Emma's really important newsletter about Tokyo
What we ate, did, purchased and what we'd do different.
Omg, 2 newsletters in a week? This reminds me of the time I was unemployed, and had nothing better to do than start this newsletter. Awh, how far we have come. (editing this 1 day after) Rn, I am in Osaka drinking a coffee getting ready to go get more coffee, with my two besties Freya and Lucas. They followed me to japan and we hung out in Tokyo (I’ll do anything for my fans) and then they also followed me to Osaka? So weird, what a coincidence. Today we are going to do some cool stuff, so much sure you like comment share follow and subscribe so you know about what we do when I post the Osaka newsletter.
After Jo and I finally made it to the New Chitose airport of Sapporo, we flew into Tokyo. A pleasant Jetstar flight, despite sitting in the middle seat (things u do for friends), and we were even gifted a dark kitkat box and also a green tea. The american dudes behind us were loudly confused as to why they didn’t get one, and for once neither Jo or I had answers. Some people got them, some did not. We deserved it though. We traversed through the sea of people, quickly collected our bags and hustled onto the train into TOKYO CITY. Huzzah, we had sorta made it to our second stop! We were staying a little out of main Shinjuku, which we learnt was also Korea town which answered our question as to why was there so many KBBQ restaurants.
Next time, I probs wouldn’t have stayed here. Almost everywhere is busy in tokyo, but I think for logistical reasons I would have preferred staying on the Shibuya side of town, but again out of the main bit. It’s just closer to the bars we personally wanted to suss. And the trains stop at midnight anyways, so worth being kinda closer to these spots.
We awoke the next morning, and after a perfect and fantastic coffee at Swamp, we went to 7-11 and scranned. Simply OBSESSED with the 7-11 smoothies!!!!! I had a green smoothie almost everyday cause it made me feel like I was eating veggies. You basically buy one of the smoothie cups, they have banana, berry, coffee, green etc etc, go to the smoothie machine and scan the barcode and put it in a machine, it blends it up and BAM an awesome and cheap smoothie. Honestly was a highlight of the mornings. That paired with some of those pre boiled eggs? Protein and nutrition. We also tried one of the strawberry sandwiches. Good.
Then we got into the day and from here it kinda flopped tbh. We wanted to go to The National Museum of Modern Art, which is a really cool building. Honestly, would skip. 1 thing I didn’t reallllyyy consider is actually looking properly what exhibitions are on at museums/galleries and stuff. Because I assumed they’d have a permanent collection available to look at and then another one too, which isn’t always the case. So basically we go there and could only see one super short thing for free. Which was lame cause it was a trek. The other galleries nearby were also closed lollll. So not off to a great start…. but thats fine. THINGS CLOSE ON MONDAY!!!! We didn’t really plan this into out day but its ok.
So then to fix this we went shopping and had a matcha tiramisu! Pretty tasty. Through Shibuya is a lot of them iconic vintage shops, which we perused most of them but honestly, wasn’t for us. The back streets are really cute and we just wandered into some cute shops. With all the higher end second hand shops I just felt like if I wouldn’t really consider buying it normally, it’s probs still out of my price range lolzzzz. Which was the general consensus for me! Bit of a shame cause I was ready to thrift but I think it just put me off it for the trip really and I only bought 1 top the whole time. Maybe deep down I am just developing better self control. It’s cool to look at, but cbs spending half my holibobs money on a bag. We really liked this shop called Bob’s Box. Then we had an awesome and amazing lunch for a mere 10aud. Jo got a wallet, we drank some wine, ate cheese, then met some friends for drinks at this random whisky bar called King Biscuit lol.
Next day. New gallery. More sights. We headed over to the National Museum of Modern Art, which I quite enjoyed. Pretty cool stuff and a few exhibitions to see. Would recommend. Of course, only after a coffee. Then we walked through to the Imperial Palace which was random and interesting and we saw cherry blossom!!!! Then we trekked all the way to Ginza for the best sandwich of my life, from Grill Bon. Wow. Nothing more to say. We had the best dinner EVER at Nakame no Teppen Honten which was so fucking dank. So cute, highly recommend. We over ordered but we did well to put it away. We wanted to go out after but everything was closed cause we had dinner too late :(
Last day for JO! We basically just shopped again, after finalising what we were after. Some more perusing through Shinjuku, more 7-11 smoothies, we went into Beams and got some cool things. I tried on a pair of shoes which I now own, Jo got a super cool tee. Naturally we just did a lot of walking this day. We also went to the cutest frickin pottery shop EVER!!! The sweetest man owns it and has been running it for over 70 years. 💳💥💳💥💳💥💳💥💥💥 Take my money.
〒169-0072 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Okubo, 1 Chome−16−26 楽生苑. Please go it’s so cute. Then we got home, I ate snacks, Jo left for melbourne. 😓 Luckily, some newsletter subscribers were also in town and so naturally we went for sushi train. Insert Freya and Lucas!
Sushi train - tangle bar - spincoaster bar. Everywhere was sick of us by the end. Spincoaster bar, we hijacked the music and ate all their snacks. Was awesome.
