April 27, 2023 • 42 mins
Hello from Japan! This week on the podcast, we are joining you from Osaka, Japan! In this episode, we give you a play-by-play on how our long travel day went, including the 3-hour drive to Mexico City, 6 hours waiting in the airport for our flight, our 15-hour long haul flight, and then the 3 hours from touchdown until we arrived at our hotel. We talk about what it was like to arrive in Japan, how we dealt with the jet lag, and how baby Lou did through all of the big travels and change. We also talk about how nice it's been to be back in Japan after 6 years and how much we're enjoying the cleanliness, organization, efficiency, and quietness of the country! Plus, we share a little bit about what it was like to revisit Tokyo 6 years later, including some of the things that we did during our first few days there. Enjoy! In this episode:
- Getting to the airport, waiting for our flight for 6 hours
- Tackling a 15-hour long haul flight with a baby and our first impressions of the flight experience
- Landing in Japan and our experience getting off the plane and out of the airport
- Dealing with jet lag and what we did to minimize its effects
- Our first impressions of Tokyo and Osaka, and returning to Japan after 6 years
- Cultural differences and dealing with the language barrier
- Our plans for the rest of our time in Japan and what we're looking forward to experiencing
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to the Worldwanders Podcast, a proud part of the
wander Barn podcast network. I'm Ryan, I'm Amanda, and we're your host.
We're a traveling couple and digital nomads, taking you on our adventures as
we explore locations, destinations, andcareers. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of theWorld Wanderers Podcast. We are super
(00:25):
excited to be joining you from Japantoday. Yeah, we are in our
port Oo recording studio in Osaka,Japan. Yeah, it's been a while
since we've been recording on the road, so it's kind of fun to have
our old school set up back again. It's a little bit less, I
guess, like lush, we don'thave our microphone arms and all that type
(00:46):
of stuff. But really excited tobe here with you today talking about Japan,
and so we're going to have anumber of Japan episodes because we've got
a month here. Like we mentionedin our last episode, so if you
haven't caught it, the last episodeof the podcast is all about preparing for
this trip, and specifically preparing witha baby. So this is the first
(01:07):
time that we did a long haulflight with her it's the first time we've
done jet leg with her or anysubstantial jet leg more than like two to
three hours, and we were prettyanxious going into it. So in this
episode, we're going to talk alittle bit about how the long travels went,
how jet leg was, how wekind of overcame that, and then
talk about our first few days inTokyo. Tokyo is a city that we've
(01:30):
been to before, so it wasreally fun to be back, but we'll
talk about we'll talk more about thatsoon. Yeah, And so if you're
mostly interested in traveling with a baby, traveling as a family, preparing for
a long haul flight, justine,once you've traveled to a different continent and
getting over jet leg, there'll belots of stuff you're interested in this episode.
(01:52):
If you're mostly interested in like whatto see and do in Japan,
probably a little bit less exciting foryou, but we'll have other episodes where
we dive more into that attractions placespart of it, yeah, for sure.
And also I think if you're interestedin Tokyo, we will talk about
Tokyo a little bit in this episode, but we also have some really great
content from the last time we werehere in Japan. We made a couple
(02:15):
of really, really, really funepisodes, so we'll make sure that we
link those in the show notes.So should we get started by talking a
little bit about our epic travel day. Yeah, so I think we cover
this a tiny bit in the previousepisode. But all the flights out of
Mexico City to Japan our red eyeflights because it's like a fourteen fifteen hour
(02:36):
flight. That means if you leaveat like midnight one am, you're arriving
in Japan bright and early, firstthing in the morning. And so that's
the way they're set up. Andso we were flying out of Mexico City
at like twelve to thirty in themorning, and coming from Cadeto, that
means having to get there get setup, and so we ended up deciding
to hire a driver and take usto Mexico City, which is about three
(03:00):
hour drive, and then we're atthe airport for quite a while before our
flight. Yeah, for sure.So there's a couple different options getting from
Keeto to Mexico City. We actuallyhave a podcast episode on ways to travel
around Mexico. But we decided insteadof taking a bus, you know,
from the bus station to the airport. We decided to hire a driver because
(03:22):
we just figured if there was anyhighway shenanigans or anything going on, it
would just kind of you be alittle bit more advantageous to be with a
driver. And the drive is threehours, like two and a half without
much traffic, and so it wasa little bit hard to decide when to
go because, like Rand said,our flight was at basically like midnight on
(03:44):
Thursday mornings lash Wednesday night. Howeveryou want to look at that. And
we were like, well, ifwe go at like six pm, we're
going to inevitably hit traffic. We'regoing to hit traffic in like leaving Kieto
and arriving to Mexico City, ifthere's any delays, we'll be running kind
of late. So we decided tojust give ourselves lots aboff time and leave
it three. It took us probablylike three full hours, maybe a little
(04:06):
longer because our driver was a bitdutty to get to the airport. So
I think we arrived between like sixand six thirties at right. Yeah,
And one of the thoughts was thattraveling at that time would be solid one
to give ourselves about francase or Shenanigan. Sometimes people blockade the highway and stuff.
I don't even want to miss ourflight. And two it lined up
quite well with like Lou potentially beingable to nap, which she ended up
(04:30):
not doing at all on the drive. Yeah, for sure. So I
feel like our travels actually started outa little bit rocky. We had hired
this driver. It was a companythat was that we haven't used before.
