Five Cities In Three Countries Over 16 Days, Part 3: Tokyo And Hakodate, Japan
We began this adventure by traveling to Kolkata, India for Anna’s conference. After that was completed we flew straight to Vientiane, Laos to do some volunteer work for a week. Now it was time to relax so we would be kicking back for a week traveling to different parts of Japan.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
We had finished up in Laos, donated a whole bunch of medication to the hospital, and now it was time to fly back to Singapore so we could go home, switch suitcases, and hang out with our dogs for a couple of hours before returning to Changi Airport once more for our flight to Tokyo, but Anna realised there was one little hitch while we were in the exceptionally long, slow-moving queue at Wattay International Airport in Vientiane — Her secretary had booked her tickets, but not one for me to return to Singapore so if we couldn’t get one on this flight, I would need to wait until the next day so I’d miss our flight to Tokyo as well. By this point I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in over a week so I figured if we weren’t successful, at least I may be able to go back to hotel and sleep for about 20 hours. Luckily after a lot of back and forth at the sales counter we were able to purchase a ticket so we could go back to Singapore, switch over to a case of Winter clothes and fly to Tokyo.
Anna at her Ph.D defence
This holiday in Japan was very important for one particular reason; not only had Anna been particularly busy at work, plus her role as head of Global Ophthalmology for Singapore, and speaking and doing presentations at conferences, but also for the last several years she had been doing her Ph.D and had been especially busy with that for the previous six months. In fact, her Ph.D defence had been just two days before we left for the Kolkata conference, so she obviously needed a break.
Anna’s parents own an apartment in Tokyo from when her brother attended university there so over the coming week we would be spending two nights in Tokyo, catching a train to Hokkaido to stay one night in Hakodate and three nights in Sapporo before flying back to Tokyo for a final night. Time to unwind.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
It was early in the morning when we landed and got to the apartment in Tokyo and although we had slept a bit on the flight, showering and going back to bed was the plan before waking up again around noon and exploring the neighbourhood we’d be staying in, Nakameguro:
Nakameguro is a residential district of Meguro, Tokyo. It is popular for its unique boutique cafes and stores, and the area near the Meguro River is a popular hanami (cherry blossom viewing) destination in mid-spring. It lends its name to Nakameguro Station.
Sounds good to us! We had visited the apartment before when Anna’s brother was living there, but had never spent an extended period in the area, plus the cherry blossoms should be blooming around the time we were there. It’s only a small neighbourhood, but there was still a lot to see and do in anticipation of the cherry blossoms, especially a lot of pop-up roadside snack stalls and bars running along the streets on both sides of a canal, but first we’d need coffee and I’d have to do as I always do when I’m in Japan, purchase one of my absolute favourite snacks, an egg salad sandwich from Lawson. Convenience store food around the world is never good, the only exception to that rule being Japan, I’ll never understand how everything is so fresh in places like 7-11!
Just strolling around the neighbourhood was fun, it’s a really nice, chill place and besides all of the stalls there a lot of great secondhand shops, one where a jacket I loved was Anna’s size so I’m convinced she bought it out of spite, plus all of the wacky stuff you expect at every turn in Tokyo, but it was still only early in the afternoon:
One benefit of where we were staying was that it was around a 20-minute walk from one of Tokyo’s main shopping and entertainment districts, Shibuya, so that’s where we planned to spend the rest of the day. One thing that was a little frustrating, however, was that we were still holding onto sandwich wrappers and takeaway coffee cups and Tokyo is so clean, but there isn’t a bin in sight! Singapore is infamous for its cleanliness with a fine of S$1,000 (US$732.00) for littering for first time offenders and S$2,000 and a corrective work order for repeat offenders, but you still see bits and pieces of litter in the streets there, however, Tokyo is absolutely spotless, yet you don’t see any signs trying to intimidate people into keeping it that way, it just seems to happen, even with next to no public bins.
