Arrival at Haneda Airport
We landed at Haneda at 7:30am and were quickly through immigration and customs (for once!). After dropping off our luggage at the airport hotel we’d be staying that night, it was time to take the 25min monorail ride into the centre of Tokyo.
It’s always hard having a full day straight after a 14hour flight, so we usually stick to just doing a few ‘easy’ things, like revisiting spots we’ve been before or doing a bit of shopping. Things that don’t rely on us being fully awake/we don’t feel like we missed out if we abandon them early!
Hamarikyu Garden
We started off by having a nice walk around Hamarikyu Garden. It was a surprisingly warm day – 25 degrees celcius in November!
Ginza
From the garden we then walked to Ginza, a fancy shopping area we don’t normally visit. The main reason we went was to go to Itoya, a famous shop with 8 floors of stationary goodness.
After Itoya we had a break at Kura Sushi for lunch, a popular cheap sushi train restaurant where you order what you want on a tablet and then the food zooms along a little track to your table
Akihabara
We then took the train to Akihabara and spent the afternoon sleepily wandering around the shops. It was a Sunday so the main road was closed to cars
We had an early dinner at the Akihabara branch of one of our favourite restaurants – Torikizoku, for tasty yakitori (charcoal grilled meat skewers). There are no doubt better and more authentic independent izakayas, but Torikizoku has the benefit of having English ordering via a tablet, so it’s really easy to keep getting more food and drinks until you’ve had your fill! After food, we headed back to the airport hotel for an early night.