It's not our normal company that wego with, but they were recommended by
actually two sets of sets of friendsthat we trust, and we ended up
getting the guy who runs a companyhis partner, and one of our friends
(04:53):
was like, oh yeah, Irode with him, like he's not as
good as the other guy, andI was like, well, I'm sure
it's fine, Like how bad canit be? And it started off off
with him like not being able tofind our house and then taking the wrong
like exit to leave, and thenI just moved over to like attend to
Lou, and I see that ourcar is like super low on gas,
(05:13):
and so then I'm stressed because runningon a gas on the highway is crappy.
It's horrible of how it happen.Once. I do not ever want
to experience that again, and Iwas a bit frustrated, like we're paying
you know, like probably double whatit costs to take the bus so that
we don't have to run into situationslike that. It just felt like super
unprofessional, and he was very rudeto me about it, and so,
(05:35):
you know, there's that happening.And then, like Ryan said, we
thought Loo might nap a little bit, and then she ended up not napping.
She was like really not wanting tobe in her car seat, and
so I was a bit like,oh, here we go. But it
actually ended up being that, likethe three hour drive was probably the worst
slash most stressful part of the journey, which is totally not what I anticipated.
(05:58):
But we arrived to Mexico City Airport. We arrived, like I said,
around six six thirty, so wehad about six hours before our flight,
about five five and a half untilboarding. We were able to check
our bags, which was really great, so we got rid of most of
our luggage and then we went throughsecurity. Security was breezy, and then
because of our American Express card,we were able to go to the airport
(06:20):
lounge, which if you don't havea credit card or priority pass or something,
it gets you into airport lounges.This is such a game changer.
I feel like we just got thisin the last year and a half,
and because we weren't traveling a lotwhen Lou was super super little, we
hadn't used it that much, andwe've been using it a ton over the
last couple of months, and itis just the best to have that.
(06:40):
So we went and we had somedinner, we had some drinks, we
relaxed a little bit, you know, read books, et cetera, et
c. Lou ended up falling asleepprobably around like eight forty five, and
she actually slept for like three hours, which was really great. So we
were basically like in line to geton the plane when she woke up,
and so she had had a reallysolid little sleep, and then I think
(07:01):
she was a little bit like,Hey, what's going on. What are
we doing. It's like, Oh, we're getting ready to board our flight
now. Yeah, And so onekind of big detail for us, we
talked a little bit about it onthe last episode, was we both kind
of got hit about a week beforethe flight with a bit of dread about
trying to have a wiggly fourteen monthold with us in economy seats, and
(07:27):
then a few days before the fight, got the email offer of like,
hey, you can bid for anupgrade, and they had the price for
what it would cost to like justlike guarantee you get it, and it
was expensive but not crazy expensive andfelt within the range of if you think
about it in terms of like investingand feeling better over the course of the
next like four or five days becauseyou're actually able to sleep on the plane.
(07:51):
So we ended up upgrading and gettinginto first class for the flight,
which I think made us feel alot more excited about the actual flight.
So like the whole daily you afterit, I think I felt excited as
opposed to like a little bit terrified. But We've got on the plane and
then had seats were actually kind oflike a little bit like skinnier than I
(08:13):
would have guessed, but like reallynice seats that could lie all the way
down flat, which I think wasjust like a total game changer for traveling
for us with the baby. Yeah, for sure. I mean we have
not traveled in first class very much, I think in either of our lives,
and so it's definitely like a lushtreat to have that and we've taken
(08:35):
a lot of long haul flights anda lot of flights that involve jat leg
and red eyes, and it's always, you know, you're kind of hoping
that maybe there's empty rows that youcan move into, or maybe nobody occupies
that third seat when you're a secondAnd like Ryan said, we were both
like pretty anxious. I feel likeit was to the point where it was
like waking me up in the nightor keeping me up with just like dread
(08:56):
about not sleeping at all. AndI know that's so silly because it's only
you know, fourteen hours of mylife, and you know, we can
do hard things and stuff. Butat the same time, we just decided
it was worth the investment for us, and like Rand said, it was
it was really nice. And sobasically how the flight went was lou like
(09:16):
I said, woke up just alittle bit before we boarded, and then
pretty quick after we took off,so probably within like an hour of taking
off, like she was getting readyto sleep. So pretty much as soon
as we were at altitude and Iwas able to recline our seats, I
did nursed her and she was tosleep pretty quickly, and it worked for
me and her to lie in thesame seat. Like she's pretty small still,
(09:39):
so I was able to lie onmy side and share with her,
and she was able to lie flat. I was able to lie flat.
It was tight, it was squishy, but I'm not going to complain because
it was pretty great, I think, in comparison to what I was expecting.
