Kichijoji is so great! It’s got a massive shopping arcade that welcomes you to the neighborhood, and with Corey and May’s flat being right on the park, you’ve also got a calming, green retreat. The girls and I went right down to the swan boats for some fun! When I needed to get more yen from the ATM, I also found the Family Mart with its striped socks and haven’t looked back!
We had our last Toulumne family meal at Warayaki Katsuo Tataki Myojin Maru for a set course of straw-grilled bonito. Eula and I also tried a salty lemon souchu highball that was unlike anything I’ve had before. The fried whale wasn’t much to write home about but glad I tried it. Corey, May and I stayed still after dinner with a cocktail at home.
Day 10: Kichijoji (07April)
The girls were up early and ready for action! The mission today was to get personalised hanko stamps and do a round of purikura in an arcade!
The hanko stamp is a personalised seal that Japanese people use for official documents like contracts and bank accounts. I worked with May to pick out kanji for my kids as I wanted their hanko to include both hiragana and the kanji for their first names. The gentleman the Lemon-An shop was thrilled to have our order of nine stamps (!) with various designs and fonts. I was so pleased with my efforts to communicate with him in a mix of Japanese and English to ensure all the names and designs were ready in 48 hours before we left.
Purikura is a hyper-photobooth. Everyone can add digital designs, artwork and stamps to the images before printing. We didn’t know this booth had a lens though that featured anime doll eyes and bright red lips. It was pretty creepy. I’m sure I selected the incorrect settings from the start. I think Emiko ended up with the final copy of the prints so check with her!
For lunch, we had the famous Satou menchi-katsu meatballs as an appetizer before curry at Curry Shop C&C.
The rapid train made it easy to get from Kichijoji to Shinjuku but the walk to our accommodation took ages because the girls wanted to stop at every vending machine to find another grape Fanta!? Miya’s crew had a local meal and got ready for their cat temple trip the following day.
That evening I was able to meet Corey’s colleagues at Andy’s Shin Hinomoto. The owner has a license to buy directly from Toyosu fish market so the crab was delicious and the fresh grapefruit souchu highball was a treat.
Dinner was a fantastic meal that started with a sashimi platter and concluded with a warm bowl of ochazuke! The fish plates, nikujaga, and the tamago with dashi were all delicious as you can see. We couldn’t get enough of the sake being poured from a bamboo carafe that made sounds like a rainstick!
It was an incredibly blustery night so to keep out of the wind a bit longer, we finished the night at Baccarat, a bar with exquisite crystal glassware.
Day 11: Ghibli Museum and final family day (08April)
Unky D Corey secured six local tickets to Studio Ghibli today. The girls and I were part of the combo to go to the museum along with Eula’s crew and Bachan. The sun was shining against the brightly painted walls as we waited for the gates to open. The girls were excited to see the Totoro stained glass in the entry way.
I was glad to experience the museum through their eyes. There is always a featured short film in the museum’s theater. It was very sweet. The story was about a group of nursery kids building a boat and then imagining they were sailing to find a whale. I could translate… a fraction of it ‘live’. Fortunately, Bachan bought us the book so I can practise reading in Japanese at my own pace when we get home. We were mesmerized by the downstairs exhibit describing how tiny movements of a still object or character over time create moving pictures.
The kids climbed the neko bus and Livi spread Marvin’s ashes at the giant robot on the roof. Bachan read about the sister duo that created the short film and we couldn’t leave without a trip to the gift shop.
Margaret and Corey enjoyed Inokashira Park’s warmth when we were at the museum and bought us musubi for lunch. Unky Corey met us to picnic, too. I felt so fortunate to have these moments under the thousands of sakura blooms.
Miya’s crew met up with us in the park after their trip to the Neko temple. They’ll have to fill you in on the details!
We rode the swan boats as a team and had immaculate shave ice (sakura blossom, raspberry and strawberry milk flavours!) It’s a much more delicate ice and flavor than what I’ve tried in Hawaii. We devoured the treats with just six spoons as the shop owner was reluctant to have people share their orders. Clearly, a minimal number of spoons couldn’t stop us!
After a bit of shopping in Kichijoji’s arcade, Corey and Sachi went to a tonkatsu dinner and I was able to have sushi at Erica’s rec, Tenkazushi, with my mom, Saya and Margaret. The fish was so oishii and the bill was just 18 quid for all of our plates! Unreal.
This was also the night we had to give our final hugs as the Washington/CA group was departing the next day.
Day 12: Don Quijote and Shinjuku Gyoen, and our final meal (09April)
I organised a morning trip to Don Quijote which was amazingly just 6 minutes from our house. We found so much more than what we needed but at least we could walk back and drop our stuff before heading out in search of children’s yukata.
We were told it was too early in the season to buy yukata so we took a break from shopping and strolled Shinjuku National Gyoen. I remember it being an oasis in the middle of a crowded, noisy city when I studied abroad and the gardens lived up to my memory this second time around as well.
We finished the day with a hearty pasta dinner on the ground floor of Kinokuniya and packed up all of the shopping we did earlier in the day.
I was glad to see Sayuri and Luka one more time this evening (not sure where the pic is!) We picked them up at Hotel Gracery- the hotel known as the Godzilla hotel. As we searched for a restaurant outside of the madness of Kabuki-cho, Kura sushi’s illuminated sign lured us in for the second time this trip. We caught up over sushi and beers and knew that future visits to Japan would only be a matter of time.
Day 13: Return to London (10April)
As we checked out of our accommodation, I knew the culture shock would be real…starting with the toilets! Vacation was over! It was a harsh reality to face but Japan still took care of us in the final hours. I found children’s yukata and geta at the airport (!?) as well as little bits for an Easter egg hunt, scheduled for the day after we’d return. Though our flight was delayed two hours, the girls were great on the flight. I organised a few thoughts for this blog post and looked forward to the fact that we still had two more days before starting back to school and work. Love the foresight in my planning on that one.
It feels surreal that the trip finally happened! We took 13 people to Japan to celebrate Bachan’s 75th birthday and the memories we made will last a lifetime.
A few travel notes for my future-self also align with what other travel blogs have shared:
1) QR codes for immigration: Complete the pre-customs process for adults and kids to get QR codes for every traveller. We spent less time in line at immigration because we did this two days before.
2) e-Sim is a win! Set up the eSim option and turn it on at the airport before flying so it’s already turned on when landing (completed whilst waiting at the airport gate with airALO). Look up how much data you need. The only downside is that my ‘phone number’ comes up as my email when switching to e-sim – and I don’t exactly understand how this impacts those receiving my texts but we used lots of Whatsapp and there wasn’t a problem.
3) Suica cards: load up the adult Suica cards in your apple wallet /e-wallet prior to travel (1 day before). I wanted to buy the Suica cards for the kids and the best place to do this is at the airport. You need cash to do this. I skipped getting the Suica cards for the kids and just ended up buying tickets at the station each time we rode, which meant leaving a bit earlier to travel to ensure we could find the ticket booths but would get the Suica cards at the airport next time for the kids.
l o n d o n f o r r e s t 