Tokyo

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After four nights in Nikko we boarded the train back to Tokyo. There are quite a few different train options but we ended up with tickets for the local train, then changed to a shinkansen which took us to Tokyo station. Elodie fell asleep in her pram as we were about to board the shinkansen and slept through the entire ride which meant I didn't get to use my reserved seat and instead stood in the entry to the carriage while she snoozed.

After arriving at Tokyo station we transferred to the metro to get to Shinjuku. Shinjuku station is the busiest station in the world. It wasn't too crazy when we arrived, and we managed to navigate to our exit without too many issues (though the ideal one was closed).

After checking into our hotel we headed back out for a walk around Shinjuku. We were happy to discover a large Isetan food hall just near our hotel and wandered around eyeing off all the yummy food we'd try over the next few days. Eventually Elodie found a trolley in the supermarket area and was a menace so we had to extract ourselves. We ventured up through the levels to the homewares floor where Elodie and another little kid made a shop assistant very nervous by running around on a rug / playing on a couch (which we later realised were both very very very expensive). We then headed up to the children's floor (thinking it'd be a bit safer), but Elodie proceeded to select a Gucci handbag for herself. We distracted her with the toys, including one in particular which was being promoted and that she loved playing with.

For dinner we decided to check out an udon restaurant called Udon Shin. One of my colleagues from Japan suggested choosing a restaurant based on it having a line out the front; I replied that we'd be eating quite early so didn't think we'd be able to use that approach. I was definitely wrong with Udon Shin though as we had to join the queue despite it being only 5pm. Luckily the ticket machine indicated our wait time would be 17 minutes so we decided we could wait.

...about an hour later our table was ready. We had already ordered when we were in the line so our food was delivered not long after we sat down. We both ordered a bowl of hot udon noodles as well as a side of tempura. The food was delicious (though not particularly traditional). We all really enjoyed it, though Scott was a bit sad when Elodie ate his last bite of bacon tempura.

The following morning we headed to teamLab Planets which is an interactive art museum / installation. After entering the building we took off our shoes and socks and put our bag in the locker and then headed into the museum.

First we walked through a rather dark walkway and up a steep ramp with water flowing down it. After drying our feet we walked along the dark walkway (with different textures along it) to the first room.

The first room had very squishy floor (beanbags?) covered in black fabric so you had to clamber across it. We thought Elodie would really enjoy it but she was a little overwhelmed so we had to carry her through the room.

The next room had mirrors on all walls, the floor and the ceiling and there were thousands (or millions?) of suspended fairy lights with walkways through them. The lights changed colour and brightness. It was fantastic. Elodie wanted to touch all the lights and was a bit scared when it got dark, but overall enjoyed it.

A walk through another dark hallway and down a ramp into nearly knee deep water took brought us to the second room which was quite dark and filled with cloudy nearly knee deep water and had fish, flowers and patterns projected onto it. The images moved and brightness levels changed. Elodie loved 'chasing' the fish in our arms (it was too deep to put her down).

After drying our feet we headed to the next room which was Elodie's favourite. It again had mirrors on all walls, the ceiling and the floor and was filled with large balls (some on the ground, some suspended from the ceiling) which changed colour.

The next room had a mirrored floor with a domed ceiling and moving projections of flowers on it. It was really pretty but Elodie was a little scared so we didn't spend long in this room.

We walked back out through the locker room and then into the garden part of the museum. First stop (after grabbing some of the supplied slippers) was an outdoor exhibit with silver 'eggs' in the garden. Elodie loved her "blue shoes" and the eggs but kept wanting to touch them and Scott was underwhelmed and too hot so we extracted Elodie and headed to the final room.

The final room was my favourite. Again it had mirrored walls, ceiling and floor but this room had thousands of (real) orchids suspended from the ceiling which slowly moved up and down. It was really pretty. We spent quite a while sitting on the floor admiring the flowers and walking around as walkways opened up.

