Japan / Thailand Part I: Intro

Mon 1/5 - Tues 1/6

Let me start by saying how this trip came about. I’ve got a longtime friend (we met in junior high school band class) who, for reasons I’ll touch on later, has chosen to spend his retirement years living in Thailand, and I decided to pay him a visit. I mean, how cool is the idea of visiting a place halfway around the world and touring it with an old friend who lives there? Let me mention as an aside that when I say “halfway around the world”, I mean it literally, as Bangkok is just about (within 200 miles) exactly on the opposite side of the earth from DC. Also, as long as I was flying all the way across the Pacific, I decided to also visit Japan, a country which has been on my bucket list. So that was the genesis of an itinerary of just short of three weeks: a little more than a week in each of Japan and Thailand, plus travel days. The trip was a great success and went off almost without a hitch, except that it failed in satisfying its original motivation; whereas Peter and I had planned to spend the whole week of my visit to Thailand together, due to unforeseeable circumstances we wound up spending only two days together. 

But let’s start with getting there. In reality, “getting there is half the fun” is never really true for air travel. My trip started the Monday morning after New Year’s, which actually helped, since the airport was empty; I guess everyone had flown home from their holiday travels the day before, the Sunday of New Year’s Day weekend. I got there with plenty of time to spare and so I figured I’d go hang out at a lounge. My international ticket entitled me to access at the Virgin Airways lounge, which was near the gate, so I went there. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a sucky lounge with food options limited to sad bagels and sad cookies, though to their credit they did have decaf coffee. I decided to ditch that lounge and go to my usual CapitalOne lounge, which is located just on the air side of security. Let me tell you, airports are well designed for one way flow of people, for example, through security and to the gates. It’s much harder to swim upstream and make your way back to the security checkpoint once you’re at the gate, but after a few wrong turns and with the help of a few security personnel (who for the most part spoke less English than the typical person I encountered in Japan), I made it to the CapitalOne lounge, where I feasted on their tapas-like breakfast food, accompanied by a fresh decaf Americano.

It’s been twenty years since my last trip to Asia and I had forgotten how long fourteen hours on a plane can be. I had a Premium Economy seat, which offered a humane amount of room, decent ability to recline, and a footrest, and through happy chance the seat next to me was empty. My hope was to go to sleep right after the initial meal service to try and get more onto Tokyo time. In fact, for the first time ever I had asked my doctor for something to take to help me sleep since I knew I was going to be trying to radically change my sleep cycle. I took the pill, but it really didn’t do anything, and I slept only fitfully. Once at the other end I did a little online research and discovered the doctor had prescribed a 0.5 mg dose when the usual dose for insomnia is 1-2 mg with dosages going as high as 4 mg. I’m sorry, but micro-dosing sleeping pills just didn’t do it for me. I’ll be taking two pills on the flight home,

Also, I had ordered the “Asian/Hindu Vegetarian” meal for my whole itinerary, which was the only vegetarian option offered on my part United, part ANA code share collection of flights. This got me a somewhat perplexed look from the cabin crew on every leg, since I don’t look particularly Asian or Hindu.

 “Asian/Hindu Vegetarian”, it turns out, sometimes, but not always, means vegan. My first AVML (as the food package was marked) was one of the vegan ones, and dinner appeared to be just a collection of whatever vegetable side dishes they had available, without a discernible main course. It consisted of vegetables with a salad and a side dish of vegetables, plus hummus, vegetables and rice. Still, it was all quite fresh and more enjoyable than typical janky airline food. The flight’s second meal included a vegetarian curryish thing, but was still primarily a mishmash of vegetables. Some time in between the two main meals, while I was sleeping (despite my underdosing on sleeping pills I did sleep a little), a half sandwich of lettuce and tomato on whole wheat appeared on my armrest. So, I had a most healthful airline food experience, and for fourteen hours I watched TV episodes, started compiling a list of songs Great Northern played in 2025 so we could see where we have room to expand our repertoire (I have all the set lists on my iPad), stared at the flight progress map, read, plus had enough periods of sleep to not feel completely wiped when I got to Tokyo.

