Time Travel to Asia

For those of you not following my brother’s blog [http://kimchiquest.blogspot.com]—this past August he moved to Seoul, South Korea to teach English. Thus, my younger brother and I decided to visit him at the half way point of his year-long adventure. And while we were in the neighborhood, we decided to give Tokyo a visit as well—because really, why not? It’s very lovely there this time of year.


World’s Largest Metropolitan? Check.

Why Tokyo? (Besides my rock solid reasoning and fall back excuse for most trips of “I haven’t been there yet”) Sasha (my younger brother) adores it. We all have lists of places to visit before we die; Tokyo tops Sasha’s and here was this golden opportunity to visit.

A few fun facts about Tokyo:

• World’s largest metropolitan area with a population of 32.5 million people.

o That’s 4,049 people per square kilometer!!!

o The area of Tokyo is 0.6% of the total area of Japan

• Translated, “Tokyo” means “Eastern Capital”

• Tokyo is made up of 23 wards

• One of 3 world finance command centers (NYC & London are the other two)

• Yields the largest metropolitan GDP in the whole world

• 1992-2006, Tokyo was the ranked as the most costly city in the world

• Japan has the highest number of vending machines per capita, roughly 1 for every 23 people

• Normal Japanese kitchens don’t have ovens

o Would not go over well with me


We flew out 3pm from the US and landed in Japan at 5pm. No, our flight didn’t take two hours (there’s an ocean between the US & Asia). We flew out the 18th of March and arrived the 19th of March. Curse you International Date Line for making me lose a day!

Friends (and my very trusty travel book) told me getting around Tokyo would be fairly easy and extremely safe.

It was!


We grabbed our bags, breezed through customs and went down to the train station. I’m not going to lie, but looking at the whole Tokyo train/metro situation is as if you were looking at your very dear and sweet cousin’s preschool doodles. She loves color, and she likes to fill the page. The whole page.

Arriving at our hostel took little effort. Unpacking, I met a Finnish student in my dorm, who had been studying at university in northern Japan the last 5 months. In the lobby, we also met a Parisian boy on holiday and decided to grab some grub.



Please note that I don’t eat seafood. Can’t. My body can’t even hold down a fish oil supplement let alone actual seafood. Japan, on the other hand, is seafood heaven. (Not that the Pacific Northwest is lacking in fresh salmon supply or anything). The Finnish girl didn’t eat meat and the two guys in our group were starving and wanted something to eat and that something now. We wandered about until finally settling for a regular Japanese mom and pop shop. Full of power suit wearing men and women attacking their plates while joyously discussing (as it appeared to me) fascinating subjects, the place looked solid.

Ok. Lie. Only partly though.
The place had pictures of its food on the menu and despite the Finnish girl’s decent Japanese, she hesitated ordering without seeing an example of the food product we were about to ingest. Sasha, Jeremy (French) and I ordered by pointing to pictures, and since not all items were in picture form, our choices were limited. The Finnish girl ordered in Japanese. And she generously made sure my dish would be fish free.
A plate arrived. Ah, Jeremy’s dish. Soon after, a second arrived. But who’s was it? We decided it most looked like something Sasha ordered. Sasha began to scarf it down. More time went on and the third dish came through.
Oh no. This one had shrimp. Sasha looked up from his near demolished plate somewhat sheepishly. He had ordered the shrimp and was nearly done eating my meal. Not to worry though, no food went to waste. He ate his shrimp meal as well. I found the nearest 7-11.

*7-11’s are everywhere in Tokyo. The street fronts are littered with them. Even though much of the merchandise is comparable to the states, Japanese versions carry packed sushi lunches, seafood, packaged baked goods like sweet rolls and peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and most importantly, banana Kit-Kat bars (fly to Japan and buy one, they are that good).