We enjoyed the exhibits so much that we decided to go through them all again (aside from the squishy black room). This time Elodie was feeling very comfortable so ran through all the walkways and was really excited. She still didn't love the room with the projected flowers, but was really happy in all the other ones.

We decided it was probably time to head home so Elodie could have her nap so set off for the train station. Elodie was asleep in the pram before we even arrived so we had a peaceful trip back to Shinjuku.

After hopping off the train we went to Isetan food mall and picked up lunch. Elodie woke up mid way through shopping which was convenient. After we'd grabbed our food we headed back to the hotel to eat.

After lunch we headed back out to explore. We wandered around Shinjuku looking in a few shops. Elodie terrorised the local pigeon population by chasing them around (I think they'll be happy when we leave Japan).

That night for dinner we headed to a yakitori restaurant. We ordered a selection of chicken skewers and some vegetable options. The service wasn't great and the food wasn't amazing (the tskune was horrible) so we didn't stick around for long.

The following morning Elodie slept in (of which the definition has now changed, after 6:30 is now a sleep in) which was fantastic as we were heading to Disneyland for the day!

We arrived at Disneyland just after 9 along with hundreds of other people. A surprising number of people stopped off at the gift shop on the way to the entrance! We had purchased tickets beforehand so we hardly had to queue to get in as there were heaps of gates open.

Once inside we came across Daisy Duck and Donald Duck and Elodie was so so excited. It was at that point that we knew we were in for a pretty wonderful day! We waited to have a photo with Daisy Duck (along with lots of other adults with no kids who were weirdly excited about the human dressed in a duck costume..) and then headed into the park.

The first ride we went on was the Jungle Cruise: Wildlife expedition which involved queuing for about 20 minutes. Luckily the queue was mostly under cover with fans (fortunately as the forecast was for 35 degrees and sunny) and seemed to move reasonably quickly. Once onboard the boat Elodie had a ball floating along the 'river' and looking at all the robotic animals / people. She was very excited.

The next ride, the Western River Railroad, also involved about a 20 minute queue. Again the queue was very well designed so that it was mostly under cover and there were lots of fans. The 'steam train' took us on a tour of part of the park. Elodie was less excited about this ride as it was a bit tame.

We then made our way to Fantasyland and joined the queue for the Dumbo the flying elephant ride. Elodie and Scott shared an elephant while I rode alone. Elodie enjoyed flying and spinning around!

Next up was the (short) queue for the carousel. Elodie and Scott shared a horse, and I rode beside them. Elodie enjoyed it, but wasn't as excited as she was when we rode the carousel at Melbourne zoo a few weeks beforehand.

After the carousel we decided it was time to get some lunch so headed back to a relatively quiet part of the park we'd discovered earlier (when we took a wrong turn) to try and find a table. It was a good decision as we found one in air conditioning straight away. Lunch was smoked chicken leg, fried chicken, chips, nuggets, some yummy crackers and a Micky Mouse shaped cupcake. The food was actually pretty good value and decent quality.

Next ride was definitely the favourite for Elodie (and probably me), the spinning teacups. Luckily it had a very short queue. Scott opted to skip this one as he gets motion sickness, but Elodie clearly hasn't inherited that (at least not yet) as she loved spinning around. She also thought that the button in the centre of the wheel in the teacup controlled the mouse which popped up out of / went back into the teapot in the centre of the ride so had fun 'pushing' the button and watching the mouse. Elodie giggled with delight and yelled "MORE" as soon as the ride finished. So we joined the queue again!

After the teacups we decided it was time for Elodie to have a nap in her pram. We walked around while she fell asleep and then found a shady spot to sit while she napped. Scott went off to do the Star Tours: The Adventure Continues ride. He enjoyed the first half of the ride, but then felt a bit motion sick so was happy when it was over.

By the time Scott got back, the priority pass for Space Mountain that we'd managed to secure earlier in the day was active. I skipped most of the queue using this, but still had to wait about 10 minutes before hopping on the ride (which was better than the 60 minute wait it would have been otherwise!). I hadn't been on many rollercoasters but actually really enjoyed the ride.

