Tokyo Tower and Zojo-ji

The lovely New Sanno Hotel's lobby, at approximately 4:30 AM local time.

Gabe is now sleeping about six hours a night, which is fantastic. The only downside is he starts sleeping at around 10 PM. You do the math, it’s not always pretty. We usually go for a walk when he wakes up. So we trotted around the hotel and did a few loads of laundry in the coin-operated machines all before 6 AM.

When Dean finally joined the land of the living at around 8 AM (that’s sleeping in!), we went and got some breakfast. We had eggs (tamago) and for the first time in my egg-eating life, I was asked how I would like my omelet cooked. Like you would order a steak, I guess. Our server spoke good English so I just said “whatever the chef recommends” which is the answer I use during restaurant week in N.Y. when I am asked how I want my ostrich or my frog cooked and I really have no idea. Again, that little line worked like a charm and my omelet came out with the consistency…oh, c’mon, of an omelet! I just don’t think that question is necessary with eggs. But it was a very good omelet.

Since it was already getting hot, we dressed Gabe in a long-sleeved, footie onesie and a hat so his lily-white complexion would be shielded from the land of the burning sun. I popped him in his baby backpack and off we set. Apparently many Tokyoites hide from the taiyo (sun) as well. During our walk, we saw many women carrying parasols (some even while expertly navigating bikes), long arm gloves, and wide-brimmed hats.

We located our subway station, Hiro-o, without much ado. The ticket machines had an option for “English,” so we were able to figure out how to buy tickets to Akabanebashi—the stop for Tokyo Tower. We paid our yen, 270 each, and set off feeling very impressed with ourselves for the ease with which we’d acquired tickets. By the way, that last sentence is what we call foreshadowing, people.


If only Waldo had Dean's coloring, he'd be much easier to spot...

I think rush hour was just ending when we were starting off. Some parts of the platform were designated with a pink box—only women could stand there to ride in certain cars. I thought it probably had to do with—for lack of a nicer way of saying it--combatting young ladies getting felt up by businessmen on the crowded subways. The cars were awfully crammed but no one had to shove us in and everyone gave the baby and me as much space as possible. Dean and I held onto little plastic stirrup handles while standing in the air conditioned car. We had to transfer lines in Roppongi and so we went with the plan we usually do when traveling in a country where we can’t speak the language. We followed the crowd like we were right in the middle of the herd of cattle.

As we saw everyone inserting their tickets into the machine, we did the same. Then we followed the signs to the next line we needed—Oedo line. Except when we finally got there, there were more machines and people were inserting more tickets. Oh no! We had already given up our tickets! (Foreshadowing payoff!) Positive we had paid for the transfer, I braved approaching a subway guard-person at the counter. Wearing a face mask and standing proudly in his immaculate uniform, the guard explained to me in English that was much better than my Japanese that only part of the subway was government-owned, where the other part was privately owned. When traveling between private and government parts, you needed to turn in your ticket to get it changed. At the time, I am sure I looked as confused as only a gaijin can—so he made a motion to follow him and then marched Dean, the baby, and me up two sets of escalators and led us to a desk where he explained in rapid-fire Japanese to another uniformed person exactly what us silly Americans had done. We bowed in thanks, he bowed, so we bowed again, and he went back down. Now the next person established which machine we had gone through and opened it to get us back out our tickets. He showed us how to swap it for a government-subway ticket. He bowed, we bowed, he bowed and then we tore ourselves away from the bowing exchange, marveling our entire way back down how nice everyone had been to us.



We got off at Akabanebashi and the first thing we saw was a gas station. The pumps were not anchored into the ground, but rather were hanging suspended from the ceiling of the open structure. Gas nozzles hung from the air on tubes like…really ugly earrings. Men in flight-suit looking outfits swarmed around, pumping gas for any car that drove up. What really got our attention was a big banner of Leonardo DiCaprio, recommending Bridgestone tires with smoldering eyes. Apparently Hollywood stars can make a killing over here promoting consumer products they wouldn’t dream of associating themselves with in the U.S.



