Asia 2017!!!

It's time for my annual summer travels to begin. We're off to Japan for a few weeks and then we're going to fly to Vietnam to visit our friend Julie. I've been to Japan before but if I was going to be back in Asia, then this is the one country that I wanted to see again. Sunni skipped my last Japan trip, so I’m excited to have her along this time. After an exhausting 12 hour flight (plus an hour to toronto and a lay over) we got in midday and checked into our Airbnb (which is small, but very well located. It’s right along the green JR line so we can get everywhere very quickly). We were pretty jet-lagged and tired but we still wanted to check out our little area. We’re staying for 3 days in a cute little suburb near Ikebukuro. After we walked around our area a bit we walked into Ikebukuro, hung out with the crowds and then went to bed fairly early because we were exhausted.

Our first full day started very eventfully. The train was so packed that we could barely get on. When we were trying to get off the train I had to push my way through, when I looked back I could still see Sunni’s face in the window. I thought two security guards were coming to help us but instead they were literally shoving a woman inside of the train so they could close the door. I saw Sunni smiling and waving to me as the train pulled away. Instead of panicking, I went down and waited hoping Sunni would make the right decision. There were so many ways this could have gone wrong: Sunni had no japanese money. I had no phone. We had no way of contacting each other. I also had no idea where we were staying or what the address was. It turned out that both of us made the exact correct decision: I stayed put and she got back on another train and within about 15 minutes we were reunited without any drama.

We went to the Meiji Shrine, hung out in a wooded area, walked to Harajuku and spent a few hours checking out all of the little stores. We didn't get to see a lot of the freaky fashions that I remember from being here 7 years ago but it's still a great little area to hang out in. We then walked to Shibuya and did the crossing a bunch of times. We also found a really cool sushi spot and ordered sushi from an iPad. It came on cool little conveyor belts.  We went to the Mori Museum that had a really interesting graffiti artist show that took up the entire museum. By about 7pm we had been walking for 10 hours (and according to Sunni’s Fitbit 10 miles) we were jet lagged and exhausted. We ended up falling asleep right after we got back. The timing was perfect because as soon as we sat down there was a massive thunderstorm that lasted for about 4 hours.