When we landed, I was definitely coming from Atlanta instead of New York as getting off the airport and walking through the terminal had a southern pace. I whipped by the other passengers, went through immigration, and zipped through customs with my Visit Japan QR code that I had setup online.
I quickly found the Keikyū airport train which brings you straight into the city and I got off at Shimbashi train station. After about an 8 minute walk, I arrived at the Ibis Styles Ginza, an Accor hotel, where I met my mom and brother. I was at the hotel in under 40 minutes unlike my mom and brother who apparently hit a lot of traffic coming from Narita on the airport bus yesterday. It’s one of the busiest times of the year and why the hotels are like double the price. Nonetheless, the Ibis Styles was clean with slippers and pajamas, and of course a fancy Japanese toilet. Justin was off to see an old high school friend, and I napped after a shower.
Around 7 pm, we motivated and walked to the Uniqlo Flagship Store. Ginza is known as a shopping and high-end sushi neighborhood. The Uniqlo flagship had come up in my Instagram algorithms and there were a lot of foreigners designing customized shirts. My mom and I tried on a few pairs of pants in the dressing room stalls where you take off your shoes and they swiffer the floor between each patron. Gotta love Japan for their cleanliness and etiquette!
As many know I pin lots of restaurants and create travel maps, so we walked over to one of my ramen pins nearby. We saw a long line in front of this place and stood in line:
But then I realized that wasn’t the place I had pinned, so we switched to an even longer line next door:
It’s called Tokyo Abura Soba which means oil noodle and is a soupless ramen. Apparently, it has 30% less calories and 50% less sodium than traditional ramen. We order and pay in advance and we’re given these bibs for the potential oil splatter:
After our soupless ramen, we walked to a 7 Eleven where I was looking for the Crême Brûlée ice cream that also came up in my Instagram. I showed my mom the instant smoothies and other clever snacks - convenience stores here are quite resourceful. I also was able to collect cash from the ATM after having failed at the Mizuho ATM while in the ramen line. Apparently 7 Eleven ATMs are very foreign bank card friendly. We enjoyed the ice cream as it cleansed the palate after our dinner:
I was pretty proud to have navigated the self-checkout and we used my mom’s transit card in her phone to cover both dinner and dessert. I had loaded on all our iPhones the Japanese transit card in Apple Wallet. I added Pasmo as that’s what I had used in 2017 but had returned the original card to retrieve my card deposit; but for whatever reason, my mom and my brother could only add Suica. Either way, Pasmo and Suica are interchangeable and apparently there’s a chip shortage so they are encouraging the e-cards. I had used it seamlessly on the airport train and my family used theirs when visiting Sensoji temple in Asakusa today. Here’s the screenshot of how to add the card:
I’m pretty proud that I managed to get up from my nap and in an effort to kick the imminent jet lag. Back in 2017, I slept through dinner when I landed in Tokyo. Here are my posts from my trip back then for fun:
http://leadingalifeofcyn.blogspot.com/search/label/Tokyo
What a long day, but it’s wonderful to be back here and appreciating the cleanliness and etiquette of Japan, and being with the family!
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