almost as long as the popcorn lines. If you know anything about the Japanese you know how long they are willing to wait in line for popcorn. The wait for any food was ridiculous. Fortunately, we thought ahead and brought our own. We ate our leftover pizza and department store food next to the vending machine at Space Mountain. This is notable not only because there is only one vending machine in the entire park (in a city that elevates vending machines to an art form), but also because sitting on a concrete bench near the vending machine next to Space Mountain and eating leftover pizza and department store food (and probably a few donuts) was worlds better than that lunch we had the day before sitting in real chairs at a real table in a fake Italian restaurant.

Outside of Hong Kong and Paris, you are going to get crowds when you go to any Disney park. But Tokyo Disneyland on this day was completely absurd. We had been there before and it was reasonable. On this day you could not see the ground. I went to California Disneyland on a Christmas Eve or possibly Christmas Day when I was in high school and the park was so crowded that we spent some of our time in a walk-in phone booth just to get away from the people. That was empty compared to Tokyo. I understand that the purpose of the park is to make money and the more people you let in, the more money you make. But eventually there is a satiation point. If the park is too crowded, the people in it do not enjoy their experience. If they do not enjoy it they are less likely to return. This is an aspect of business strategy that many Asians simply do not understand. Customer satisfaction is meaningless to people who are only looking at how much money they can make today. Repeat customers are not something you worry about when you do business in a very crowded marketplace. Tokyo Disneyland has lost two potential customers because of their greed. Pi Chi and I shall not return.

There is still plenty of room to cram in more people

When we finally spent an actual day in the actual city of Tokyo, Pi Chi wanted to go shopping. I wanted to go to one of the skyscrapers and see the city. I like to find the tallest building in whatever city I am in and look around. Pi Chi likes to go shopping. I like to go to thousand year old temples and cathedrals. Pi Chi likes to go shopping. I like to walk through city parks and see the juxtaposition of trees and grass against tall buildings in the background. Pi Chi likes to go shopping. If I am somewhere that has a river cruise, I want to take it. If she is somewhere that has shopping, she wants to go shopping.

When Pi Chi and I travel together there is a constant struggle between what I want to do (culture, history, get some sense of what the place is about) and what Pi Chi wants to do (shopping). In this case she agreed we should go up the building first and go shopping later after I convinced her that the shopping is open all night (except Sundays) and the view from the building is very different in daylight. There was a threat of rain the entire time we were in Tokyo and it was mostly cloudy. But it was relatively clear at this point so I decided we should go to the tallest building, which also happens to have a free observation deck. Free is a good thing in Tokyo.

It is rare that I get to do what I want to do when Pi Chi wants to do what she wants to do. What really does not help matters is when she agrees to do what I want to do and it turns out to be the weakest observation deck I have ever seen. It was all indoors, which is bad enough, but the glare on the windows from what little sunlight there was made it difficult to see much of anything. It was not the most exciting area of Tokyo anyway. The harbor was covered by other buildings and Mt Fuji was lost in the haze. Pi Chi spent more time in the tiny gift shop than I spent looking out the window.

Diligent readers may have noticed that I might complain about Pi Chi’s shopping. I do that more to her than I do to you. Believe me. But this shopping excursion brought us to Shibuya, which we had never been to before. If you know anything about Tokyo, you know how strange it is that a shopper like Pi Chi had never been to Shibuya. The lights of the Ginza will give you seizures at night, but Shibuya is shopper’s paradise. It has the overpriced department stores that Pi Chi prefers and the cheap little shops that I prefer. And it has food. All kinds of food. Everything from Pi Chi’s department store basement food to my pizza and donuts. And plenty of Asian food, but we pay less attention to that.

We eventually saw a temple and more than enough shopping. We saved the Imperial Palace for the last day because of lack of time and the constant threat of rain. The last day was the sunniest and our flight home did not leave until evening. Our hotel was right around the corner and it was an easy walk. The nearest gate into the park to our hotel was closed, so we walked around to the main gate. It was also closed. I knew a reservation was needed to get into the inner grounds, but most of the park is usually open to visitors. This day it was not. So I have still never seen the Imperial Palace. And I think I know why our hotel was so cheap.

We knew that we needed two tickets to take the express train back to the airport, but I still have no idea how to do that with the ticket machine. There is an English option, but it has far fewer choices than the Japanese. The woman who operated the machine that got our tickets pushed many buttons from many screens that simply did not exist in the English version. I have bought many train tickets from many machines in many languages. This was not my first pony ride. I have read several times how difficult Tokyo’s subway system is. I find it very simple. It is no more difficult than New York’s or Seoul’s. It is simply in a different language. But I have no clue how to get a train ticket to Narita without dealing with a person.

Our return flight arrived too late to take the train home. It was delayed because the plane was falling apart. There were problems with the radio and electricity that kept us on the runway longer than is generally comfortable, and later at 30,000 feet the window at my seat leaked water from outside. I think that might be bad. So we spent the night at another airport hotel before taking the train home the next morning. And I had to work that day. Pi Chi wisely took the day off.

In the end, our travel voucher for a free plane ticket cost us one round trip plane ticket, three hotel rooms in two countries, eight train tickets and several taxi rides getting from one to the other. This is why I do not do coupons.


*[Update: It was some special holiday we knew nothing about.]

A wedding procession at Meiji Jingu in Shibuya