So she slept for about five hours, which was really great, like
about one thirty till six thirty,and I think you and I were both
(10:00):
just completely amazed. And also Iguess a little shocked by how on point
her circadian rhythm is because it waslike exactly the same time that she wakes
up every day, even though she'dgone to bed later and she'd slept her
first few hours and her stroller andthen she'd been up for about an hour
before she went back to sleep,and so yeah, I guess we were
almost halfway through the flight at thatpoint, so an hour from takeoff,
(10:22):
five hours of sleep. You andI both slept during that part as well,
so I feel like we were feelingpretty okay. And then she was
awake for about like three to fourhours at that point, which is kind
of her normal wake windows. Soyou took her for a bed. I
got a bit more sleep. Itook her for a bit, You got
a bit more sleep. We gotwe did breakfast, played. It was
(10:43):
kind of almost like a normal day. And it's weird because you're traveling through
time, right, And because ofthe way we traveled, which was I
guess west from Mexico to Japan,we were in the dark pretty much the
whole time. Plus we were ona Dreamliner and they dimmed the windows,
so it was like pretty much darkin there the whole time, but pretty
(11:03):
much right on point of when shewould have napped, she went down for
a nap. She slept for twohours. I slept a little bit with
her. I lied down with heror tried to sleep, and then she
woke up and she was awake fora probably lost like two to three hours
of the flight. Again, justwe took turns playing with her and I
even got to watch a movie.She wasn't super engaged with it, but
because we had like the big seat, I was able to we're able to
(11:26):
kind of like have some play spaceand for me to sit kind on the
end and watch a movie, whichI totally didn't expect. So that was
that was pretty great, and thenwe arrived around six am, I guess
in Tokyo, And maybe you wantto talk about like what it was like
sort of arriving and any other thoughtsyou have from that plane ride. Yeah,
I guessed for the plane I thinkthe way we were thinking of it
(11:48):
was kind of had this opportunity withjust having one baby and not having to
pay pay for tickets right now,to make it you can almost think of,
like, hey, pay for thenicer seat divided by three instead of
too. We could have joked thoughthat like Lou will be like the first
class baby and then definitely not happyan once we're paying for three tickets.
So kind of a brief blip intime, but I think it was really
(12:13):
nice having the extra space, andthen we just kind of thought of it
as like, hey, this iskind of an investment and like making this
day feel a lot lighter, makingour first couple days in Japan be things
we can enjoy instead of things we'rejust kind of like groggy and stumbling through,
because it would have been really hardjust being in two seats an economy,
given the size louis right now andnot being able to like have her
(12:35):
sleep on the floor. Overall,flight was really solid. The flight to
Japan from Mexico is a couple hourslonger than it is on the way home,
so kind of hopefully the way backwe'll feel like even more comfortable at
different time of day. But gettinginto Japan, they have one of those
kind of like send in all yourinformation apps that you can fell out before
(13:00):
you get to Japan, and soarriving is actually really smooth. It's kind
of interesting heard from a couple ofpeople coming in that we've talked to that
like, hey, everything in therival was really smooth and easy, and
a couple others who have been like, oh, huge line. So I
think where you're flying into and thetime of day matters a lot. We
got that redd at s Exam.We flew into Narita. I think it
felt like our plane might have beenlike the only plane arriving because once we
(13:22):
got out of there, like justlike us and a bunch of Mexicans who
were on the air of Mexico flight. A few of the people we talked
to who had flew into Hanada Airporthad mentioned like, oh, really long
lines to get through immigration and customs, so kind of seems like it depends
a little bit which airport you're cominginto, but for us, we were
like off the plane, through everythingin the airport within like thirty minutes.
(13:46):
Yeah, I mean taxing in probablyboth airports in Japan is like you drive
for like a long time because it'ssuper super big airport. So from the
time we touched down until the timewe actually got to our gate, I
feel like that was like longer thanalmost the whole other process. But yeah,
it was kind of weird. Italmost felt like, you know,
(14:09):
flying during like early COVID days,like for anyone who did like a rush
trip back to wherever they're from duringthose early pandemic days or maybe traveled,
you know in the US in thoseearly days something like that. I feel
like we just walked for ages andjust like didn't see anyone, and I
was like, what's happening here.It just felt like so strange, and
especially because it is a busy airportand it's a busy city and all that
(14:33):
type of stuff. But yeah,everything was really smooth, like Ryan said,
And yeah, the only other thingwas going to add was that as
of I think it's May eighth,this is the date where they're like finally
getting rid of all their COVID stuff. So I think basically, anyone listening
to this planning a trip, youwant to to do the app not gonna
have to deal with anything like that. For us, it seemed like kind
of one of those stages where they'vedecided they're getting rid of it, so
(14:54):
they're not really like doing too muchof it. People did check our temperatures
and they have kind of all theselike booths set up from like I guess
where they had like public health peoplebefore, which was kind of weird to
see. Yeah, I feel likeit was a little bit like post apocalyptic,
which I mean, maybe that isthe time we're in in some ways,
but yeah, you can just seelike the remnants of I guess kind
(15:18):
of COVID times and stuff, andyeah, I guess interesting and a little
strange to see, I think,especially having been in North America for so
long where so much of that stuffhas been gone for a while now.