Wrapped up for sleep in eye mask, face mask, and neck pillow

Example Asian Vegetarian Meal (AVML)

The ANA safety video includes Pokémon

From Haneda Airport I took the Limousine Bus service which for a reasonable twelve bucks took me straight to Shibuya Station, from which it was an easy walk to my hotel. The Shibuya Scramble, supposedly the world’s busiest intersection, is a tourist attraction in itself, but I found myself crossing it not for the spectacle but because it was the way Google Maps took me to my hotel. Crossing the Scramble became part of my daily routine, to the point where I started grumbling about the darn “tourists” clogging the intersection as they took pictures and videos while crossing. I’ll just say that the Shibuya Scramble is like Times Square run through an Instagram Bladerunner filter. In fact, all of Shibuya felt like an amped up version of Bladerunner.

As I walked to my hotel I encountered an aspect of Japanese culture which I had read about before the trip. Japanese cities are very clean. There’s almost no litter; however there are also no public garbage cans. Everyone takes responsibility for their own trash, toting it around until they get to a place where they can dispose of it. While researching the trip I had read multiple warnings to bring little trash bags for daily trash (also soap and small towels for public bathrooms, which rarely have both and often have neither). Anyway, as I exited the train station at Shibuya I pulled my gloves out of my pocket, inadvertently dropping the face mask I had used during the flight, which I had stuffed into my jacket pocket (since there had been no trash cans at the airport in which to have thrown it out!). Suddenly I felt a tap on my arm. Another pedestrian pointed out to me that I had dropped some litter on the ground. Not angrily or aggressively, just pointing it out because it was obviously something I’d want to know about and correct. I thanked the woman and retrieved my mask from the ground. I will add this helpful citizen was not Asian - it was some Anglo who clearly had absorbed the local customs. I guess it takes village to keep a city of 33 million people spotless.

My hotel was very clean and nice, and well-situated. The room was barely bigger than the bed and two people would have to really get along well to stay in a room of that size together, but it was perfect for one person - and was, in fact, bigger than the hotel room I’d had in Amsterdam a few years ago.

Once checked in I stumbled back out into Shibuya and, being too tired for much experimentation, got an eggplant pizza at an Italian restaurant (Italian food turns out to be very popular in Tokyo!) I had passed on my way to the hotel. Super thin crust and definitely better than, say, Domino’s. Then I went back to my room and passed out for the night.

My cozy Tokyo hotel room

The room included this cool Yakuta-style robe. Bring me my samurai sword!

A first look at Shibuya

Weds 1/7

My plan for my first full day in Japan was to start the trip with something emblematic of the craziness of Tokyo - but with something which wasn’t too strenuous since I figured I would be be jet-lagged. Tokyo is a modern tourist’s paradise, full of wacky experiences seemingly designed to be Instagrammable. That’s not my kind of travel, but when I saw the opportunity to tour Shibuya by go-kart, I couldn’t resist, particularly since it included dressing up in a kigarumi for the ride. It’s all very Japanese, and apparently a common tour these days (inspired by Mario Kart, methinks), as I saw groups of kigu-clad go-karters cruising Shibuya all day and evening during my time there.

The go-kart tour office was close to the hotel but while walking there I discovered that Tokyo, or at least the Shibuya district, doesn’t have a street grid; rather, it’s a maze of little streets and alleyways which GPS doesn’t handle very well. Add in jet-lag fog and I got a little lost but nonetheless found the place in plenty of time. The tour group was just four of us - me, plus an Australian family (dad with two college age daughters). It was a blast. The go-karts can cruise up to 30 MPH and we did have some chances to open them up as we cruised the streets of Shibuya, zipping through traffic. It wasn’t a guided tour, in that there was no way for our leader to communicate with the rest of us beyond hand signals indicating direction and formation, but we did get a good overview of the area. 

I passed a church which interestingly had "Shalom" in Hebrew on its facade

Shibuya is quiet in the early morning. I was able to get a good photo of the Hachiko statue without people crowding it. 

