We had an early morning flight to Tokyo today. We got up at 5:30am and made it to the airport by 6:30am thanks to my mom’s ride. We checked in and got through security very efficiently, on brand for Korea. We then headed to the duty free pickup counter to collect my new suitcases that I had ordered online. We dragged the giant boxes all the way across the airport, briefly questioning our life choices, but thankfully they removed the packaging and let us check them in without the boxes. Crisis averted. After that little adventure, we had pastries from Paris Baguette for breakfast. Paris Baguette is a Korean bakery chain and, ironically, has absolutely nothing to do with Paris. Antoine approved the pastries, saying they were good, although not French. Fair enough, they are indeed not French.
We were so tired from getting up early that we passed out during our 2 hour flight. When we woke up, we realised we hadn’t completed the customs form online, which had been highly recommended by other tourists on Instagram. As we landed, we rushed to fill out the form, typing while walking like we were in some kind of travel obstacle course. When we got to border control, we saw a long queue of tourists. That was the moment we realised we should have just done the form while standing still in the queue. After waiting about 40 minutes, we finally entered Tokyo. Thankfully, the train to the hotel was easy, just one train all the way there.
After dropping off our suitcases at the hotel, we headed out for our first meal in Japan. Antoine found a nice little ramen place nearby. We got there at 2:53pm and were told they only accept cash and their break starts at 3pm. Perfect timing, if you enjoy stress. We sprinted to a nearby ATM, withdrew cash, and made it back just in time. We ordered our hard earned bowls of ramen, and they were worth every second of panic. A very solid start to our Japanese food adventure.
We then started walking towards our first cherry blossom spot, the Imperial Palace garden. It was about an hour walk from the ramen place. Along the way, we saw a few cherry blossom trees, but they weren’t fully in bloom. At that point, we started to worry we might have mistimed the whole trip. Luckily, there were still a few spots with fuller blossoms, enough to give us hope. Slightly reassured but not fully satisfied, we moved on to our next destination, Nakameguro.
We took the metro, and as we got closer, it became increasingly clear that everyone else had the same idea. By the time we got off, it was packed. Turns out it was the cherry blossom festival that weekend. That explained everything. The crowd was intense, but the blossoms were also much fuller here, which made up for it. The street runs along a canal lined with cherry blossom trees and Japanese lanterns, with restaurants and bars on both sides. It was lively, slightly chaotic, and very pretty. We arrived before sunset and decided to stay until it got dark for the full experience.
While waiting, we had Japanese curry for dinner at a chain restaurant. The curry was good, but the real highlight was the curry bread. Antoine loved it, and at the time we didn’t realise this was just the beginning of our curry bread phase. After dinner, we walked back along the canal and saw the cherry blossoms lit up at night with lanterns. It was beautiful, and completely worth the wait. After taking a thousand photos, we finally headed back to the hotel.
We were exhausted after such a long day, but there was no way we were skipping the classic Japanese convenience store experience. Luckily, there was a 7-Eleven in our hotel building. We picked up a selection of snacks for our road trip the next day and called it a night.