But yeah, everything was really reallysmooth. We got through immigration quickly,
we got through got our bags reallyquickly, we were through customs super quick,
(15:41):
and then we arrived on the otherside of all that, and it
was so early in the morning,like it must have been just a little
bit before seven, and so wewere kind of like trying to figure out
what we needed to do. Andyou know, the first thing we needed
to do was get out cash.So we found an ATM so we could
get some cash, and then wesimcards. The airport does of Wi Fi,
(16:02):
so I connected my phone and wasable to you know, look up
directions to our hotel and you know, just check a couple of messages like
send our parents a little bit likehey, we're in Tokyo. We made
it safe, etcetera, etcetera.But we had to wait a little bit
until the simcard stations opened up.So then we got simcards, and it
would have been ideal probably to activateour JR passes at that point, but
(16:23):
they actually didn't. I don't thinkthat office opened to like eight or eight
thirty. And we didn't think itwas worth it to stick around because Narita
Airport is actually an hour away fromwhere we were staying. It's pretty out
there and you know, it's insanelyexpensive to take like an uber or a
taxi or something there. So wetook the train and we were staying by
the Skytree, which is a supergreat location. So we were literally able
(16:45):
to like walk on a train,take this same train right to the sky
Skytree stop, and then get outand our hotel was literally like right there.
It was super super close, sosuper convenient with having baggage and a
baby and stuff like that. AndI was really impressed with lou because,
like I mentioned, she was upthe last like two or three hours of
(17:06):
the flight, and then by thetime we got to the hotel, it
had been like three hours from landing, so it was about nine am.
And it's such a time warp whenyou arrive somewhere from overnight. And yes,
we slept, we got a littlebit of sleep, but it's like
you're still sleeping on a plane,you're still going through like the start of
jet leg and stuff, and soit kind of felt like the day had
(17:27):
just been so long already. Butit was only nine and so we show
up at our hotel. I hadbooked it through American Express Points and so
I had made a request with themto get early check in and we were
able to get it, but notuntil eleven am. And so what we
did is we took advantage of thosetwo hours to go get some breakfast to
(17:48):
walk around where we were, orientateourselves and get some sun light. One
of the biggest like tips that isout there for jet leg is to try
to start your day or just kindof live your from when you land.
So if you land in the morning, like we did, you want to
just like do your day as normal. If you land at night, you
want to try to just go tobed as normal. You want to just
(18:10):
like get onto that time zone prettyquick. And you know, Lou had
been up for a while, we'dbeen up for a while. Everyone was
pretty tired, and so I waspretty impressed with her that she made it
until we got into the room.But do you want to just talk about
like how you kind of felt LikeI feel like it was so surreal to
like walk off the plane be inJapan, but then like get on the
(18:30):
chain, everything's in Japanese. Youknow, we don't understand anything. We
don't understand anyone, and then it'slike, oh, we're at this hotel.
You know, we've been We've hada booked for so long, We've
been looking forward to this for solong. Like what did that feel like
for you? Yeah? I thinkit was. It was interesting because this
is something we planned well, wehad a trip we wanted to do to
Japan a couple of years ago didn'thappen, and then we ended up booking
(18:52):
this in October. So to belike finally at the day where we're like,
oh, we're driving Mexico City,getting on a plane, and then
making it happen, I think kindof felt felt cool because it was I
can't remember the last time we'd bookedsomething and planned something that far in advance.
And then getting here too, Ithink, yeah, just like getting
through the flight it being really solid, sleeping pretty well, getting through all
(19:15):
the immigration stuff, getting to thehotel, it's like, oh, wow,
like we're finally here. Obviously itfelt like we were gonna there wasn't
any risks of not making it there, but just something that feels like,
oh, there's so many roadblocks inthe way. So yeah, really cool
and really excited to be in Japan. And then I think we both were
like we kind of found out afew days before that like cherry blossom season
had kind of come a little bitearly to Tokyo. So we got there
(19:38):
and we're able to see like somecherry blossoms walk around and just felt like
really excited to be there. Ithink something else that was really cool for
us was our friend Madison was inTokyo at the time. Our friend Becky,
who you guys have heard on thispodcast was in Tokyo at the time.
So just like getting there too andknowing like, oh, we're gonna
like get out meet friends made itreally exciting to be there. Yeah.
(20:00):
Absolutely, And so I want totalk a little bit about what it was
like to be in Japan again aftersix years, but maybe we can talk
a little bit about like the jetleg aspect of the first few days,
because we were in Tokyo from Wearrived early on the seventh and we left
on the eleventh, and I wouldsay those were like our worst days of
jet leg. But the last timewe traveled back from Asia, I remember
(20:22):
being super super messed up from thejet leg. And I don't know if
this was like I just didn't planfor it, or maybe it was because
we've been in Asia for so long. I don't know what it was that
made the jet leg so bad,but I remember just feeling like absolute garbage,
just absolutely terrible, And so Iwas kind of planning for like feeling
(20:44):
really bad and on top of thatalso having like a baby who was probably
gonna be feeling bad and then obviouslyneeding to take care of her. But
arriving there, I was like,Okay, I don't feel so so bad.
So we got early check in.We got into our hotel after walking
around seeing some trayble awesome is gettingsome food, We put lou down for
a nap. I think you wentand like maybe did some work or explored
(21:06):
a little bit or something like that. I stayed in the hotel room with
her. I think one thing,and maybe we can talk about this a
little bit more, is that wewere in a pretty small hotel room like
things here in Asia in general,but definitely in Japan or just smaller.