By the time I was done Elodie had woken up so I met up with Scott and Elodie who were enjoying the water area in Fantasyland. They'd also shared a Micky Mouse shaped icy pole while waiting for me to find them. Both were quite wet by the time I arrived which was perfect given the very hot day!

I bought myself an icy pole and Elodie ate it while we queued for the Winnie the Pooh ride. There were two "big girls" behind us in the queue who kept Elodie entertained by showing her their toys which was great as the queue was about 50 minutes. Elodie had a much loved Winnie the Pooh toy she calls "teddy" so she was pretty excited to see pictures of "teddy" all over the walls when we reached the indoor part of the queue. We hopped into a honeypot and headed off on the ride. Elodie loved it at first, but got a bit scared when it got dark. She seemed torn between wanting to look at everything and trying to bury her face in my shoulder. Scott felt a little queasy. I thought it was reasonably good for a kids ride.

Next stop was Minnie Mouse's house. Elodie loved the 'oven' which had a 'cake' in it which would inflate when you pushed a button. She tried blowing out the candles and had pretend tea party.

From Minnie Mouse's house we headed to the "it's a small world" ride which involved a boat ride past 'children' dressed in traditional costumes from all over the world while "it's a small world" plays. Elodie bopped along and loved looking at all the displays.

From "it's a small world" we headed back to the teacups for one last spin. I still couldn't convince Scott to join us so Elodie and I rode alone again. She was super excited and giggling with joy the whole ride. As soon as it finished she again said "MORE!" but as it was close to 5pm we decided it was time to head home.

We stopped at one of the many souvenir shops on the way out. Elodie selected a Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck ("big ducky") toy. We also grabbed her a Minnie Mouse ear headband and some hair clips which look like cat ears. The souvenirs were surprisingly well priced.

After catching the train back to Shinjuku we stopped at Isetan to pick up food for dinner. We decided given we'd all had a long day that we'd eat it at our hotel.

After two big days in a row, the following day we had a much cruisier plan. In the morning we set out for the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden which was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. The garden is quite big and has lovely landscaping, but also has a 500 yen entrance fee for adults.

We planned to let Elodie play on the playground in the Children's Garden but were surprised to discover that the Children's Garden didn't actually have a playground. Instead it was just a patch of grass on which kids (up to the age of 12) are allowed to ride their bikes (but not too fast), skip rope (but only one person ropes) and do a few other things (within the rules). It must be odd growing up in Japan!

We walked around the park for a while. Elodie enjoyed feeding some bread (that a kid kindly shared with her) to the turtles in the pond below the bridge before discovering a drinking fountain and ending up drenched (and very happy!).

We headed back to our hotel via Isetan food area to grab some lunch. After lunch Scott and Elodie had a nap while I headed out to look at the shops (without worrying about a toddler destroying very expensive clothes / things!). I picked up the toy she'd enjoyed playing with a few days earlier to give to her on her second birthday.

After their nap we headed to Shibuya to go to Loft! Loft was my favourite store last time I was in Japan so I was pretty excited to head back there. We spent the first half an hour (or more) in the umbrella area as Elodie was in heaven checking out all the different umbrellas. Eventually we managed to get her to leave and headed up to the other levels. In hindsight it wasn't the most toddler friendly shop as there were lots of cute (but breakable) things that she wanted to grab. Scott kindly looked after her while I looked around and grabbed a few cute things (training chopsticks for Elodie, a couple of little things for bento box lunches and some kitchen gadgets).

We stayed in Shibuya for dinner and chose a tempura restaurant. The food was delicious; Elodie particularly liked the dipping sauce...which she drank. My favourite was the zucchini and Scott's favourite was the prawn.

The following morning we caught the train to Yokohama to catch up with one of my colleagues and his family at the Cup Noodle museum.

The museum covers the life of Momofuku Ando (who it is claimed invented instant noodles) and the history of cup noodles. Cup noodles were developed post World War 2 as a cost effective way of feeding the masses.