We made it to Shibuya and it was a lot busier than we expected for a Sunday. After checking out more vintage stores and seeing a man riding a bike with a tub full of puppies along the way we pulled up a seat in a small shop in a mall for one of Anna’s favourite cakes, but something wasn’t right. We had been in an exceptionally dirty country where I’m allergic to a lot of the food for three days and then stayed another seven days in a place where you still can’t drink the tap water. Now I found myself in one of the cleanest cities in the world with incredibly fresh produce and my stomach had started acting up, but at least it happened in Japan of all places, where the toilets are sparkling and it’s very often a private room for each loo so I ventured into a nearby mall and took care of business.
We continued to walk around Shibuya, enjoying the madness as hundreds of people would wait for the traffic lights to change at once on six different blocks in order to all cross the intersection at different angles, passing buildings covered in brightly lit anime billboards, while a bunch of go-karts went down the road in single file. We did a fair bit of shopping that afternoon, however, my stomach still wasn’t feeling that great, a problem that would haunt me the entire duration of our time in Japan, but it made the perfect excuse to stop in at a brewery to alleviate the problem once again, as well as have a couple of sneaky drinks each before hiking back to the apartment to have a tablet to settle the situation properly and hope it would be fine in the morning.
Once that was all taken care of it was time for dinner and Japanese barbecue was the perfect choice so we found a yakiniku restaurant nearby, followed by a small bar to finish the day off.
A look around Shibuya and some dinner and drinks back near the apartment:
Monday, March 25, 2024
After having a coffee in a nearby cafe we saw a great looking ramen restaurant near our apartment for lunch, now the only hassle was trying to figure out the vending machine-like ordering system out the front. Some locals could see our obvious confusion so they were polite enough to guide us through the process and translate for us so we could get exactly what we wanted and not too long afterward we were inside having a fantastic lunch, but to be fair we wouldn’t have a single average meal the entire time we were in Japan.
When lunch was done we looked at a couple of other streets nearby in Meguro and on one of them just one block parallel some cherry blossoms were already out, but not in full bloom, however, in front of our apartment there were just bare branches, not a flower in sight. Maybe on the tail end of this trip we might be a little luckier.
There are going to be a lot more photos coming so I might as well get the ones of lunch and flowers out of the way first:
We had already looked around the main area of Shibuya on Sunday, but there were still a handful of stores we eath wanted to visit so we went our separate ways and when Anna was finished looking at her stuff she told me to meet her in what she thought was a boutique cafe named Ploom. She wasn’t completely wrong, but I did receive this message:
It turns out that Ploom is actually a shop for tobacco products that has a really nice cafe in it, but besides rating the tasting notes, bitterness and strength of the coffee on the menu, they also do the exact same thing using an identical looking scale for their cigarettes in the same Japanese-only menu. It turns out she only ordered a coffee.
Today we would also walk to a different part of the ward, the region that most people associate with the quirkiness of Japan and the area of Tokyo Gwen Stefani controversially tried to milk dry when she went solo, Harajuku:
Harajuku is a district in Shibuya, Tokyo. Harajuku is the common name given to a geographic area spreading from Harajuku Station to Omotesando, corresponding on official maps of Shibuya ward as Jingūmae 1 chōme to 4 chōme. In popular reference, Harajuku also encompasses many smaller backstreets such as Takeshita Street and Cat Street spreading from Sendagaya in the north to Shibuya in the south.
Harajuku is known internationally as a center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. Shopping and dining options include many small, youth-oriented, independent boutiques and cafés, but the neighbourhood also attracts many larger international chain stores with high-end luxury merchandisers extensively represented along Omotesando.