So despite being in like a nicehotel probably even like a pretty sizeable hotel
(21:26):
room, like, it was prettysmall. So we only had one bed
really only one like living space thatwas right beside the bed, and so
it wasn't super functional to have liketwo of us in the room while she
was napping, or if there weretwo of us, it's like one of
us needs to be like at thedesk or in the bed, and the
other one needs to be like atthe desk or vice versa, or in
(21:49):
the bathroom, like we had areally nice bathtub. So I think for
a lot of sleep times we rotatedtaking baths and stuff like that. But
I think you went out and explored. I stayed with her. I tried
to close my eyes a little bit, but just felt like way too overstimulated.
She slept amazing, and so oneof the tips that I'd received from
a number of mom friends and parentfriends who have traveled with their little kids
(22:11):
is that you want to keep themon a pretty regular routine. So I
think she went down around eleven fifteen. That's a little later than she would
normally nap in the day, butpretty close to her like nap that she
takes and the longest she will evertake a nap for his three hours,
And we hit the like two hourforty five minute mark, and like girlfriend
was out. So I feel like, because that time in Mexico is like
(22:34):
nighttime, I feel like her bodywas like ready to go to sleep for
the whole day. And so rightaround the three hour mark, we woke
her up. So she slept fromlike eleven till two, and then we
went out, Like Ryan said,we had friends, so we met up
with friends, did some walking aroundagain, got more sunlight just to try
to really accustomize all of our bodies, and did some exploring, got some
(22:57):
food, and we Lou was tiredbecause that evening she got pretty fussy while
we were still trying to keep herup, and then she actually fell asleep
in her stroller while we were onthe way home, which is like really
unlike her. But we ended upjust getting like sushi from the grocery store
and eating sushi like in the hotelroom. So not a super luxurious first
(23:17):
first evening, but I think allof us were pretty tired, and I
think you and I went to bedaround like I think we made it to
nine pm, and we were kindof like high five. We made it
to nine, let's go to sleep, and we wanted to make sure we
got to bed early because we weren'tsure how Lou would do. She did
really great, though she woke upa little bit around like two am,
had some milk, rolled around alittle bit. We kind of just kept
(23:40):
sleeping and she went back to sleepand then woke up around like four forty
five four fifty in the morning,so about like an hour and a half
earlier. Than normal, but Ifeel like, considering what it could have
been, I was like, Okay, I feel pretty grateful that she did
so well, especially considering the firstday. Yeah, I think that's the
scary thing with having the baby,is like is she gonna wake up at
(24:03):
midnight? Is she gonna wake upat one am? She not gonna refused
to sleep entirely, so we remember, Yeah, we went out. I
think I felt pretty good, madeit through the day pretty strong, and
we're kind of planning on getting dinner, meal out and stopped at a Starbucks
just to have a tea and chatwith our friend Madison. And it was
like six forty five seven, Andthat's kind of really when I feel like
(24:25):
I got hit by the like sleepbug and just was like I need to
go, like get some food andgo to bed, I think, And
that was kind of lou was gettingsuper fussy, and then walking from there
we all fell asleep. So yeah, overall went really well, and yeah,
she slept better than I would haveexpected. It's kind of funny with
(24:45):
jet leg I feel like it's oneof those things where once you pass through
it, it's kind of hard toremember. Like I don't like looking back
on it, I'm like, whatwas it like being super jet lighted.
I feel like, overall, yeah, you're just kind of like feel a
bit groggy, and then one dayyou're like, oh, I feel like
myself again. I think for me, maybe it's like day four or something.
I had a day when I wentout and did something and then I
(25:07):
came back and I was like,I feel like I feel like myself again.
But overall, yeah, not toobad at all, and I think
way better than we could have expected. Is in terms of how Lou handled
it. Yeah, for sure,I feel like it is weird thinking about
jet Lake because it's like, youknow, it kind of sucks. But
then at the same time, it'slike, you know, we just kind
of like we haven't been in Japanthat long. It's been like less than
(25:29):
two weeks, so it's been likeless than ten days at the time of
recording, that we like kind ofwe're getting over this. I feel like
it. To me, it feelslike a little bit like dazed and confused
when you get there, and thenlike the afternoon, I remember getting struck
by a wave of tiredness, andagain, same thing that you described in
the evening, getting struck by thatwave, and then over the course of
(25:51):
the few days that we were inTokyo, I feel like it was kind
of the same thing. Like partof it was that Lou woke up pretty
early for those first few days,Like it was right around five am,
which is super early, Like evenas parents to a small infant, that's
like super early in the morning.And so it's just like natural to get
tired, right, especially when you'renot napping, and we were. I
(26:11):
was resting with her a little bitwhile she was napping, but trying not
to nap myself, just so thatmy body could adjust, and I wasn't
getting daytime sleep when I normally wouldn't. And yeah, I feel like just
getting that, like you get hitby this like huge wave of tiredness just
in like strange moments that you maybenormally don't. But I feel like we
kind of utilize the jet leg toour advantage, like just being up super
(26:33):
early in the morning. We werelike, Okay, this is one of
the biggest cities in the world,Like there has to be stuff going on
early in the morning, and sojust taking advantage of doing things first thing
in the morning. So we kindof got in the routine of like getting
up, getting going right away,bringing Lou back to the hotel room.
