For the rest of our time in Tokyo (beyond the tours I already posted about), we saw quite a bit of the city, although it is so massive, we barely scratched the surface. On our first night in Ginza after we checked in to the hotel, we went for sushi at the Ginza outpost of Sushi Zanmai, a fairly famous sushi chain owned by the guy who supposedly bought the most expensive tuna ever sold at Tsukiji Market. This is actually a picture of his Tsukiji location from the tour we took there.

The next morning we took the market tour and then my wife’s ankle was bothering her so much, she headed back to the hotel for a bit. My daughter and I went to TeamLabs Planets which is an indoor interactive art installation on one of the islands in Tokyo Bay. A couple of weeks before the trip, I had pre-purchased us three tickets for 1pm entry as it can sell out in advance (about $28pp).

We took a taxi/Uber from the market as we were already hot and tired. We arrived a bit early, but they ushered us into the facility anyway.

TeamLabs has several different installations across Japan and has expanded to the UAE and China as well. They are all different with interactive art displays which are hard to describe and probably best shown in pictures. Planets involved a water section, where you wade through shin-deep water and a soft floor section which would have frankly been horrible for my wife’s ankle so I was thankful she skipped it despite eating the cost of her ticket.

We enjoyed our visit, but there were a ton of families with little kids which made it harder to focus on the art when they were running around us. It was thankfully air-conditioned which was a relief after all the outdoor activities in Kyoto.

After TeamLabs, we took the elevated Yurikamome line metro to the Disaster Recovery Center, which offers tours that include earthquake simulations. We unfortunately missed the tour by a few minutes and the next one wasn’t for 90 minutes. We tried looking around a bit, but neither of us wanted to wait around for the tour. We cut our losses and took a taxi/Uber back to the hotel to rest up a bit after all the steps that day. That night we had ramen for dinner in Ginza at a tiny restaurant where we ordered on a vending machine and I tried cold ramen which is usually only offered in the summer (and a cold beer).

The next day was our Mount Fuji tour which left us two full days to explore more of Tokyo. On the first of those days, my wife and I went back to Tsukiji Market for breakfast then took a taxi/Uber to Asakusa. This area has a famous temple and shopping street. We arrived just before 10am when things were opening up.

I left my wife to browse the shops a bit and visited the famous Senso-ji temple at the end of the street.

From Asakusa, we walked through a couple of local shopping streets and went a bit further west to Kappabashi Street, or as it’s more famously known, Kitchen Street. This is a street full of shops selling knives, silverware, tableware and other kitchen supplies for both individual shoppers and restaurant owners. My wife enjoyed the shops here while I enjoyed the air-conditioning they had.

As we were halfway to Ueno by that point, we continued on and walked around that area for a bit. At that point, we were pushing 15k steps for the day already so we took the metro back to our hotel to rest up for a bit and grabbed some 7-11 ice cream for lunch on the way.

Later that afternoon, we took the metro to Shinjuku. While my wife browsed the shops, I walked over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for the free observation deck. Even though it was cloudy and I couldn’t see all the way to Mount Fuji, I still got some good views.

We met our daughter and her friend for dinner at yet another conveyor belt sushi place called Kaiten Sushi Numazuko, although this one required writing your order as they didn’t use the tablets that so many of these places have brought in. It was actually very good and we enjoyed meeting our daughter’s friend who was from the US but now lives and works in Tokyo. After dinner, we took the metro back to Ginza while our daughter went out on the town for a bit.

On our final day in Tokyo, we started off with a final big breakfast at the hotel while our daughter slept in a bit. We then figured out our packing situation and realized we needed to buy another suitcase for all of our daughter’s souvenirs and merch. She had factored that into her budget for the trip already.

We walked over to a different subway stop near our hotel to get a direct metro to Shibuya, where we planned to spend most of the day. Of course, everyone knows about the famous Shibuya Scramble, a huge intersection where thousands cross every time the traffic stops.

At this point, my wife wanted to go to some vintage stores, so we split up for a few hours. I walked with our daughter all the way to the Meji Shrine in Yoyogi Park. It was quite a long and hot walk although the park gave us some nice shade.

From there, we walked over to Harajuku and the famous Takeshita Street with all the character shops and people dressed in cosplay.

It was crowded there and we didn’t spend too long dealing with the tourist hordes. We then took the metro back to Shibuya and met up with my wife who was still shopping. Our daughter said she was going to some anime stores and would meet us back in Ginza later so I went to the Starbucks near Shibuya Station to get a birds eye view of Shibuya Scramble.

I met up with my wife again and we walked past the famous Hachiko statue.

We headed back to Ginza and met up with our daughter at a great shaved ice place called Yukimido. Look at these beauties.

After our sugar quota for the week, we went back to the hotel for a bit. Our daughter decided that she wanted to buy her new suitcase at Don Quijote in Shibuya not the one in Ginza we could just walk to. I went with her as I was curious to see the store. It was a bit of a madhouse in there, but I bought some Kit-Kats, other candy, nail clippers and a few other bits and bobs and she got her suitcase.

After we got back, we all went for a final dinner in Ginza. We ended up at an udon place instead of ramen as the lines were long at the better places we were trying to get into.

We enjoyed our final 7-11 dessert on the way home and that wrapped up our time in Tokyo. We had a great time, but there’s still much more to see on our next visit.

Up Next: Japan Airlines First Class Lounge HND Review

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