Hibiya Gardens and Imperial Palace Grounds: We started our first full day in Tokyo by walking from our hotel to the Asakusa neighborhood. This began with a stroll through the Hibiya Gardens and Imperial Palace Grounds across from our hotel. For a city of nearly 40 million people and some of those most densely populated city streets in the world, Tokyo has its fair share of vast and beautiful green spaces as well. Walking through the gardens, palace grounds, and surrounding business district, we were surprised at how empty and quiet the city was on a Tuesday morning in May

Akihabara: After walking through the gardens and palace grounds we made our way to Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics, manga, and video games district. It was the elder traveling smarts first taste of this side to Japanese culture. We walked up the main street and popped into a few of the multi-story department stores selling wrist watches, action figures, and everything in between. We also popped into the Akihbara Donki location (short for Don Quijote), Japan’s biggest discount retailer and the only major department chain where you can find cigarettes, motorcycle goods, bedding, and color contact lenses on the same floor 

Asakusa and Senso-ji Temple: Asakusa was once Tokyo’s entertainment district filled with theaters and other nefarious activities before the neighborhood was leveled during World War II. Today, it revolves around the rebuilt 7th century buddhist temple Senso-ji, Tokyo’s oldest temple. It was packed when we arrived. We made our way through the large entry gate and up the charming shopping street lined with nicely refurbished traditional stalls selling Japanese souvenirs before reaching the shrine complex. As is tradition at Senso-ji, we made small offerings and drew sticks for our fortunes – some of our futures look brighter than others. The main hall of the shrine was ornate and beautiful (and also out of the hot sun!), and we politely joined the crowd in front as many local people prayed

Roppongi and Mori Art Museum: The Mori Art Museum is a contemporary art museum situated in the Roppongi Hills Tower that not only features a thought provoking rotation of exhibits but also incredible unencumbered 180 degree views of the city from the museum’s 53rd floor location. We first visited the museum in 2019 and saw an amazing exhibit featuring the work of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota and decided to return with elder traveling smarts. The main exhibit this time around was “World Classroom: Contemporary Art through School Subjects”, which as the name suggests organized contemporary art pieces by school subjects such as math, social studies, and literature. Some of our favorite pieces included photographs of public execution sites in Damascus during peaceful and empty times of the day and a photograph series of Chinese activist artist Ai Weiwei dropping a 2000 year old urn from the Han Dynasty on the ground. Before leaving we walked the perimeter of the floor to ceiling windows to take in the views of Tokyo – they were just as amazing as in 2019!

Samurai experience with Yusuke: One of our favorite activities in Tokyo was a “day in the life of a Samurai” experience we found through Airbnb. Our guide, Yusuke, was an incredibly proud and gentle man who comes from a line of Samurai and himself is a trained teacher and performer. Yusuke began by dressing us all in traditional Kimonos and Hakamas before treating us to a traditional Matcha tea ceremony. Over tea, he taught us about the history of the Samurai and let us handle the 200+ year old katana he had inherited from his master. The highlight of the experience was learning how to handle a katana. We all practiced a basic routine inside before taking our “talents” outside to practice cutting through a rolled up and soaked tatami mat fixed to a post (Yusuke shared that the soaking helps the mat resemble human flesh 🙁 ). It was an incredible experience – John was the MVP and gracefully cut through the tatami mat with his katana. A 96-year old man and Yusuke’s neighbor came by to spectate and chimed in here and there with his many years of expertise

Harajuku: Harajuku is one of Tokyo’s hippest neighborhoods comprised of a network of streets lined with vintage and street clothing shops and trendy cafes. It was, at times, a little too much for the elder traveling smarts to handle. We did find the perfect boutique ceramics shop, Hakusan, where we purchased our plates for our future home. One man in the shop was filling a suitcase with various ceramics while we browsed the goods, telling us “I came here a few years ago and knew I had to return – get as much as you can now!”. Hopefully, this is a good sign for our new dinnerware!

Sumo at Ryogoku Stadium: We were lucky to be in Tokyo at the same time as one of three two-week sumo tournaments at Ryogoku Kokugikan each year. In a process similar to buying Lollapalooza tickets back in the early 2010’s, we eagerly refreshed the ticket page when they were released in April to secure good seats. We weren’t sure what to expect, but the whole experience was fascinating and exceeded expectations. We learned about all the ways the Shinto faith was tied to the sport, including how referees dress like Shinto priests, the roof hanging above the ring resembles a Shinto shrine, and how the wrestlers slap their bellies and throw salt to purify the ring and scare away evil spirits. The bouts were short and action-packed, including lots hands to the neck and face as the wrestlers “rushed at” each other. We were intrigued to see that many of the wrestlers come from Mongolia! This made sense to the younger traveling smarts after watching some Mongolian wrestling from a ger in the middle of the Gobi desert

Yomiuri Giants vs. Yokohama Baystars at Tokyo Dome: Our last big activity in Tokyo was attending a Nippon Professional Baseball league (the Japanese MLB equivalent) game inside the Tokyo Dome. The Yomiuri Giants are often referred to as the Yankees of Japanese baseball. The game was completely sold out when we looked at tickets, and we were resorted to nosebleed seats on the secondary market. Still our seats provided us with a view of the entire indoor stadium. Similar to our KBO experience in Seoul, we were enamored by the Japanese professional baseball spectating experience and how it differed from the MLB. The best examples included receiving a free Giants jersey upon entering the stadium (much better than a crappy bobblehead or towel for the first thousand fans in the US), the energy and organization of the crowd throughout the entire game, and the young Japanese women dressed like cheerleaders running around the stadium with full mini-kegs of beer on their backs to serve the fans

Kappabashi: Our last stop in Tokyo was Kappabashi, a famous shopping street lined with wholesale restaurant supply shops. We walked up and down the street popping into countless souvenir and kitchenware shops. When all said and done, the younger traveling smarts added bowls and a sake set to their kitchen, and the elder traveling smarts left with many gifts for home