She would take a pretty long nap, like she was sleeping three hours all
those days. We were needing towake her, getting up, go meet
(26:56):
with friends, do something fun,get a pretty early dinner, get back
for a pretty early bed time forher, and then you know, do
things like one of us takes abath, we rotate sauna. Maybe you
should talk about the sauna experience atsome point. I think that that would
be cool. And yeah, justkind of taking it easy and whatnot.
(27:17):
And we both used a little bitof melatonin, which I think was really
helpful, just taking a small dosagebefore going to bed and that really helps
you sleep through the night and getadjusted. So I think melatonin, sunlight
and just getting on a normal routineas fast as possible was like the best
thing we did, I think,for all three of us. So maybe
we can talk about just like arrivingin Japan and what that was like.
(27:41):
Obviously we've been to Japan before,but it's been six years, and it's
been six years since we've been toAsia in general. And we also figured
out it's been six years since we'vebeen in a country where we don't speak
the language because we speak Spanish.So let's talk about what it was like
to arrive in a place where wedon't speak the language and we also read
the alphabet. Yeah, I thinkit was both. I think we both
(28:03):
had some like instincts to say thingsin Spanish, just because obviously we're like
English first language speakers. But thatassociation between like, oh, I'm traveling
somewhere and that place being Spanish hasbeen kind of ingrained now that we've been
in Santas speaking countries for so longand taking so many trips to Panama,
(28:23):
Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia.So much of our travels over the past
six years have been to those Spanishspeaking countries. So I think we both
had moments where we were like,uhsee or it said things, or like
wanted to say something in Spanish,and yeah, it's funny, like we
both learned a few Spanish words sothey're not Spanish words in Japanese words,
and so that's been kind of helpful. But yeah, definitely kind of awkward,
(28:47):
like fumbling and being like a pointgetting back to like oh, pointing
at things or asking do you speakEnglish? Google Translate has definitely been a
good friend of ours these these lastcouple of weeks. Now, Yeah,
although I think we probably use it. I think a couple things In Japan,
people tend to speak more English thanthey let on, especially like if
(29:08):
you're in Tokyo, you're in Osaka, you go into a coffee shop,
like even some of those words,like the Japanese might use like hot latte
instead of whatever. Hot latte islike literally translated to like if you go
into the seven to eleven here andsay hot latte, like they'll give you
the coffee cup for the coffee machine. So I haven't used to translate a
(29:30):
ton over like the past week.I don't think. I feel like I've
been using it to like take photosof packages and stuff constantly. I feel
like I use it every day.That's a good point. Yeah, Actually,
like trans I was thinking more soin conversation, but yeah, using
it to like just look at packages, look at menus, that's definitely been
been happening. So um, yeah, I was thinking more just like in
(29:52):
conversations, but I feel like inconversations it's like kazaimas good morning in Kunichia.
I got the zaimas Hey, googa, what kadi mesca, which is
like do you speak English or doyou understand English? Has been kind of
the big goat toos. Yeah,for sure, and I think it's been
really humbling. I think that beingin a country where we don't speak the
(30:12):
language, I'm kind of reminded ofhow uncomfortable that can be. Like when
you want to tell somebody that theymade you a great coffee or that you
really enjoyed the meal, and it'slike you just don't have the words,
so you're kind of using like handsignals or saying English things, and they're
saying Japanese things, and I'm like, I don't know if we're saying the
same thing, but this was great, or you know, our daughter is
(30:36):
a disaster in restaurants, like throwingmenus on the floor, throwing rice on
the floor, throwing food everywhere.The Japanese people and culture is very clean,
so I feel like she's just makinga mess, and it's like we
want to apologize. And on topof that, there's no tipping here.
Tipping is not a part of theculture, and so I feel like we're
like, we'd like to communicate howsorry we are. And also give you
(30:57):
a nice tip and thank you somuch for your great service. But obviously
that stuff is just a little bitdifferent. But it's been really fun to
be back here. It's been reallyfun to be kind of out of our
comfort zones, but also like ina place that's very comfortable, that's very
easy to be. It's been veryrefreshing to be in a place that's so
(31:18):
safe, that's so organized, that'sso clean, that's so quiet. It's
just remarkable, like how things runin this country. And I think after
being in Latin America for so long, and particularly Mexico, which we love
Mexico, don't get me wrong,Like I love Mexico, but Mexico is
not organized, quiet, clean.Things often do not run on time,
(31:41):
and that stuff is fine, butsometimes it's nice to have the opposite of
it. So I feel like that'sbeen really refreshing after you know, so
long of being in Latin America.Yeah, it's kind of like travel therapy
a little bit, to like havea few weeks of training, show up
on time, everything is super clean. You can, like, you know,
just wander in any direction and you'renot worried. One of the things
(32:06):
it's really striking for me the pastfew days walking around the neighborhood where and
we're just in a random suburb ofOccer where we found an affordable airbnb.
There's like a million bikes and thisis true of Tokyo too, and like
no one locks their bikes. Thebikes are just all unlocked. You can't
find garbage anywhere. You can walkdown like side streets and back alleys and
like bosh, people around. Everyone'slike super friendly and there's no sense of
(32:30):
like everyone just kind of like trustseach other and everything kind of stays organized,
so it's very fun. I thinkfor us we both love kind of
the like freedom and chaos that youexperienced in certain parts of Latin America and
just the liveliness the warmth of people, which like here people are very like
polite and friendly and do an amazingjob at work, but you don't get
(32:52):
that same sense of like warmth.So I think, yeah, that's been
that's been really cool to experience here, especially with having a small child,
like just that some of the thingsthat make it feel easier, Like I
know, one of the things evenas simple as like traveling in Mexico or
Colombia when you've got a baby,a stroller, two suitcases, backpacks.
