Day One
As we packed and planned for Tokyo, Lu and I both reflected how nervous we were. Only four years ago, we’d travelled for 8 weeks across the world, but here we were, shaking like greenhorns about what to pack and whether we were prepped. Fortunately, once we got past TSA and into the terminal, I could already feel the stress dripping away as we settled into potentially our best selves: travel mode! Of course, we made a quick and nigh traditional stop at the airport Stone; Buenaveza Lager on tap, surprisingly nom worthy pretzel and brussel sprouts apps, and we were on our way!
The Flight To Tokyo
Our sleep strategy remained roughly the same – get a bit of sleep on the plane, but not too much. Just enough to let us ostensibly stay up all night before falling asleep. This plan is a little bit thrown by the multiple babies right across the aisle from us, but we both managed to sleep for an hour or two. Another cause to wake up is of course the meal!
One can only imagine what business or first class eat, when even us plebs get some of the best airplane food available. Shredded pork and cabbage with white rice, omen (TODO check meaning and spelling) of vegetables, soba with gelled dashi and wasabi, some sort of earth medley of oats, squash and cheese, a hot cup of misoshiru, crunchy salad, and finally a strawberry ice cream to top it all off. They even serve coffee right after, which I couldn’t say no to even though I was hoping to sleep after.
After a post meal nap, we killed some time and watched “Wakanda Forever” together. For a Marvel movie, it actually had some character development, and the “Final Action Scene” was a bit shorter than usual. All in all, a perfect plane movie.
A couple of episodes of Picard later, and it was randomly time for breakfast. True, it was neither breakfast time in America or Japan, but for some reason it was breakfast time on the plane. Pretty solid bagel, with an offering of lox, pickled onions, and cream cheese, a strawberry yogurt, and most lovely of all, more coffee.
Tokyo Itself
We stayed at the Hotel Gracery Asakusa. It has the feel of a hotel that local businessmen might stay at – very nice and comfortable, but affordable. We got lucky, in that they had recently renovated their rooms, and we ended up with a huge bathtub and shower room.
The location was also perfect, on a quiet street away from the bustle of Sensooji, but close enough to walk anywhere. We also lucked out in it being on the same block as the #2 ramen spot in the area, Chuukasoba biriken. Chuukasoba is literally Chinese soba, and so just like ramen is a Japanese adaptation of a Chinese noodle soup, Chuukasoba is the soba version! In this case, the noodles are still ramen style noodles, but the broth is the traditional soba broth: light shoyu, chashu, menma, negi. So we can see it’s almost interchangable with the classic ramen style we all love!
For dessert, we bought some strawberries and grape tomatoes from the local konbini, and ate in the room while we switched off on bath time.
