Arriving in Tokyo
This my story of visiting Japan, my first ever destination in Asia, in March of 2026. Paul and I spent 15 fabulous days, exploring and eating our way across several prefectures.
Direct flights were $3,000 so we flew through Montreal and I got to enjoy a poutine and a Caesar along the way — something I haven’t been able to find in Boston.
The 14 hour flight left us tired, but we arrived in the evening which beats the typical flight to Europe where you fly all night, only to arrive in the morning and have to painfully force yourself to stay awake the entire day.
Finding our way to the hotel was super simple, Google Maps is very accurate in Japan and the train system is well marked. What did confuse us is what to do with the two train tickets we were handed! There’s a slot to put tickets into the turn-stall, and as it turns out you stack all of your tickets and the machine will process them collectively — spitting out only what you need for the rest of your journey. Sadly, this leaves you with no memorabilia by the end. However, my desire to keep the ticket came in handy when I discovered that you need the ticket upon entry and exit, which I hadn’t anticipated.
While on the train I downloaded a local eSIM, which I used for the remainder of the trip. Jury’s still out whether I needed it, as we had great roaming coverage with our US plans ($15 roaming vs $20 eSIM).
It took ~50 minutes to get to our hotel in Akihabara, which is a lively district in Tokyo that my friend Riley recommended we stay in. Riley and I graduated from Systems Design Engineering together, and he was super helpful in advising us on this trip.
Tokyo rooms are known for being very small — like, “the room is as wide as the bed” kind of small — so ours impressed me. It also came with a massage chair (not pictured because I’m sitting in it).
I still don’t get why so many hotels think that bathroom/shower doors and walls should be glass. The room has two single beds, I could have been travelling with a coworker for all they know!
This is the view out of the shower, right onto a very popular mega store (more on it later).
We grabbed a quick bite to eat and a highball, which is a popular whiskey & soda drink in Japan. Cans sell for as cheap as ¥98 (right now, 1 CAD = ¥115 and 1 USD = ¥160).
And then we called it a night! Well, Paul did; I napped for a few hours before my body refused to sleep any longer and by 5am I gave up trying and figured I’d walk Tokyo in the early Sunday morning hours, while most of the city slept.
Tokyo didn’t feel all too different from many other big cities, except that it was much cleaner.
I walked to the Imperial Palace, only to find out it doesn’t open until 9am. This early in the day, and for a few more hours, most of the people I encountered were runners. What I found cool was that everyone ran around the palace in the counter-clockwise direction. I loved this efficiency and coordination!
I hadn’t planned to be up this early, so I asked Claude for suggestions on where to go and it pointed me towards a few temples. Trains went everywhere, but I was really enjoying exploring the city on foot.
Along the way I stopped by a few 7–11s to grab cash and a smoothie — what turned out to be a daily delight for me. There are a number of pre-packaged smoothie cuts full of fruits/yogurt/leafy greens in the freezer. You grab one, pay for it, and then use a machine to prepare it for you in under a minute.
It’s considered rude to eat or drink while walking, so I would always eat my 7–11 food on the bench outside of it, and then toss my trash within 7–11 since there are basically no public trash bins in Japan (train stations and airports are the exception).
I thought I would find the lack of trash bins annoying, but it was easy to adapt to this change by eating breakfast in the hotel — not bougie hotel breakfast, simply fruit, nuts, cheese, and a pastry that I’d always purchase at a konbini (convenience store, such as 7–11) the night before.
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Filled with fruit, I visited some historic sights! First was the Kanda Myoujin Shrine.
And next up was the extremely popular Senso-ji Temple (which is usually packed with vendors and tourists). I actually returned here with Paul, Riley, and Mari later that day so here’s two side-by-side comparisons of 08:00 vs 14:00.
Going forward, I’ll always be waking up early to explore anything touristy because it was so much more enjoyable and peaceful without the crowds.
At the time, I didn’t know that I’d find fortunes at every touristy place we’d visit, so I shook the box, pulled out a stick, and picked up the appropriate numbered fortune. Mine was alright, Paul’s was “the best”.
My wandering continued, with stops for a breakfast, which included ginger tea — something I started drinking daily after my cycling trip in Belgium & the Netherlands.
I watched some children take baseball way too seriously (even though sumo wrestling is the national sport, baseball out-competes it greatly in popularity).
I thought about attending a capybara cafe, but after doing some research I discovered that Japan has very poor animal welfare laws and I deemed it too risky (of being unethical) to support any business involving animals in the country.
So, being a huge fan of heights, I went up the Tokyo Skytree instead. It was just a little too cloudy to see Mt. Fuji, but the view was amazing nonetheless.
By now, I’d walked 20km (12 miles) and it was almost noon, so felt justified in waking Paul up to explore the city together! Especially since we were meeting Riley and Mari and their friend for lunch in Kappabashi-dori (Kitchen Town), where we planned to purchase a knife and they were looking for pans.
There were hundreds of kitchen stores — I had no idea how you’d distinguish one from the other, or know (as a tourist) which are the more trustworthy ones. We both left empty handed, but it was an enjoyable stroll and our soup & onigiri lunch was delicious.
Since Senso-ji Temple was right there, we visited it too (as you’ve seen from the photos above). This time, all of the vendors were open and I got to try some new-to-me desserts. My favourite (not pictured because I ate it so fast) is dango — skewers of tiny rice flour dumplings with red bean paste on top.
We ended our evening back at Akihabara station, where our hotel was located.
I went back to sleep and Paul explored the Yodobashi Camera for a while. He was a huge fan, as evidenced by this photo and the fact that I got dragged in there the next day!
I don’t know if there’s anything they don’t have in there. However, despite the USD’s strength compared to the Yen, things were more expensive than back home in Boston by about 10%.
One thing they do have, that we don’t, is gachapon — toy capsule dispensers. Each one offers five to eight varieties of a toy, so it’s a bit of a gamble and part of the appeal of the experience.
We each got ourselves a gachapon toy.
That concludes our first 1.5 days in Tokyo, as we were off to Kanazawa over lunch. As Japanese traditions go, you get yourself an ekiben (eki — train, ben — bento) for the journey.
Thanks for reading, please tune in for the next post about Kanazawa!