The museum was quite large, though most of the displays were quite sparse. The first room displayed cup noodle packaging and varieties. It was interesting to see that some of the packaging hadn't changed much at all. There were some interesting varieties over the years (e.g. Italian sausage).

Elodie had fun running around with my colleagues' daughters ("big girls") who were wonderful with her.

After a few hours making our way slowly around the museum (and the girls running around) we headed out in search of lunch. We went to the basement level of a carpark where the Diamond Princess cruise ship had docked at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been efforts to reinvigorate the area post the cruise ship saga and the basement level full of interesting restaurants was a part of that.

After lunch we walked along the waterfront while trying to get Elodie to nap. It's quite a pretty area and clearly a favourite spot for families and friends to socialise on the weekend. Eventually we stopped in the shade and grabbed some ice creams.

We headed back to the cup noodle museum later that afternoon to make our very own cup noodles. First we decorated the cup, then chose the ingredients (we opted not to get the "mystery meat" (thanks Google translate)) and flavouring (chicken, chilli or curry) for the noodles whilst the team behind glass added our selection to our cup. They then packaged it up and returned the finished product.

After we finished making our noodles the girls had a bit more of a run around before we decided it was time to head back to Tokyo as it was getting quite late.

We picked up dinner at a convenience store as we were fairly late home and Elodie had had a big day.

The following morning we headed to the Tokyo Toy Museum which was a museum / indoor play centre we thought Elodie would love. The museum is housed in an old school building and appears to be staffed mostly by grandparents / wanna-be-grandparents.

We started off in the babies room which (luckily for us) permits kids up to two years old. They had a bunch of different (very pretty) mostly wooden toys and a few things to climb on.

From there we headed to the Toy Forest room which had a lovely structure in the centre (though Elodie was unimpressed it didn't have a slide), a 'sandpit' which was filled with ~20,000 wooden balls and various other things. Once again everything was very pretty. Elodie enjoyed throwing things where they weren't supposed to go...

Next stop was the Good Toy Story room which had a selection of toys which had been selected by "toy consultants" and those that had won the toy award since 1985. There were quite a dew toys in the room which Elodie really enjoyed playing with, including the toy we'd bought from Isetan a few days prior (thankfully!).

From there we headed to a room where you could 'make your own toy'. There was an arts and craft activity which was a little beyond Elodie, but she did some drawing and tried to make as much mess as she could.

We then went to the Toy Town Aka room which had old fashioned toys (e.g. spinnng tops) and a miniature replica Japanese house (which Elodie enjoyed playing in, but refused to take her shoes off..).

It was getting close to lunch time so we headed off to look for some food. We picked up a selection of things from a nearby supermarket and then walked back to our hotel to eat it.

After Elodie had a nap we headed out again. We made our way to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building observatory which was about a 30 minute walk.

The free observatory is 202m above ground and has fantastic views over Tokyo. The observatory takes up the whole floor of the building so you get a nearly 360 degree view across the city. There's a cafe / gift store in the middle, but most people (including us) are there for the view. It's great (and somewhat surprising) that it's free!

From the observatory we headed to a nearby park to give Elodie a chance to have a run around. The playground was quite good; she got her swing fix (first swing since landing in Japan) but was actually more interested in the big slide which she went down a lot of times! The (actual) fun police were at the park making sure kids didn't do anything too crazy (e.g. run up a slide, or other normal kid stuff).

After the playground we headed back to the hotel. Scott popped out to get some Thai take away for his dinner while I got ready to go out.

I left Scott and Elodie at the hotel and headed to a kushikatsu restaurant about a 10 minute walk away to catch up with a colleague and an ex colleague. It was nice to meet them face to face after working together virtually for ages. We had a good night, and the food was quite good too.

We had a great time in Tokyo! It's a fun city with lots of different things to do and see, even second time around. The highlights were the TeamLab Planets exhibition and Disneyland.

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