I had an awesome morning. I went to the Photography Museum (again didn’t check what was on) and then walked through Ebisu. Nice streets and boujee shops like Kapital and Margiela. From there - I went Kyu Asakura house. Really sweet and recommend. And then walked along the meguro river and went to some shops. Cow Books, Kindal (success for once), wanted to go to Carboots to shop but it was closed. It’s such a cute area to just wander and I think Darcy also recommended this to me. As well as Onibus coffee, which I didn’t get to this time around. Had a coffee then it randomly snowed!= for about 30 seconds. After this I was getting tired and hungry and decided to not fix either of those things, and instead go to do more shopping. Braved Shibuya again to get my shoes in the right size, attempted to go to Koenji for more thrifting and got so overwhelmed from hunger, that I didn’t do much shopping there! I always forget to just chill and then end up running out of energy. Koenji is a cute area to walk around and saw a few shops but nothing for me sadly.
Fakkkkk cue delayed hangover next. It hit me so hard that when I got back to my airbnb, I was feeling so unwell I had to get uber eats for dinner. Grim. Next day, I went to OSAKA!
Pic 9 is how my back feels after so much walking.
So from my learnings and experiences, this is what I would do slightly diff and what we rated.
Spend a day in each section of city PROPERLY. I have a tendency to go back and forth.
Do activities based on their location duh! We did do this but i recon we could do it better next time. Depends what you wanna do/see where you’ll start out of course. I WOULD, stay closer to Shibuya = closer to restaurants and bars I wanted to visit.
Chiyoda City/Ginza day;
Go to the National Museum of Modern Art, then walk around the Imperial Palace. Even if u cbs with history, it’s a nice walk. We saw cherry blossom which was mint. From there, go to Ginza and get an awesome katsu sando. We went to Grill Bon. Expensive, but worth every penny cause we were starving. They close at around 3pm for a break, you can get takeaway. ALSO CASH ONLY! I wanted to check out the Okuno building but we didn’t really have time this day, but it looks very cutesy and artsy. Ginza Graphic Gallery also looks cool. From there we went into the biggest uniqlo building ever. 12 stories, overall kinda mid you probs don’t need to go. I then walked through Dover St pretending to be rich, but also kinda boring if you can’t buy anything. Ginza is an interesting area to walk around and oogle at the rich people shops but you don’t need to spend heaps of time here imo.
Jo had limited time so we packed in a lot of stuff, but I reckon it’s probs better to do less in a day, and if you can add an extra day or 2. 6-7 days would be plenty for me to do what I wanted and also not feel rushed to pack everything in ya feel. You could also do day trips then if you really wanted. But also, you can’t do everything!
Important things to know:
Suica is ur bestie for trains and PT. Get in on apple wallet.
Bring cash everywhere.
Make sure you actually check if stuff is open lol.
Stop and eat lunch otherwise you’ll get hangry.
Trains r mint once you figure them out.
There are no bins on the street.
Everyone has steeze, bring ur best.
People actually have no spatial awarness it’s pretty insane to me. For a place that has so many amazing things and rules in place that people follow (see; no jaywalking EVER), people legit act crazy as soon as the lights go. It’s a dog eat dog world. Act strong and confident and people will unfortunately still bump you around and not apologise. Same goes for in a train station. Dog eat dog world.
~~~ Our understanding/guide to shopping ~~~~~
In increasing price range = Bookoff, Kindal, Ragtag, 2nd street + more expensive designer stores. There’s obvs more around but these r the main chains. Be prepared to DIG through these stores tbh. Still really expensive in Tokyo city. Go out for more bargains. We didn’t really venture out far enough to find said bargains and honestly, couldn’t be faked. Not sure what but I had an allergy to shopping on this trip.
The thrifting/shopping is hugeeeeely seasonal. They basically had only winter clothes and coats galore, so keep in mind what season it is when you go over. Also like lokey limited sizes in a lot of the womens stuff sadly.
SWAG asf book stores everywhere. Books magazines etc.
All the department stores are cool. We liked beams too and there’s heaps around, range of different stuff depending what ur searching for.
Don’t go to Don Quijote unless absolutely necessary. Omg it’s insane. Some crazy shit in there.
We (me) had lots of questions pop up during this quick stint of 5 days in Tokyo. Some were -
1, which side of the street do you walk on? I assume left, but it’s really difficult to tell tbh. In some parts of the station arrows say walk up stairs on the left, in others they say walk up on the right?!?!?!?!? SO how does this translate to the street? I’m just tryna be respectful. One observation made is that many people have little - no spatial awarness so if this pissess you off, be warned. Also, people walk pretty slow here, s be willing to slow down or make your way to the front of the crossing.
2, we were talking about the mass number of French restaurants/shops. metro. Super random and was not expecting. So we googled, and from our And this is more of a fun fact than question, but thanks to chatgpt - the relationship between Japan and France has evolved over time. Chat’s simple version: France helped Japan modernize, WWII hurt their ties, but now they’re great friends! 🇯🇵🤝🇫🇷. Cute. We then read that the French even introduced the metro system to Japan! Which makes a lot of sense as many of their stations have the same sorta vibe, style and system. Even design aspects. One thing that is different, is these stations in Japan, are fucking huge. Like there’s about 50000 stations and different sections in one bit! Not only is there about 10 different entrances and exits, if you go through the wrong one ur fkd, but many of these stations connect to many others, like an ant nest.
Also really cute, the train stations have bird noises for visually impaired people to know where stairs are. So smart.
WOW. I feel like after Tokyo, you need a 2nd holiday to de-compress. One thing I didn’t end up doing which I regret but also…. don’t is Dr. Stretch. professional body stretching. Needed that so bad. But honestly not cheap for the first time, and I’d rather see Paris at home xo
As prior mentioned, after this, I went to Osaka! Osaka… coming soon maybe.
Ok bye! I’m so tired x :)
Take a shot everytime I said cute.