Ready to roll

Go-karting

I had booked the earliest Go-Karting slot of the day and so there was plenty of day left ahead of me as I relinquished my Eeyore kigu after our hour of karting was done. I next headed to one of my must-see destinations, Chi-Chi’s Shakedown Street, a Grateful Dead themed store. Tokyo doesn’t have much of a Deadhead scene (though there’s some - there are even a couple of tribute bands like the excellent Warlocks of Tokyo), and so anyone running a Dead-themed store there isn’t in it for the big bucks. The store is tiny but is easily spotted by the heavily decorated, sticker covered VW Microbus parked on the sidewalk out front. The merchandise is mostly vintage hippie gear plus souvenir T-shirts.

The owner’s English isn’t very good, but we were able to talk a little bit. I asked him how he got into the Dead, and he said that in his younger days he traveled around, ran into Deadheads, “smoked a lot”, and got into “hippie music”. I had brought a Great Northern sticker with me as a gift for him and was thrilled to death when he immediately went outside and affixed it to the microbus. 

Also, the guy may be an old hippie running an anachronistic hippie shop, but he is very up to the minute insofar as social media goes. Before I left he had me sign his guestbook and made sure I included my Instagram handle (which I had to look up, since I rarely use Instagram). I noted that he almost immediately posted on Instagram, tagging the band!

Chi-Chi's

Pointing to hte Great Northern sticker on the Chi-Chi's bus

From Chi-Chi’s I continued to nearby Setagaya-Kitazawa. I had seen this neighborhood described as the “Brooklyn of Tokyo”, which is true if your idea of Brooklyn is focused on the Williamsburg hipster part of the borough. Setagaya-Kitazawa has a lot of cafes and vintage clothing stores. I was initially excited about the vintage shopping, since in the U.S. such stores can be great for funky stage wear, but it turns out that the shops in this neighborhood focus mostly on preppy American clothing - we’re talking J. Crew, Ralph Lauren, and such. I guess that’s what’s in fashion right now among Japanese hipsters. While I will say that the shops are all more carefully curated and better organized than any vintage clothing shop I’ve ever seen in the U.S. (that level of organization is characteristically Japanese), I really didn’t come to Tokyo to buy a vintage Virginia Tech sweatshirt (there was one!). I left empty-handed, but did manage to successfully procure another meal in Japan. Food had been one of my big worries pre-trip, since the Japanese diet is full of things such as pork and shellfish which I don’t eat, not to mention odd octopus-stuffed-with-a-quail-egg sorts of dishes which are far beyond my ken. It was my good fortune in Setagaya-Kitazawa to stumble on a tiny vegan cafe, where I had a delicious vegan curry with mixed vegetables and soup. As with many of my meals in Japan a good bit of it was cooked on the spot as oppose to being ladled out from trays of pre-cooked food languishing under heat lamps, as would have been the case in the U.S. Also, what we would call a "combo", the Japanese call a "set" (I saw this terminology in Thailand as well). So I didn't get curry; I got the curry set.

Japan seems to favor tiny shops over the kind of mega-establishments we have in the U.S. The vegan cafe had a grand total of two tables. It was situated in an artsy gallery sort of complex and I guess they get a certain amount of business from people grabbing a quick bite as they stroll the area, plus maybe in the warmer weather they have more tables outside, but how does a two table restaurant stay in business?

"Stealie" spotted in a vintage clothing store

My lunch spot

Delicious vegetarian curry "set"