We continued on our way and soon came upon the orange and white Tokyo Tower. At 333 meters, it is 13 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower. I remarked it looked exactly like the Eiffel Tower about the same time Dean said it looked nothing like the Eiffel Tower. Neither of us is probably correct. Like many things in Japan, the Tokyo Tower has cute cartoon characters associated with it but we did not go up the tower and thus we did not see the Noppon brothers. Dean has his own opinions about what these mascots resemble, but I’ll let you make up your own opinion:



We continued on our way to look for Zojo-ji. I broke out some more of my crappy Japanese to ask a long-stick carrying policeman, “Zojo-ji doko desu ka?” and was rewarded with a grand sweep of an open palm to my right. I think the stick is called a jo, and is used as a weapon, and I think he gestured with an open palm because I have been told that pointing is rude. Regardless, he didn’t use the jo on us and he gestured us in the correct direction so we found Zojo-ji easily.




This Buddhist temple has been around in some form for a hella long time. We’re talking about being founded in a triple-digit year. It was moved to its present location in 1590 and needed some work after the second World War. The outside is impressive, but the inside is really freakin impressive. Ginormous gold chandelier-looking things hang from the ceiling and in the center sits a Buddha—I think Amida Buddha. We hung back and watched someone throw money into the saisenbako, which is a big wooden temple-bank we learned about last new year’s. Then they sprinkled some incense into a metal pot with hot embers in it and prayed with head bowed while standing. As you all know, my motto has always been “monkey see, monkey do,” so Gabe and I went up and took our turn.



Around the outside of the building are these statues called jizo. Ojizo-sama is a Japanese deity who protects children firstly, but also travelers and firemen. These jizo had child-like features and sported knitted red bonnets and held pinwheels that whirled in the breeze.



On our way out, we went through the Sangedatsu Gate, which my travel book says is the oldest wooden structure in Tokyo. The three (san) levels are representative of the three levels needed to achieve nirvana, and it is said if you pass through the gate, you can free yourself of three things: ton, shin, and chi (greed, hate, and foolishness, respectively).

We transferred our tickets on the way back like subway-riding pros and spent the rest of the evening sleeping through our dinner reservations due to jet lag. So I do not think the Sangedatsu Gate worked because that was some foolishness.

Tokyo with a Baby

Yesterday we flew from Seattle to Narita with a four month old. We drove from Portland to Seattle in the morning and arrived at Sea-Tac around lunch time. Luckily we got there early enough to score an air-bassinet, which are first-come, first-served. They just attached the little crib to the wall of the bulkhead. It worked out wonderfully. The ten hour flight plus two hours’ worth of boarding, taxiing, and de-planing (Delta assures me this is a word) were brutal even for road warriors like us. By the end of it, I am pretty sure the baby was the most civil among us.

Throughout the course of the plane ride, I was studying my Tokyo travel guide to plan fun yet informative sightseeing days. I also discovered that taxis are prohibitively expensive for any distance, and of course the hotel happened to be quite a distance from Narita Airport. When we landed, I used my Japanese mobile to call the New Sanno Hotel. They told me a cab ride would cost between 25,000 and 30,000 yen (~$300 US) depending on traffic. So we started looking for a plan B.

The “Airport Limousine” counter was very helpful. They took pity on me and my bad Japanese and put us and all our 200 pounds of baggage on the #4 bus for a mere 6,000 yen. For almost two hours, we sat on the air conditioned (thank God) bus and rode through Tokyo traffic. About one hour into the ride, we realized we had not picked up the baby’s car seat base from the baggage claim area and that I’d left my iTouch on the plane. Since we had gone completely brain dead by that point, we really didn’t even get upset.

We finally got to the hotel and checked in with our military IDs. It is like being on an American base, except for everything is very nicely appointed. The bellhop brought all the bags up to the room and while tipping isn’t usually done in Japan, it is an American hotel and so we did. He accepted it, so we figured we made the right decision. We went down to a little restaurant right inside the hotel and had a light, late dinner. While the staff spoke very passable English, you were still very aware that you were in Japan because the service was fantastic.

We conked out in the small but comfy room early in anticipation of a full day ahead of us.