Trip to Tokyo 2025 Part 2

This trip, Clement took a TON of our photos with his Fujifilm x100vi so you might be wondering where he is in the pictures. My hands are full of… Jasiel haha. While we are so grateful to be able to bring our kids to our favorite places on earth, this toddler stage is definitely tougher with tons of opinions, wiggles, spontaneous runs, such a cute and cuddly stage, but also has its challenges

The next few days in our trip I was away for work for most of the mornings, so C and the kids had a simpler day relaxing around Tokyo Station - whether it’s having McDonalds for breakfast/snack or going to Tokyo Station, visiting the Pokemon Centre close by… they had tons of fun without me. I’m so grateful that Clement was pretty healthy through this trip (I was the one who was fighting a cold just before the trip) and praise God for His provision!!!

Day 4: Akihabara

After my work, we headed to Akihabara in the late afternoon to walk around and check out the scene. Honestly, just going to Yodobashi Akiba is fun enough. It was tough trying to get the kids out of the toys floor. They also had tons of gashapons there, so I had fun doing that, too! They also had a lot of train merch, which was so much fun. I remember last few times we still went to do claw machines, but I do prefer gashapons cause at least you can guarantee yourself to get something, vs claw machines?

For dinner, we actually headed back to Tokyo Station and went to the Daimaru Department Store, they had tons of bento boxes for dinner. We just didn’t feel like eating in a restaurant with a runaway toddler haha. We each picked our poison and also grabbed some desserts from the convenience stores. Funny enough, Jasiel ended up eating most of Clement’s choice of food. She really loves ikura like mommy!

day 5: tokyo metro museum

After my work, we took the train to the Tokyo Metro Museum. It’s incredible how the weather changed - from snowing on our second day, and now it was 20 degree T-shirt weather! This was a really fun place for the kids to explore the history of the metro subway system, how it was built, and you get to even learn how to drive the train. Both Chase and Jasiel are really into trains, so they really enjoyed this museum. In the lunchroom / rest area at the back of the museum, they had lines of train gashapon so we were very excited to get some there. Plus, they also had Purikara machines, so I got to check the boxes on those, too!

At night, we were joined by my MIL and her sister who finally arrived in Tokyo. I had booked an all-you-can eat sukiyaki restaurant for us, because we enjoyed it last time and was hoping to experience it again. I booked the restaurant via our hotel, but for some reason the prices they had on the Tabelog website didn’t match up to the prices in the restaurant. Personally, I think maybe it’s because we were tourists and not locals? Either way, they were delicious. Maybe because we had two young kids, I don’t think we got our money’s worth and we did get full after the second round of meats. But it was still yummy, I’m glad we got to eat it!

After dinner we decided to walk off the fats a little bit, but we probably lasted 30 minutes because Jasiel kept trying to run into the busy Ginza roads… sigh. Hence my helpless face here.

day 6: ueno park + Yanaka Ginza

The next day, we went to Ueno Park. We had heard that there were some blooming Sakura trees already in this area, so we were excited to check it out. Ueno Park has a lot to offer, but I know that when we travel in a bigger group I have to count how many steps so no one gets too tired!! Or I have to plan tons of stops at least.

At the JR Ueno Station, there’s a Kenele Stand, so I planned that we would stop there to check it out. It’s inside the station on the third floor, so I made sure I didn’t exit the station yet. It was a fun little stop for some unique gashapon.

When we exited, we were immediately in Ueno Park. Slowly we made the way to the Benten Temple at Shinobazu Pond, and of course we also took a peek at various shrines/buildings along the way. Then we also walked along the pond to the Gojoten and Hanazono Inari Shrines, where we found some blooming sakura trees.

Then, we walked to the Ameyoko Shopping Street. My MIL and aunt love to check out markets, so I thought this area would be perfect for them! Because it was quite warm that day, of course we had some ice cream too! The kids also had fun shopping in this area. There were lots of festival goods, costumes, unique touristy gifts and items, so it was fun.

For lunch, we headed back to the station as when we were there earlier for the gashapon store, we saw lots of food options, so we had to check it out. Plus, we wanted to make sure that we had washroom access, which is easier than in the shopping street. We grabbed lunch at the station, but I can’t remember the name. But it was our first time trying cheese pizza with honey (which was actually good!) and some omurice and hamburger. Delicious, but of course it’s not the runny eggs like you’d see elsewhere. Jasiel fell asleep for the entire lunch!

After our relaxing lunch (so nice when Jasiel is napping!!), we took the train to Yanaka Ginza. We saw Sam and Victor visit this place last time, so we thought it’ll be nice to check out this area which looks like an older style of Tokyo. It’s pretty short, and not much to shop, but it is still cool to walk around this street.

On the way back home, the kids decided that they wanted to go with my MIL back to the hotel. I perked up at this opportunity to have a little solo time with Clement, so we did! Honestly, we didn’t go far at all, we just went to Tokyo Station and walked around the area. I had wanted to pick up some matcha from Ippodo Tea, and also wanted to try their teas as well. There’s a matcha shortage so a lot of places don’t have a lot of high-quality tea, and honestly I’m more of a hojicha person so I can’t really tell. I also got to visit the Traveler’s Factory Station (have to enter from the Marounouchi North side, along the passage to the Yaesu side, you’ll have to head down some steps). It’s a tough place to find, but once you get there, you’ll find that you can get to many underground malls near the Tokyo Station. We even found another Tokyo “ramen street” at the Kitte Mall, which has the famous Matsudo Tomita Memban. I wished we got to try it! I also picked up a bag of dashi stock, cause, why not! :) I love using these for cooking.

At night, we headed to this Seafood Buffet Ginza Happo - it was such a cool experience trying this type of restaurant in Tokyo. There were so many options for food, but the highlight is the seafood counter, because you can get so many different kinds of seafood there and cook it in various ways, too. I loved getting all the king crab legs! I also really liked their Yakiniku section cause there’s a grill in front of us, so you can grill the meats to perfection. Loved the quality of this buffet and kids enjoyed eating so many strawberries, too.

After the restaurant, there was a Don Quijote in the same building, so we got our Donki fix there (and got the song stuck in our head). Even though it’s a really overwhelming store, it’s still fun to grab some small things there, like the kids really liked all the pokemon socks!

The next day we were going to head to Hakone, so I spoke with the hotel regarding luggage forwarding, so I took the paperwork to fill out the forms ahead of time. Our plan was to send our big luggages to the next hotel, and just bring a backpack to Hakone. The good thing is that they can hold the luggage in transit for up to a week.

xoxo,
Karla