Itinerary: Coco Curry, Roppongi Hills, Imperial Palace, Asakusa
Yesterday was Tokyo Disney Sea.
Today was a frustrating day because we don’t have an internal map of Tokyo. It makes where to go when you get out of the metro very hard. Does one turn left or right or straight? Commence 5 minutes of staring at Google Map.
Even though Japan has really good food, the one thing I have not heard them having is good breakfast. Not that I’ve looked very hard. So we had 太陽餅 that I picked up from Taipei airport during our flight transfer for breakfast.
Then I attempted to get the kids to homeschool a bit. Another post on that later. Finally we headed out the door at 11am. With kids, this means the first stop is Coco Curry for lunch. Coco Curry became my favorite restaurant in Japan. Cheap delicious chain curry, with kids meals that comes with sweets, what’s not to like?
Next stop is Roppongi Hills, where you can find a huge spider sculpture. We were there for the Ghibli Exibit. Because I was such a lame late planner, we couldn’t get tickets to the Ghibli Museum. This was the next best thing. Sadly, being a lame, late planner also means that by the time we got to Roppongi Hills, there was a long long long 2 hour line to get in.
My siblings were all for it. Till I reminded them we have 2 young children who’s going to constantly whine, “Are we there yet?”
At this point it’s 3pm. Another 10 minutes of discussing where to go, we finally headed to the Imperial Palace. By the time we finished getting lost and got to the gate, it was 2 minutes past 4pm, when the palace closed. The best I can show is a pic of the signage. 
Another 10 minutes of discussion, we decided to hit Asakusa. Finally! We are amongst tourists! A whole street of food for us to gawk over! There were tons of storefronts selling 人型燒.
Like most other tourists sites we went to, this is what it actually looks like, 人山人海。 Bumping elbows with everyone.
Never been to Asakausa’s Temple at twilight. It was really lovely. The temple at sunset is beautiful. But again, arrived too late and the actual temple was closed.
The kids always love praying and asking for their fortunes. Much more fun to them than just looking at temples.
Like all travelings I do with the children, after Asakusa was more food. We had ice cream then went home and made some open. Even oden looks tastier when cooked in Japan. I loved our AirBNB, there was a Lawson 100 store (many things for 100 yen) 2 blocks away and a 7-11 a block away.
Of course, when at 7-11, one must check out the strange things they have. Didn’t try the Basil Seed drink, but the Pomelo flavored soda was my favorite.
Tips & Observations:
- Next time, I’m going to try and plan out the first 3 days of my trip, with only 1 main activity a day. It always takes awhile to build up the leg stamina and pushing it too far in the beginning makes for grouchy travelers.
- Our AirBNB came with Pocket Wifi which made life easier. I also have T-Mobile, which comes with free International roaming. Totally saves one the trouble of needing internet connection before you get to any wifi connection.
- Japan didn’t have as many convenient store as I thought they would. It’s not ubiquitous like Taipei, where there are usually one every 2-3 blocks, especially around city center.
- When Airbnb’ing, definitely ask about or see where the closest convenient stores are. The closer (1-2 blocks away) the better.
- Serving sizes in Japan are about 2/3 of what is in the US. Even their coke cans are smaller! The serving size of Coco Curry in Taipei was bigger than Japan’s.