We would be walking a similar route to the previous day, just going further up the same main street and along the way I encountered the Jordan World of Flight Shibuya store. I was always a huge Michael Jordan fan as a kid so I walked down the LED-lit hallway into multiple rooms of Jordan sneakers, clothing, and some cool memorabilia, but nothing was ever going to fit me. Then I saw it and I began to fume; the only non-Jordan jersey in the entire store was a Lakers jersey and from where I was looking the number on it started with a ‘2’. I can’t stand LeBron James and the way the NBA panders to him so I would be furious if they were selling only his jerseys out of the 450 players currently in the NBA, but those fears were quelled when I saw that it was actually that of Rui Hachimura, the first Japanese-born player to ever hit an NBA floor and the second ever drafted (the first Japanese player was also the tallest ever drafted, Yasutaka Okayama in 1981 at a gigantic 233cm (7’8″), however, he never signed an NBA contract). I have a lifelong hatred of the Los Angeles Lakers, but I thought it was pretty cool to have Rui’s jersey in there.
It was around 5:30pm when we arrived at Takeshita Street, the main strip of Harajuku and I completely forgot just quite how busy it gets there, even on a Monday evening there’s a sign over the entrance translating into, “Request to all visitors to Takeshita Street. Please keep left when crowded”. Although a sign like that written in more languages would be beneficial, the locals are very law abiding so it does have some impact. We spent an hour and a half just walking up and down, cringing at some of the fashion in the stores while at the same time marvelling at how much money, time, and effort some people put into looking, for lack of a better term, “unique”, although it was hilarious when white tourists tried to pull off the same look, but I tried to be respectful and not take photos of the people. Another thing about this side of town is that there are some incredible signs, particularly a 3D one that had some amazing imagery on it, but I was only able to capture a short portion of it, one that was impressive but far inferior to some of the others shown:
We couldn’t stand around looking at signs all night, because the ramen was wearing off and the area is know for also having some decent restaurants. We didn’t want anything too big, because we had plans for later, so after checking out some of the back alleys and laneways we found one with something I had wanted to try since I had first heard about it, horse meat carpaccio. We took a seat and ordered some dishes including raw horse, which wasn’t actual carpaccio, just slices of raw horse meat, plus some wagyu beef and chicken gizzards among others. To be fair, the horse itself was kind of tasteless, it would’ve been really bland without a dipping sauce, but now I can add that to the list of strange dishes I’ve had around the world.
The real plan for eating that night was to hit up a yakitori joint for some drinks and skewers so we walked back to near where we were staying, because it would be far easier to get a seat in one there as opposed to a part of the city with the highest foot traffic. As expected they managed to make something as simple as skewers cooked in front of you unbelievable, but due to the place being small, there was a 90-minute cap on how long we would could stay so when we were full we finished the night out in a nearby bar where they had their logo scorched into their lemon wedges:
Harajuku and then back to our ‘hood for some more food:
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Today we would be leaving Tokyo for a region of Japan we had both always wanted to visit, Hokkaido. We knew about the dairy products and seafood, I’m not a skier so we could cross that one off the list, but we were both still excited and out first stop on the island after a four-hour train ride would be Hakodate. Hokkaido was the reason we had needed to pack the Winter clothing, because it was going to be getting pretty chilly there with temperatures the previous week in some areas getting down to -17°C (1.4°F) overnight and although it wasn’t going to be that bad where we were staying, we’d still need to rug up over the next couple of days.
I wrote about the craziness of the Tokyo train system the last time we were in town almost five years ago with different companies owning different trains and the largest stations being borderline impossible to navigate and we would be catching our train from Shibuya Station, one which as of 2004 serves 2.4 million passengers on an average weekday!
Three days in and my stomach still wasn’t right so I popped a pill and we caught a ride to the station. Once there we found the details of which company we would be using and the platform we would be boarding on, but buying the tickets for these trains is an arduous task involving lining up for around half an hour in a winding queue at the ticket counter so while Anna waited in line I had a look around the shops and bought some snacks for the ride, avoiding a boutique banana stall.