Little plaza where the restaurant was located

After lunch I hustled back to Shibuya, as I had a 3:20 PM timed ticket for Shibuya Sky, a rooftop observatory with a great view of the city. I had read that sunset is spectacular up there and I had tried to grab tickets for sunset the minute that date went on sale. 3:20 was the closest I could get - not really too bad, since it being winter that’s only an hour before sunset and there’s no limit to how long you can stay once you’re there. In keeping with my trip goals of doing things in depth, rather than rushing around to check the box on attractions, waiting for sunset at Shibuya Sky was a great introduction to slower, focused touring. I walked around the rooftop and looked all around the city and then settled in with others who were clearly hanging out waiting for sunset, and got to focus on the sunset as it transpired minute by minute. The view was striking, as promised. I took lots of pictures, as did everyone else (Japan, right?). Finally, the sun ducked behind thick, low clouds as it neared the horizon, bringing sunset to a close. I was a little cold by this point (they don’t let you wear carry loose stuff or even wear a hat on the roof!) and I headed inside, where I continued to enjoy the view as the colors faded and the lights of the city came on. Of course there’s a cafe, a gift shop, and a bar where a woman in a kimono was DJ’ing tunes. I browsed in the gift shop by didn’t buy anything, Then I headed out. A pretty introduction to Tokyo.

Tokyo from Shibuya Sky

Up on the Roof

As the sun set

Another sunset scene

Back inside, this woman was spinning tunes

You might think my day would have been done at that point - the sun was down, and I was within a few blocks of my hotel. But no. I had one more stop to make. I have to admit - I rechecked my notes just now - did I really do all this on my first day? Yeah, I did. When I was planning the trip I noticed that Tokyo has a street of musical instrument stores in the Ochanomizu neighborhood, which I thought could be a fun place to check at. While I researched the my itinerary the old-fashioned way (using Google and YouTube, that is), towards the end of my process I did feed my draft itinerary into AI to get its take on whether what I had planned was feasible and get some notes on timing, restaurant recommendations in each locale, etc. AI noted that what Ochanomizu was full of was *guitar* stores, something which wouldn’t have been all that interesting for a non-guitarist like me. Instead, it suggested what it said was a cool keyboard store in Harajuku. So I ditched Ochanomizu in favor of walking up to Harajuku. I had a little trouble finding the place - it was my first introduction to the fact that in Tokyo retail stores can be hidden upstairs in buildings rather than being at ground level. Eventually I found the the store, which turned out to be a shop specializing in vintage synths - like old Moogs and other stuff from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. That’s really cool if you’re a certain kind of vintage synth nerd, but was interesting for about maybe five minutes for me. After poking at old Prophet 5’s and stuff I took the subway home. Harajuku was not a total waste of time in that it had been an opportunity to walk around and explore another part of Tokyo, but it was not a highlight.

 

Tokyo street scene at night

Interestingly, this example shows strengths and weaknesses of AI. On the one hand, it was smart enough to know that a keyboard player wouldn’t find Ochanomizu interesting, but it didn’t understand the subtleties of a mainstream keyboard store vs. a niche vintage keyboard store.

My body clock was still way off and I wasn’t sure what meal I was craving at this point, but it had been a while since I’d eaten and I knew I was hungry. I pulled out the Happy Cow vegetarian restaurant finder app, which noted a place walking distance from my hotel serving vegetarian ramen. I made a bee-line for the place. Well, I tried for a bee-line, but the cops had a block of sidewalk closed, and the weird thing about tangled streets of Shibuya is that just crossing to walk on the other side of the street can get you lost. Without going into details, it took a little bit of effort, but I found the ramen place and the food was good! As with Ramen Nagi in California there’s a wait to get in - a good sign. Unlike Ramen Nagi, you order outside via an electronic kiosk before you get in line, then when you get to the front you hand the hostess your ticket, which is how they know what order to associate with what person, and that it’s time to prepare that particular order.

 

First Tokyo ramen

The two people behind me on line were a young British woman now living in Australia, and a young Indian guy now living in Canada. They hadn’t arrived together, but they pretended to be together since somehow it got them seated faster. And maybe suggesting that they be seated together was his way of hitting on her - but if that was the case, based on my eavesdropping, he wasn’t doing a very slick job of it. Not that I’m one to talk about conversational slickness. These two young folks were the first of many really international people I met on the trip. All these years, while I’ve been sitting at home in Arlington, these people have been out there leading lives which take them around the world. I chatted with them briefly but then left them alone - far be it from me to cock block the dude.

After dinner I finally called it a night.