(33:15):
Like if you're stopping somewhere, you'rekind of like stressing about Like I got
to be mindful of where my stuffis, like because someone could just come
and take your stuff. And hereit's like, you know, you can
just put your stuff down, putyour stroller by the door. Like at
the hotel we stayed at last,people just like left there strollers in the
lobby. They were all like youknow, sorted and organized, and the
(33:35):
staff had a little cordoned around them. But I'm like, now we're not
doing that. Stuff would just likein you know, Mexico, if you
did that, someone would probably takeyour stroller. So yeah, I think
it's been a really cool change ofpace for us. And it's been just
like kind of feeling like just breathinga little deeper and feeling a little less
stressed. Yeah, for sure.It's so interesting to think about how like
(34:00):
your norm just kind of becomes sointegrated in the way that you are.
And I think an example of thisfor me is like, especially with the
pandemic, there's been so many changesin like hours of operation or when things
are open, and businesses in Mexicoare notoriously bad for updating their like Google
(34:21):
profiles. And so you look onGoogle. You find a restaurant, it's
got great reviews, it's open fromten to six. Beau you go,
and I mean, if it's notopen at like ten fifteen, that's not
so weird. But you could goat like one and it's like it's just
closed. There's no updates on socialmedia, there's no notice on the door.
It's just like the business is closed, like we have no idea what's
(34:43):
going on. And I think,on our like second or third morning in
Japan in Tokyo, we wanted togo activate our JR passes because we needed
to get our train for when we'releaving Tokyo to head to Nagano. And
I checked online to see, like, wa place we could go to,
and I double checked, and Iwent to the website and then I checked
(35:05):
the little like JR brochure. Thenthey'd sent me in the mail with our
like coupons that you have to take, and in my head I was thinking,
I feel like there's a chance thatthis just like doesn't happen. But
we're like, okay, let's gofor it. Let's use this early morning
let's get there when it first opens. And so we go. We show
up. Of course the office isopen, there's a bunch of people working,
(35:25):
a bunch of people available to attendus. There was a little bit
of a line, and I wasa bit like, oh, is this
going to take forever? No,everyone is efficient. Everyone got helped quickly.
We got our passes activated, wegot our first train booked, we
had our train tickets for where weneeded to go, and I didn't even
connect until we were like back home. About like my actions of like double
(35:46):
checking, triple checking and then settingmyself up for disappointment is like so much
of what has been ingrained in meover the last few years of living in
Latin America, because that's just likehow things are. It's it's no like
Haye on Latin America. It's justlike how things are, and it's just
not how things are in Japan.And so yeah, that type of stuff
has been really nice for us,and it's been really refreshing, and I
(36:07):
feel like we've really enjoyed being here. And like I said before at the
beginning, we're going to talk moreabout places we've been, what we've done
over the last couple of weeks andjust in general our trip, but I
wanted to spend a couple of minutestalking about Tokyo. Tokyo is a city
that we've been before. We spentwe book ended our last trip with it
the same as this trip, soabout a week at the front and about
(36:30):
a week at the back last time, and we had four days to start
there. And so I'm curious whatyour thoughts are on returning to Tokyo,
Like, what was it like foryou to be back in a city that,
I mean is really one of ourfavorite cities in the world. Yeah,
it was really exciting. Tokyo isdefinitely one of those cities where it's
just so huge that like you stayin different parts of it and it feels
(36:52):
you might as well be in adifferent city entirely. So we were staying
the first time there near the Skytree, which is actually the first time you're
in Tokyo on a very first trip. We staged in more or less the
same area, but like fifteen awalk from there, so it was an
area of the city we were somewhatfamiliar with, and it was cool to
be there and explore. I thinkwith the baby. One thing we kind
(37:15):
of realized when we got there.This time was just some of the distances,
Like if you want to go fromlike where we were to Shibuya or
other places, this can be likeforty five minute one hour trips and so
you can't really go explore as widely. But yeah, it was I think
one just one of those cities wherethere's like so much cool stuff going on.
(37:37):
You turn a corner and you findsomething neat or interesting, beautiful,
and then just remarkably quiet. Likeyou show up in a city like that
and you're like, I don't gethow there's so many people doing so much
stuff and it's just so calm andpeaceful and quiet, extremely walkable, like
you definitely notice on your feet thefirst few days where you're like, oh
(37:57):
my feet are sore. I'm puttingit a lot more steps. And then
I guess the final thing would justbe like amazing food. Like the thing
about being in Japan is you cango to a convenient store, great great
food, grocery store, great greatfood, can rear Bolt sushi get great
food, or go to like areally high end upper class restaurant, higher
priced restaurant and have amazing food.So kind of everywhere you go, there's
(38:21):
lots of good food options. Soyeah, overall, was just supercited.
We ended up staying like four daysbefore we left, and definitely like excited
to be in Osaka now, butalso itching to get back to Tokyo.