Once aboard we were traveling through snowy terrain with mountains to one side and the ocean to the other and after both of us had drifted off to sleep for a couple of hours we were in Hakodate:
Hakodate is a city and port located in Oshima Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital city of Oshima Subprefecture. As of January 31, 2024, the city had an estimated population of 239,813 with 138,807 households, and a population density of 354 persons per km² (920 persons per mi²). The total area is 677.86 square kilometres (261.72 sq mi). The city is the third biggest in Hokkaido after Sapporo and Asahikawa.
We knew that this was going to be a sleepy town, but when we got in at 5:30pm it was completely dead! We arrived at our hotel that had a full pillow menu, something that upon first impressions might be quite nice, took our suitcases up to our room that was too small to open them in, showered, and then ventured out to see if there was any action in this place.
Boutique bananas, some scenes from the train window, and our minuscule room:
Our hotel was right next to the train station, a place where in most cities there is some action, but it turns out that isn’t the case in Hakodate. When Anna had been getting changed I was looking up places to eat and one stood out; Anna loves eating uni, or sea urchin, but in most of the world it is extremely expensive, however, where we were it is found locally so I figured that Uni Murakami Hakodate Ekimae would be the perfect spot for dinner, but the website warned that you needed to get there early. Well, it’s not like we were going to be that overstimulated so we walked down there immediately, passing only two or three cars on the road before we had arrived. Once inside we were led past tanks of live seafood to our table in an empty restaurant and as soon as we sat we were told there was only one 70g box of sea urchin left so Anna immediately snapped that up. We ordered a bunch of other dishes including a trio of live seafood; whelk, scallop, and clam. When eating those you in no way got the impression that they were still alive, but it was when the live button shrimp that we had ordered arrived that the charade was up. Although they had been peeled, they were still moving, flinching, and wriggling, especially when you picked them up so we were left with no other option but to tear their heads off and go at it, although the head on mine continued moving afterward. It’s hard to find food fresher than that! We also had sashimi, crab rice, clam soup, and cheese-baked uni in a meal that would’ve easily cost several hundred dollars anywhere else in the world.
I’m sure you’ll share our initial impression of the city as well, but dinner was something else:
And lets not forget the sacrifice these little guys made:
It was only 7:00pm when we were finished so we had to find something to do. I managed to find a German beerhall, but I also wasn’t surprised to find out that it closes at 9:30pm, however, fortunately we had finished dinner rather early so we were able to take the nice walk down there and grab a couple of drinks. When we arrived it wasn’t so much the beerhall that piqued our interest, rather the bizarre-looking burger joint across the road, Lucky Pierrot. This place was genuinely creepy with its multicoloured clown that for some reason had a star for a pupil in only one of its eyes and the longer you looked at it him, the more there was to unpack. The story behind Lucky Pierrot, as this article states, is quite interesting, such as the fact that it wanted to be the “anti-McDonald’s” and that despite many offers, the franchise only exists in Hakodate, because they use 80% local produce and don’t freeze anything. But the themes get even weirder than just the disturbing clown:
Boasting 17 locations in the city and surrounding Donan region (for comparison’s McDonald’s has just five outlets in Hakodate proper), the chain offers the familiar burger-and-fries combo alongside original concoctions like the Chinese Chicken Burger, plus curry rice, fried noodles and much more. Every store features different theming (one spot overloads on Elvis memorabilia, another celebrates Christmas and another the works of French painter Henri Rousseau) intended to surprise customers, making a stop at the different burger joints a must on the itineraries of both tourists and locals.
This was the original store, we were laughing at how absurd the place was and I snapped some photos before going to the beerhall, but curiosity got the better of Anna after reading that article and she felt the need to go back and explore the inside and when she returned she just kept laughing, telling me I needed to see it for myself. When I went it was pretty strange, with a giant burger surrounded by snowmen and polar bears next to an enormous swing and we would’ve loved to have tried it, but we were just too full from dinner, however, they had a gift shop so I bought some snacks for our train ride to Sapporo the following day, a clown t-shirt, and a beer mug for our friends. I also wanted to buy a t-shirt of their cafe chain logo that features a sad-looking cup stirring a spoon in its head that looks like it was drawn by a six-year old, but they didn’t sell them.
