Feeling the Christmas Spirit @ Tokyo, Japan

Despite the ticket debacle the flight went smoothly and soon we’d swap the smog of Bangkok for the crisp fall air of Tokyo. We landed in NRT and took the train to our Airbnb in Shinjuku (a neighborhood in Tokyo). As we walked out of Shinjuku station we were immediately taken aback at just how clean everything was. Coming from San Francisco, we didn’t know it was possible to have city sidewalks that were so clean. “I can’t believe there’s no poop. I don’t even have to look down when I walk. It’s so relaxing.” Helen remarked.

Over the next four days we embraced the Christmas spirit, (meaning we embraced consumerism), and went on a bit of a shopping spree. For everyone’s safety we avoided shopping on empty stomachs by making sure to eat before, during, and after; also supplementing with coffee:

We explored the dense shopping district of Shibuya, popping in and out of various clothing stores. In the evening, we donned some of our new clothes and “got fancy” to go out on a little date. Helen found an izakaya spot, and once there we struggled to order. Everything was in Japanese and the Google lens app was not helping. Thankfully, the server pointed us to dishes that had a wide assortment of foods. So we were able to try lots of things, but were unsure what we exactly we ate.

Afterwards, we climbed a flight of stairs to a tiny 2nd story horseshoe shaped bar with dim lighting and live jazz. The bar was decked out in Christmas decorations and we easily held a conversation over the jazzy carols; making for an enjoyable evening.

The next day we explored a Japanese park/garden. The Christmas lights glowed across the city at night, but in the daytime fall colors illuminated our landscape. We wandered about in awe of the bright yellow ginkgo trees and ancient Japanese maples.

For lunch, we gratefully accepted bibs to safely devour our ramen.

At night we hunted for pokemon themed gifts for Helen’s brother in law, James, in the Akirabara shopping district.

We checked out Nakamo Broadway and found the perfect watch for Adam to commemorate our engagement, an idea we got from Chaitasi and Joe (Adam’s sister in law and brother).

We got mulled wine and beer from a Christmas market in Minato City.

On our last night in Tokyo and therefore our last night in Asia, we were looking for a way to make it count. Which is really a euphemism to say we were looking for alcohol. We walked from our Airbnb to Golden Gai, a nearby neighborhood we saw on the map. It turned out to be a single square block with 280 bars crammed into its 1.6 acres. The tiny bars were stacked on top of each other with narrow alleys connecting them. Each bar seated only 5-10 people and had its own unique feel based on the personality of the bartender.

The first bar we went to had a laptop open with YouTube running and we took turns picking songs. Here we met the first and only American tourists we talked to the entire trip. They were from LA and were seated closest to the laptop. They chose to play hip hop favorites from Kendrick Lamar and Eminem.

The next bar was run by a guy who moved to Tokyo in order to write movie scripts. He entertained us with the best language barrier miming we’d yet seen. He also gave us some tasty sake from his hometown, Okinawa, that was 36% alcohol. It tasted a bit like whiskey even though the base was rice.

Feeling good, we decided to check out one last bar, this time on the second floor. Intrigued by a handwritten sign for “homade cherry blosom whiskey” we clambered up a steep staircase into a tiny room with every surface covered in sharpie writing. To our delight, most were in English. Even the liquor bottles had hand written notes about their contents. We chatted and laughed with the jolly bartender “Abe-Chan,” and the Spanish tourists we were squished next to, who also loved Marc Marquez (our favorite MotoGP rider).

After our final night we savored our last day in Asia with one last mazesoba before we made our way to the airport for a nice redeye to SFO.

We boarded our 9.5 hour ZipAir flight for San Francisco at 9:30pm Tokyo time. About an hour or two into the flight we realized that they weren’t going to provide us water for free. This was disheartening to say the least. We believe strongly that airplanes should provide free water. We believe it so strongly that we felt morally obligated to boycott the purchasing of in-flight water. This meant that when we landed in SFO at 1:30pm local time, we were dehydrated and delirious from 24 hours without sleep. We departed the plane and Adam looked at Helen. “I know you’re not going to want to, but you have to do your Global Entry interview now. We just need to get it over with then you’ll have TSA precheck and Global Entry for the next 5 years. You’re strong, you can do this!”

So Helen trudged to the interview, hoping everything would go smoothly and quickly. She looked at her phone and saw that it was at 3%; so much for entertainment. For the next 50 minutes she paced back and forth as one by one, everyone else in the waiting room stepped up to interview. When she finally got called, the interview went about as well as you would expect from a massively sleep deprived, dehydrated traveler. She was peppered with questions like: “Fairfax county is not a city, do you know what city you were born in?” “Can you name all the countries you’ve been to in the last five years?” and the always difficult “Are you OK?”

Helen bravely pushed through the challenging questions and kept her cool. Narrowly avoiding tears, she passed the interview. We made it, we were back in the United States. We’d go on to spend the next few days with Susan and James before flying to Chicago to pick up our car and begin part 3 of our crazy little adventure “Mad Helen Fury Road.”