Hello Tokyo

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Introduction:

Japan is home to Pokémon and Hello Kitty, two popular character brands that our daughter adores. So, it was Hello Tokyo for us for some kid fun. The temperatures were warm in late June with highs around 90 and lows around 80. Lucky for us, the strong dollar provided a most favorable exchange rate of 160 Yen to the dollar, which is the best that it’s been in 38 years. It helped to make up for the mere 97 Yen to the dollar we received on our first visit here. While such things are out of our control, it goes to show how expensive or inexpensive a destination may appear based upon the exchange rate in place when you go.

Sight’s Visited:

We spent a day at an indoor theme park, Sanrio Puroland, which is based upon Hello Kitty and friends. Our daughter was mesmerized by shows and a flashy parade even though they were all in Japanese. They offer character meet-and-greets that you schedule. There are just a couple of rides. The boat ride was the better of the two and is similar to Disney’s It’s a Small World. Despite the lack of rides, it’s a pretty magical place.

We’ve become fans of KidZania and were excited to find that the Tokyo location offers a subset of their activities in English on Wednesdays. They employ a reservation system, which proved helpful to lock in some preferred activities. The place gets busy. So, you have to be selective as there’s not enough time to do everything you’d like to. That said, we found plenty of things to keep our daughter engaged. KidZania is a great concept as kids learn while they do fun hands-on activities. We would have scheduled another day here while in Tokyo if it weren’t for the language barrier.

Shibuya’s famous scramble square intersection is in the heart of the city’s busy shopping and entertainment district. It’s a tourist hot spot.

We headed to Sunshine City to do some souvenir shopping. The mall there has a plethora of kid’s character-themed shops and cafes including a Pokémon Center. Needless to say, we did not leave empty handed.

We had a late flight on get-away day. We planned to visit the National Museum of Nature and Science and the Zoo as they’re co-located within walking distance of our lodging. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for fumigation and it poured all day making the zoo a wash-out. We needed a good indoor activity. We had researched teamlab planets and teamlab Borderless but both were sold out for the day. Our fallback was Legoland Discovery Center and even though it’s on the small side, it served us well and we spent half the day there.

There are a number of animal cafes scattered around Tokyo. We chose to visit mipig +café micro pig house as it was conveniently located in Sunshine City. Aside from Elizabeth being bitten by one of the pigs (ouch), it was a pretty cool experience.

During an evening stroll in Ueno Onshi Park, we came upon the Shitamachi Highball Fest. There we found food, drinks, games and entertainment. The locals were having a good time and we had some fun too trying out our luck at the games of chance.

The Meigi Jingu Shinto Shrine is located in a lovely park with plenty of towering shade trees. It’s a popular destination with lots of people strolling about. Its grand size easily accommodates the constant flow of visitors.

Play:

We struck out on playgrounds with not a one to be found where we ventured. We did find a nice indoor play place named The Kids in the funky-cool Decks Tokyo Island Beach Mall that served as a substitute. This is the same mall where Legoland is located as mentioned above. We also spent some time in arcades filled with coin-operated crane-games and vending machines.

Accommodations:

We booked a Pokémon room at Mimaru Tokyo Ueno East using their website. It’s billed as an apartment hotel but that’s a bit of a stretch. There’s a small kitchen with a low-rise table and four cushioned chairs that doubles as the living room. The L-shaped layout is open to the bedroom with two sets of double-twin beds pushed together to form two king-sized beds facing each other. The one Euro-style A/C unit was a little under-powered for the space but got us by. The Wifi was very good. There was no coffee maker but there was a Starbucks nearby. The English-speaking staff were very helpful. There were coin-operated washers and driers on the lobby level. The Ueno Train and Ginza Metro stations were a short five-minute walk away as were numerous shops and restaurants.

Food And Drink:

We ate a variety of foods both in restaurants and take-away such as ramen, sushi, Italian, Indian and Australian. These were usually based upon location and convenience and therefore nothing remarkable. It’s easy to find fresh baked breakfast items and we made a habit of this. The way it works in Japan is you start off with a tray and tongs and select what you like and bring it to the cashier. The tap water was safe to drink and the wine selection was decent.

Transportation System:

We flew a two-hour flight on Scoot from Koh Samui to Singapore where we connected with a seven-hour Singapore Airlines flight to Tokyo. We left early in the morning and arrived late at night. The immigration line upon arrival was brutal and took forever. We used a taxi to take us to our hotel. It’s interesting to note that taxi drivers are usually dressed in a suit. We did not rent a car but rather got around via taxis, Uber, Tokyo Metro and various Tokyo Rail Lines. We also did plenty of walking.

Shout-Out:

The language barrier is challenging in Japan as few people speak English. That said, most signs are subtitled in English and enough people speak some English to usually get by. When all else fails, the free Google Translate App saves the day.

For Your Amusement:

When we think of Japan, we think of high-tech. We’ve gotten used to paying with our phones everywhere we travel and take it for granted at home but that wasn’t the case in Tokyo. Credit cards are accepted in many places but cash still gets a lot of play and we had to fall back to cash as our only payment option on several occasions. There are a few cultural differences worth mentioning: napkins are rarely provided but wet naps sealed in plastic are common; public trash (and recycling) bins are hard to come by; electronic toilet seats equipped with water features are the norm. Our daughter had fun testing it out where we stayed.

We’ve shopped in a lot of supermarkets around the world and for us shopping in Japanese supermarkets is the most difficult of all due to a limited selection of recognizable products. So imagine our astonishment when we discovered this favorite snack food indulgence.

You can’t make this stuff up. Is this the Real Thing or what?