October 24 - November 5, 2019
Allie’s college friend, who lives in Thailand, was married in November of 2019 in Phuket. We definitely wanted to attend, but since there’s no direct flight from SFO to HKT (Phuket) we decided to design a trip trying to minimize layovers and lengthy flight legs for Cody’s sake and our own sanity. Knowing that the multi-leg trip from SFO -> TYO -> HKG -> SFO had been a deal in the past combined with the fact that HK was one of the cities there were direct flights to Phuket we started looking at potential itineraries.
We ended up with six flights, all direct on two itineraries.
SFO -> NRT
NRT -> HKG
HKG -> HKT
HKT -> HKG
HKG -> KIX
NRT -> SFO
As we started planning our trip, we knew it would be different since Cody was a full on toddler now. Our days would be a lot different needing to involve activities that would keep him interested and having fun rather than our typical of planning around meals only. After scouring the internet, we found the site The Tokyo Chapter by an expat family based in Japan and found some great things to do in each of the cities we visit. We also knew that we wanted to go to Tokyo Disneyland (separate post) now that Cody was old enough to enjoy an amusement park.
Our arrival into Narita was an interesting one to say the least. After our flight landed and we cleared customs we went to get cash from the ATM as we normally do. Allie noticed that some of the signage said that some trains and buses had been cancelled due to the typhoon currently in progress. We headed down to the basement level to where the train station was only to find it flooded with people with barely anywhere to move. Clearly there was something wrong. All we found out was that the train that we intended to take wasn’t running for the rest of the night. Back upstairs we went to try to find out how we could get into the city. Unfortunately no one could give us a proper answer, only that the route their line was responsible for was cancelled until further notice. This is not what you want to hear when you have a jet lagged toddler who just got off a 12 hour flight. Not good. We knew there had to be a way to get into the city so I went back down to the train level and waited in the 4+ hour long line for the Keisei Skyliner tickets. As I waited with Cody on my shoulders, I noticed a train ticket machine with a much shorter line and people were buying tickets albeit all local Japanese. I asked one of the workers what that line was for and she told me it was for the Tokyo SkyTree and Keisei Main Line tickets. I asked if we could get into Tokyo and she said yes, but it only went to Nippori and Ueno and it would take much longer than the Keisei Skyliner. So I asked how much longer and she said that it would be over an hour on the main line. In my head I thought to myself “SERIOUSLY!?!?!? That’s it??” I immediately got out of line and went into the shorter line and texted Allie to meet me there. Five minutes later I had purchased our tickets and we were sprinting to the track. You know that feeling when you think you’ve found a secret but you’re not totally sure its going to work so you don’t tell anyone yet? That’s how we felt, we just rushed hoping we would be able to get onto that next train. We loaded a half full train and sat and waited to see whether the train would leave or not. The train slowly filled and eventually the doors shut and we were off! The funny thing about Japanese culture is that customer service wise people aren’t trained to answer questions outside of those they are trained to answer, so instead of the agents letting people know they could take the Keisei Main Line when people asked where the Keisei Skyliner was they just directed them to the 4+ hour line because that’s what they asked. At the end of the day we made it into the city because we’ve been to Tokyo before and knew how else we could potentially get to where we needed to go. Newcomers likely would have waited 4-6 hours just to get onto the train to get into the city.
Anyways, here we go in no particular order, here are photos from our excursions around Tokyo during this first leg of our trip.
First was the Tokyo Toy Museum, which focuses on traditional wood toys from all around the world. Its located in an old elementary school and we were told it would be somewhat difficult to find, but it actually wasn’t that bad since the google maps location is accurate.
There was also a small school play yard outside with a concrete tunnel/climbing area/slide and some plastic slides and rocking horses to play with too, which was nice on the sunny day we were there.
Next up is a fun playground area east of Shinjuku Station, Shinjuku Chuo Park. This park has multiple play areas clustered in the south end of the park.
Another cool stop is Tokyo Fire Museum, which is free and has a bunch of interactive things for kids, but is probably better for kids 3 or older. Cody was a little bit young for it and didn’t quite have the attention span.
So we knew that Halloween was during our first leg in Tokyo and Halloween in Tokyo was one of our best times out in our adult pre-child lives. We planned ahead and made costumes ourselves and brought them with us. We also for some reason thought that all the kids activities would be the weekend AFTER Halloween, when in fact they were the weekend BEFORE. Big fail as a parent not looking that stuff up ahead of time. So we successfully failed as parents and missed ALL of the kids events around the city. To try to redeem ourselves we actually ended up going to Tokyo Disneyland TWICE, once for Halloween and then once after my brother and his family arrived which was after the theme was changed to holiday. Anyways, we still took Cody to Shibuya for the actual night of Halloween to walk around and have sushi, which was cool too.
Last place we took lots of photos at was TeamLab Planets, which we went to with my brother and his family and the kids had an absolute BLAST here. Wasn’t sure where to fit this next photo in, but this is right after meeting up with my brother and Cody and Riley were riding on our shoulders.
We also were able to go to the Tokyo Flea Market and a few antique markets throughout the city. I don’t have any photos, but this was something new we happened upon and decided to make local markets a priority for shopping during this trip. At the Tokyo Flea Market we scored a toy hippo and a Japan souvenir jacket in Cody’s size.