Trip Overview Part 1 - Days 0-1 - Tokyo & Tokorozawa

Back to talking about my Japan trip...

I think I'm going to repeat the three-pronged approach I used to post about my 2019 trip and do posts giving an overview of the trip, talking about the cards I brought home and discussing the card shops I went to.  I've already done a few posts about the cards but I'll kick off the overview posts here.

My trip to Japan started on May 9th with an early morning flight from Baltimore to Chicago, a five hour layover at O'Hare Airport and then a 13-ish hour flight to Haneda Airport.  We landed around four in the afternoon on May 10th and I was fairly pleased with how fast I got through customs, retrieved my suitcase and exchanged some cash.  I was on the monorail less than 90 minutes after our wheels hit the ground.

Friday evening rush hour isn't any fun anywhere and Tokyo is no different but I eventually made my way to my hotel - the Toyoko Inn near the Shinjuku-gyoemmae subway station on the Marunouchi line.  I got checked in and took a few minutes to relax and get cleaned up a little before heading out to do a little exploring.

My hotel was only a few blocks away from the new location of Mint Shinjuku so that was my first destination.  It was somewhat appropriate since Mint Shinjuku had been the first card shop I visited on my 2019 trip as well.  I'll write more about the shop in a future post.  The shopping mall the Mint store was in had another store that I was also interested in checking out:

After leaving the shopping mall the two stores were in, I headed deeper into Shinjuku - a somewhat daunting task considering the size of the crowds there on a Friday evening.  On my way there, I took note of a historic marker that was in the pavement at the corner of the block the mall was on:

I'm not entirely sure what this is but I think it's a map of the surrounding area from the Edo period.  There were enough people around that I really didn't get a chance to examine it further.  

I continued heading west into Shinjuku.  Passing by the north entrance to Shinjuku Station, I caught sight of a 3D billboard that I had heard of but hadn't realized where it was:

I continued on past the station on my way to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.  I had heard that there was a light show that was projected onto the building and I wanted to check it out.  It was actually pretty cool:

My photo and video don't really do it justice.  There's a version of the show with Godzilla in it that only runs on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays - I had hoped to get back to see it but I ended up being too busy for that to happen.

I started working my way back to my hotel then, stopping to get photos of a couple Shinjuku landmarks on the way:

My last stop before getting back to my hotel was a restaurant I had noticed on Google Maps and could not resist:

The place was packed so I had to take the food back to my hotel to eat.  I ordered a selection of meatballs - two beef, two pork, two lamb and two chicken - and an order of fries.  It was pretty good.

I crashed soon after eating - I was guessing I had been awake for about 30 straight hours at that point.

I had a packed agenda for Saturday, May 11th so I set out from my hotel around 9 that morning.  My first destination was something I had intended to do on both of my previous trips but never actually did - "Ultraman Street" at Soshigaya-Okura Station.  Ryan was planning on meeting up with me there but we figured out that he was on the same train that I was on leaving Shinjuku Station so we met up on the train instead.

"Ultraman Street" is basically a tourist trap designed around the fact that Tsuburaya Productions - the studio that produces Ultraman - had its head office near the station.  There's some statues and banners along the street both north and south of the station but Ryan and I headed south, taking photos along the way of course:

We headed south to get to a related destination - Toho Studios.  The studio doesn't have a tour but they have some interesting things around their buildings that are worth checking out:

Ryan and I would be attending a Lions game that afternoon so we started to make our way towards Seibu Dome.  We made two stops on the way.  The first was in Tachikawa to stop by the Mint store there.  The second was in Kokubunji to visit the grounds of Waseda Jitsugyō Junior & Senior High School, the alma mater of Kotaro Kiyomiya, Yuki Saitoh and Sadaharu Oh.  There's a monument there dedicated to Oh's People's Honor Award:

There was a second monument nearby for something like the "birthplace of the Japanese space program" but I didn't get a good sense for what it meant:

With these two stops out of the way, we were finally off to the Lions game.  We got to the ballpark an hour or so before game time, giving us enough time to check out the team store and pick up lunch before heading to our seats:

This was my third time visiting Seibu Dome but the first time I had sat on the third base side.  It was nice finally getting to sit among other Lions fans.

The Lions were playing the Eagles that afternoon with Seibu's rookie sensation Natsuki Takeuchi taking the mound against Seiryu Uchi.  I honestly don't remember much about the game itself other than rookie Reon Murata got his first ichi-gun hit.  Oh, yeah, and my favorite player, Takeya Nakamura, had the day off so I didn't get a chance to wave the towel I bought of his at the team store.  Probably just as well because instead of picking up a small cheer towel for Nakamura, I got something that was more like an actual bath towel.  The Lions won the game 2-1 - it was the first time I had ever seen the Lions win at home.  Here are the game highlights:

I've always enjoyed the organ music at Seibu Dome, either in person or while watching the game on my phone, so I was pleased to discover that the organist was basically seated in the crowd:

Ryan and I hung out for a little bit after the game, watching the hero interviews featuring Takeuchi,  Murata and Takuya Hiruma.  I had heard that the Lions sometimes allowed the fans to go onto the field after the game but we soon discovered that this wasn't one of those games - apparently there was some sort of "meet-and-greet" with the celebrity who had thrown out the first pitch (can't remember who that was) and you needed a special ticket to be able to attend.  So we piled into the trains out there with 19,000 of our closest friends and headed back to Tokyo.

Our destination?  Quad Sports in Takadanobaba, my favorite card shop in all of Japan.  We spent close to an hour and a half there, going through boxes of singles until it was almost closing time.  We were joined towards the end of this period by Deanna and her boyfriend Noel, who had also arrived in Japan the previous day.  The four of us made our way to a nearby brewpub recommended by Ryan and had dinner and a couple beers.  We hung out there for a while before finally calling it a night.  I headed back to my hotel and crashed, bringing an end to a busy first day.