Welcome to Tokyo

Ray and I took a trip to Japan in November 2025, visiting Tokyo and Kyoto and taking a day trip to Osaka. It was an incredible experience, and very different than anything I had ever experienced before!

We left Denver on Sunday early afternoon and arrived in Tokyo (Narita) on Monday evening after a 12-hour flight and crossing the international date line. Upon arrival, we went through the (very automated) customs process and found the Narita Express to get into Tokyo with some help from the kind airport employees. Once in Tokyo, we then navigated Shinjuku Station (the busiest train station in the world) and found our way to the metro. We were tired, but decided we should get a quick snack. Thankfully, our hotel (Daiwa Roynet Hotel Nishi-Shinjuku Premier) had a well-stocked 7-Eleven in the basement! We grabbed a few small items and fell asleep shortly after.

The next morning, we started our day with an egg salad sandwich at 7-Eleven and a couple flat whites at Coffee Swamp, a short walk from our hotel. On our way to the metro, we walked by Omoide Yokocho (alleyways known for yakitori and beer, though not much was open early in the day). 

We then took the metro over to Meji Jingu (Shrine) and Yoyogi Park. It was so fun to see all the fall colors as we wandered through. At the time, we didn't know how nice we had it - because we were up early (thanks, time change) we were one of the few groups walking through the park and enjoying the shrine. It was serene and spiritual. I enjoyed admiring the painted sake barrels and reading through the engravings on the donated sake barrels from all over the world. I also loved the couple trees - two large, sacred camphor trees connected by a sacred rope that symbolize a happy marriage, harmonious family life, and enduring love (ideal for us newlyweds).

Next, we headed towards Omotesando, a district with fancy stores and a tree-lined boulevard. We also stopped by Takeshita Street, where we grabbed a small breakfast (cream puff and some hot tea at Lawson's). We were surprised by how little was open - but it was still fun to see the street!

Next, we caught the metro to Shibuya! We experienced the world's busiest pedestrian intersection at Shibuya Crossing, touched Hachiko's paw (if you haven't heard the story, check out this post), then went into the Mega Don Quijote, the fun and overwhelming 12-floor store with everything you can imagine (and then some)! We enjoyed walking through the district, seeing all the fun things for sale, and admiring the fun storefronts.

At this point, we were ready for lunch, so we found some conveyer-belt sushi at Uobei Shibuya Dogenzaka Store. It was so fun to try some hand rolls, nigiri, and shoyu soup.

Then, we went to the 12th floor of Shibuya Scramble Square to get a view of the crossing without going for the full Shibuya Sky observation deck experience.

We then took the metro back towards Shinjuku and did a little shopping. While you can buy any of these golf balls online, we thought it was fun that one store we went to had every single number available 1-100 in both Titleist Pro-V1s and Pro-V1x's :)

We then went to the Shinjuku National Gardens. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me - so peaceful and the gardens were well-maintained. They had a chrysanthemum exhibit there with more than nine different varieties of the flowers that grow in Japan. I also declared the square-ish, well manicured tree to be my favorite tree in the park during our visit.

Before dinner, we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to get a free panoramic night view of the city from the 45th floor. It was pretty spectacular to see the scale of the city (pictures don't quite do it justice)!

Then, we went to Ichiran for our first dinner of the trip. Ray got his "as is" - I only modified the richness level to be just slightly less since I was worried about my jet lag. It lived up to the hype and was so tasty! Walking back through Shinjuku to our hotel was quite the experience and more of the hustle-and-bustle we were expecting than the first night. We stopped by the Kabukicho District (also known as "Golden Gai") and saw Godzilla before heading back for the night.

We walked 25,600 steps (11.3 miles) on our first day!