Take a look around this part of town and experience the weirdness of Lucky Pierrot for yourself:
Before long it was 9:30pm which meant chucking-out time at what seemed like possibly the only option for nightlife in Hakodate, but we weren’t tired, because we had slept a bit on the train ride from Tokyo and we didn’t want to just hang out in our tiny room so we soldiered on and explored more of the city in the faint hope that we may find another place to continue on.
There were more weird sights as we strolled around different areas on a chilly night, including sewer covers with smiling cartoon squid etchings on them, a statue of a girl seemingly finding inner-peace next to some birds with a sign nearby warning of crow attacks, a construction area fenced off by cross-eyed plastic giraffes, and we even passed the Lucky Pierrot restaurant that is inexplicably Christmas-themed all year round.
It took a while, but we noticed things were getting more well-lit. Had we just potentially stumbled upon an area with a little bit of life? We walked around a maze of tiny izakayas and there was music coming from one of them so once we had located it there were people drinking and playing darts in a bar with the occasional extremely racist poster on the wall. The owner told us that they were open until 3:00am every day so we pulled up a seat at the bar and began playing a strange dice-based game before hanging out with the other patrons. We couldn’t stay all night though, we had plans for the morning.
The remainder of the night:
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Today we’d be jumping back on the train to continue on to Sapporo, but there was something else we’d be taking first; a trip to the Tropical Botanical Gardens to visit a monkey onsen:
You may not associate the word “tropical” with Japan’s northernmost main island. However, the Hakodate Tropical Botanical Garden, a large pyramidal greenhouse in Hakodate City, is a veritable paradise of rare and wild flora indigenous to regions much further south. The garden is also famous for its unusual outdoor onsen (hot spring) and the furry primates that visit it during the long northern winter. From December to May, you can spot adorable monkeys taking a relaxing bath in the hot springs. The monkeys frequenting the 40-degree pools to stave off the bitter winter chill and frolicking on the attached monkey playground have become some of the primary highlights of Hakodate winters. You can find a footbath near the park to use freely and warm your body up too!
There was one minor issue though; my stomach was probably the worst it had been so far this entire trip and we would be catching a 45-minute tram to the gardens. We arrived at the end of the tramline without me having an accident and we’d need to navigate our way to the onsen, which wasn’t that far, just in a location we would never have expected — Right next to the ocean. En route we passed the 15th century Yukura Shrine so we had a quick look around and then the always unreliable Google Maps first led us to a hotel while enormous crows and hawks circled overhead, but luckily a woman in the lobby was able to point us in the right direction for the gardens.
Once inside I have to admit that it was kind of strange seeing monkeys in an enclosure just hanging out in the water, yet here we were. Some of them had spent so much time in the hot spring that they were beginning to shed their fur, while others just lounged around outside, laying down or picking stuff out of the fur of others. As for the Tropical Botanic Gardens itself, it was a glass enclosure with a walking path in it that wound around plants and ponds, however, the humidity was absolutely stifling in there and this is coming from a couple that live in Southeast Asia so we only stuck around in there for a couple of minutes before grabbing a coffee, sorting out my stomach, and catching a cow-themed taxi back to the hotel.
When we had checked out we were soon at the train station that had statues, posters, and merchandise everywhere of a creature that was a piece of sushi so naturally I bought a keyring of him. There was also a very predatory sculpture outside and vending machines where you could download a Coca-Cola app, top up the balance, and buy coke that way. Some people really love sugar!
Monkeys and sushi men:
We boarded our train, ate our Lucky Pierrot snacks, took a nap, and another four hours later we were in Sapporo. Stay tuned for the next instalment where we spend three days eating and exploring Sapporo before flying back for one final night in Tokyo.
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