Tokyo: Monsoon Rains, Trains, Blossoms, and Brains

So I cheated. The photo above is not Tokyo, but it could have been a couple of weeks ago. The Japanese adore all things cherry blossom, and although the delicate pink blooms only hang around for a week, Tokyo dwellers go all out. Office workers pour out of skyscrapers to frolic under the blossoms at elaborate picnic parties, we hear.

We witnessed this firsthand farther north in Hakodate, where I took the picture above, smack in the middle of 600 blooming cherry trees – lucky us. And lots more cherry blossom pictures in my next post (I threw one in here to help us imagine what Tokyo might have looked like – also because I have scads of beautiful Hakodate cherry blossom photos).

In Tokyo, we found a few straggler blossoms dripping raindrops here and there, although clever marketers provided fake cherry blossom ‘trees’ so tourists could snap photos (fake it ‘til you make it, I guess). We wandered

down what looked like former Cherry Blossom Lane, soon after slogging through a monsoon – office workers and cherry blossoms long gone, just huge puddles everywhere.

And that was A-ok. We came to love Tokyo, rainstorm and all, under the expert tutelage of our guide Ari with

Tokyo Walking Tours, along with some great new Cruise Critic friends who joined us for our six-hour walking tour. (My theory that you meet the best people through Cruise Critic Roll Call has held up – see my how-to article, here.)

Ari patiently helped us navigate the train and subway

stations, even when the machines ate our tickets because the rainstorm soaked them right through our pockets – that’s how wet we got, even with umbrellas and slickers. The soaking drenched us at the start of our day, but the warm sun emerged later to dry us out and reveal the city of Tokyo in all its glory.

Before I get to the rest of the tour (and the part about Padre eating the forbidden apple), a little more about Tokyo’s trains. Ari taught me that we could master the

trains with a bit more study and practice, even though we were scared off by our almost-disaster in the Yokohama train station (see Two-Heart Attack Train Challenge here).

So I reminded my travel self to take my own fave life advice: Never, never, NEVER give up. I also appreciate Eleanor Roosevelt’s words: “Every day, do one thing that scares you.” – I admit, the Japanese train system did scare me.

But as a teacher trainer, I often taught lessons on what’s called Mindset. The short version: If students think they can’t learn (I’m not smart enough etc.), they live out a self-fulfilling prophecy. If learners believe they can learn if they just work hard enough (and use effective learning strategies), that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy as well – lots of research backs this. So attitude matters, and the best part: Attitudes can be altered, one of the reasons Mindset concepts are quite popular in educational theory circles right now. (Lots of info out there, not all of it good. I like this article if you want a bit more info).

So figuring out those trains made my brain hurt, but it’s do-able, and you don’t have to

learn Japanese to manage it (although you could learn Japanese if you wanted to, of course: Mindset!). My advice: Learn what you can beforehand, and then hire a guide like Ari for a couple hours to show you the ropes. I studied up quite a bit, reading articles and watching Youtube videos, but I really needed the strategy of hands-on experience before it started to make sense to me.

(FYI: Try tutorials on line, for a start – here’s a basic one – but buy your ticket at a JR office, not a ticket booth, if it’s your first time. The clerks will help point you in the right direction).

Tokyo has several different types of trains, color-coded lines, gates and exits (which aren’t the same thing), and only some signage in English, no matter what the guidebooks tell you. And the world underground gets sardine-packed at times, people streaming every which way, cramming themselves onto the trains. And while the Japanese are famous for their helpfulness, I’d say ‘not so much’ when they’re racing for their morning trains, based on our efforts to seek help.

Don’t know about you, but my panic levels rev up when it’s crowded, so when I’m trying to figure things out, crowds do NOT help my brain think. But don’t let a few troubling trains and a million black-suited Japanese office workers scare you away, because Tokyo’s efficient train system is wonderful if you can understand it.

One caution: If you must haul a lot of luggage, I’d only do so on the Narita Airport Express line. The Express got us to Tokyo Station, then Yokohama, for our cruise departure, and had designated storage space for bags. Probably best

to drop luggage off at your hotel before tackling the local trains, so you can nimbly run or cram yourself into a train if need be – a challenging feat if you’re dragging a heavy Samsonite behind you.

We had too much luggage due to our two-month/two-climate itinerary, but next time we’ll bring half what we brought on this trip – we’re learning. I’ve embraced black (it’s all that’s left by now anyway, and you’ll fit right in with all the black-clad Japanese).

So Ari guided us onto the trains and through the morning downpour, where we visited the local market and the National Museum while we waited for

the skies to clear. I particularly appreciated viewing several

Japanese art treasures with my own eyes, after which we hit the trains to the famous Asakusa District. There, we strolled its famous shopping lane and posed for our obligatory tourist shot with our new Cruise Critic friends, under the Kaminari-mon Gate.

After lunching on yummy tempura, we toured the world-famous Ginza shopping district. Then more train riding (we’re getting it by now!), before we took a lovely stroll in the glorious sunshine through Japan’s Imperial Palace Gardens.

One of the smartest things we did in Tokyo: Book our stay

at the Tokyo Station Hotel, right next door to the Imperial Gardens. It’s pricy, but it’s actually attached to Tokyo’s main rail station, making access to the Narita Airport Express (and other regional transportation, like bullet trains) available right out your front door. Built in 1908, the hotel barely survived a devastating 1930’s earthquake and 1940’s WWII air raids, but recent renovations have returned the hotel to its former historical glory.

While it has the longest hotel hallways I’ve ever seen (bring water and food when you leave your room for the main desk), it also has the best toilets, ones that solve a problem many ladies will appreciate.

Frustrated when some guy never puts the toilet seat down? Just buy one of these. The lid goes UP when you stand in front of it, and DOWN when you step away (not to mention all the other things Japanese toilets do….). And I soaked in the gorgeous Japanese tub for an hour after we walked over 11 miles (according to my Fitbit). I definitely get why the Japanese love to soak away their aches and pains in steaming hot baths – very relaxing.

So you thought I forgot about Padre’s forbidden apple, right? Nope – it just fits at the end, because the other thing I really wanted to do in Tokyo was visit the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, not far from Tokyo Station. Its view bar and other restaurants are legendary, and since the sun was out I can just imagine the view!

But that’s all I get to do – imagine it – because Padre made a rookie travel mistake. The day before, we headed out at 4:00 am for Bangkok’s airport to catch our flight, and the hotel provided us with boxed breakfasts. Padre ate the unpeeled apple, and I did not.

Guess who had gastrointestinal troubles by the time we finished our Tokyo tour the next day? Nothing that a bit of medicine couldn’t fix, but the Mandarin bar trek was out, and now I’ll have to come back to Tokyo to complete that bucket list item. (Darn. Tough life, but somebody got to live it, right?).

I still have a few posts to catch up on, but we’re two days and counting to Vancouver disembarkation and the bus ride back to Seattle after two months away – it has gone so fast. One tennis shoe has a big hole in the toe, I’m down to one pair of pants and one shirt, and we’ve started skipping meals on a cruise ship – imagine that! (…..we’re sick of eating.)

And yes, we’d do it all again in a heartbeat – thanks for following along, everyone!

And just a bit more Japanese art, because, well, why not?