Tokyo

Emily writes · Tokyo, Japan · 7–14 January 2026

Tokyo
Tokyo is one of the biggest cities in the world, but it rarely sounded like it. The streets stayed calm, most cars seemed electric, and everyone else appeared to be underground on the subway.

Day 1
Our first job was buying coats at Uniqlo because we had badly underestimated Tokyo in January. After tonkatsu, we spent the afternoon in Ginza’s stationery stores. One had twelve floors. Bryson found another American stationery nerd and they talked about inks and nibs for ages.

Day 2
We went to Asakusa, walked through the markets, and visited Sensōji. I drew an average fortune at the temple. I did not trust it, because the trip had been anything but average. From there we walked through Ueno Park, visited three more temples, and stopped at a market where Bryson bought a cherry blossom stamp. We finished with ramen.

Day 3
We took an early Shinkansen to Gala Yuzawa near Niigata for a day of skiing. Crossing that much of the country in about an hour and a half was hard to process. The train was clean, on time, and gave us a clear view of Mount Fuji. At the resort I took Bryson to the beginner slope and taught him to ski. Twenty minutes later he was on the chairlift. By the end of the day he was king of the green runs and had a very respectable snowplough. It was good to share one of my favourite things with him.

Day 4
We took the next day slowly. I did a large 7 Eleven shop and bought everything the internet had told me to try. The fried chicken and onigiri were good. The egg sandwich was four million times better than any egg sandwich I had eaten in the UK. That afternoon, my friends Jewel and Nanako from Cambridge arrived. We had not seen each other in a long time, so we walked around and caught up. It was Nanako’s birthday, so we took her for Thai food and bought a large cake.

Day 5
Bryson, Jewel, Nanako, and I went to the Imperial Palace gardens, then carried on to Shibuya. We crossed the famous junction, explored anime stores, and visited a hedgehog café. Our hedgehog was called Kook, so we bought a small Kook toy to keep Bearthollomew company. That evening Nanako took us to one of her favourite sushi restaurants. Bryson and I built much of our relationship on sushi dates by the River Cam, so this mattered to us. The sushi was some of the best I had tasted. No more wasabi for us.

Day 6
Nanako had to return to Oita, so Jewel, Bryson, and I visited Tokyo Skytree. We ate udon and tried two kinds of takoyaki, the original with moving fish flakes and one with egg salad. Bryson had been waiting years to try it again after once meeting Nanako at Homerton College while she carried a bag of it. Both versions were good and left us completely stuffed. Skytree also had plenty of stationery shops for Bryson. I bought a small nanoblock model of the tower and have already built it three times.

Day 7
We went to Shinjuku and up the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for the free view. Lunch was at a tiny soba bar in an alley. Then we visited Meiji Jingu, walked through the wooded park, and somehow ended up among themed cafés and teddy shops. I took Bryson into a Hello Kitty café filled with hundreds of toys. It was not his cup of tea. Later we sat at a counter restaurant and watched the cooks make our gyoza.

Day 8
After a lazy morning, we went to Odaiba and saw the smaller Statue of Liberty beside Tokyo Bay. Then we took the train back and spent the afternoon in Akihabara. We found a ten storey gaming shop where I tried every console, controller, and headset, followed by an eight storey arcade with Mario Kart, bowling, dancing games, and an entire floor of retro games. At dinner I accidentally got spicy ramen in my eye again. I am apparently very bad at chopsticks. We went back, played Pictionary with Jewel, confirmed that I am not a very good drawer, and went to bed before our early flight.

We had seen a lot, caught up with friends, and still had to wake up far too early for the airport.

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