Yeah, for sure. We wentback and forth quite a bit about how
long to spend in Tokyo on thistrip, just because we have been there
before. But I think, likeyou said, it's a city where just
(38:44):
staying in a new area gives youlike a new experience, and the last
time we were there, we dida lot of stuff. So we've done
a lot of kind of the mainquote unquote tourist things to do. Like
I think if you were to lookat a list of top ten or top
fifteen things to see and do inTokyo, we've done probably the majority of
them, and there's a bunch ofthings that we want to kind of repeat
(39:06):
and see again. But what wekind of decided to do in this first
four days was, I mean,one, take it a little bit easy
because of the jet leg and justadjusting too. We had two friends in
town, like Ryan Mentions, wereally dedicated time to spending with them,
so it was very go with theflow, and then three we looked at
a map and kind of looked at, like, Okay, what's in our
(39:27):
neck of the woods here where we'restaying now, because when we come back
to Tokyo we're staying in a totallydifferent area. We kind of looked at,
like, Okay, what's like closerto us that we could do at
that point when we come back,And so we kind of just divided things
up based on that. And sowe made a visit to the Fish Market,
which is something we did do thelast time we were there, but
went and revisited. Went early morning. One of our early morning wake ups,
(39:52):
had some delicious, amazing Tunabelle forbreakfast. It was just incredible,
such a good intro to being inTokyo and Pan in general. We went
over to Winno Park, which isa really popular area. We also were
at Tokyo Station and in that area, and then we also went to an
area that our friend Becky had encouragedus to go to, which I'll need
(40:15):
to look on a map and getin the show notes because I don't remember
the name. But it's amazing beingwith somebody like Becky who's lived in Tokyo
for so long because she just knowsthese like little places that are not on
like the top ten or top fifteenlist, and it's so fun to just
go check out an area. Youhop off the train and it's like,
oh, you're in another new place, and it's equally as cool as other
(40:37):
places with great restaurants and nice experiences, and you know, it's clean,
it's safe. It's so nice notto worry about all that type of stuff.
So yeah, we had a reallynice time being back there, and
I think it's just the type ofcity that I feel like I could go
back to, you like, everyyear, until you know, I'm an
old lady hopefully and still find newthings to explore because it's just so big
(40:59):
and diverse and cool and fun.And like you said, the food is
incredible. So we've just been walkingour hearts out and eating our faces off
and it's been it's been pretty amazing. Yeah, definitely, And it was
also fun you mentioned kind of hangingout with Becky, hanging out with our
friend Madison, who was in Tokyofor the first time, so kind of
seeing her excitement for being there andit kind of yeah, just being able
(41:22):
to get somewhere new in the worldand see friends who haven't seen for a
long time was really fun as well. Yeah, for sure, So I
think we'll leave it here. We'vetalked lots on this episode, but in
the next couple of episodes you canexpect updates from the other places we've been,
so Nagano area, Kindazawa, Osakaand then heading back to Osaka and
(41:45):
area I should say, and thenheading back to Tokyo. So we still
have lots to explore, so we'llbe over here having a good time,
living large, enjoy in Japan andthen also keeping you guys updated through the
podcast. So stay tuned for moreupdates on Japan. And thanks so much
for listening. Until next time.Thanks for listening to this episode. If
(42:05):
you want more to make sure tocheck out the World Wanders Insider available on
Patreon at patreon dot com, slashthe World Wanderers for show notes, head
over to the World Wanders dot com. Find us on social media at the
World Wanders podcast, join the privateFacebook community at World Wanders, a community
for travelers. You can always getin touch with us at info at the
World wanders dot com. And ifyou enjoyed the show, don't forget to
(42:29):
subscribe and leave a review. Itreally helps us find new listeners. See
you next time.
Hello, and welcome to the Worldwanders Podcast, a proud part of the
wander Barn podcast network. I'm Ryan, I'm Amanda, and we're your host.
We're a traveling couple and digital nomads, taking you on our adventures as
we explore locations, destinations, andcareers. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of theWorld Wanderers Podcast. We are super
(00:25):
excited to be joining you from Japantoday. Yeah, we are in our
port Oo recording studio in Osaka,Japan. Yeah, it's been a while
since we've been recording on the road, so it's kind of fun to have
our old school set up back again. It's a little bit less, I
guess, like lush, we don'thave our microphone arms and all that type
(00:46):
of stuff. But really excited tobe here with you today talking about Japan,
and so we're going to have anumber of Japan episodes because we've got
a month here. Like we mentionedin our last episode, so if you
haven't caught it, the last episodeof the podcast is all about preparing for
this trip, and specifically preparing witha baby. So this is the first
(01:07):
time that we did a long haulflight with her it's the first time we've
done jet leg with her or anysubstantial jet leg more than like two to
three hours, and we were prettyanxious going into it. So in this
episode, we're going to talk alittle bit about how the long travels went,
how jet leg was, how wekind of overcame that, and then
talk about our first few days inTokyo. Tokyo is a city that we've
(01:30):
been to before, so it wasreally fun to be back, but we'll
talk about we'll talk more about thatsoon. Yeah, And so if you're
mostly interested in traveling with a baby, traveling as a family, preparing for
a long haul flight, justine,once you've traveled to a different continent and
getting over jet leg, there'll belots of stuff you're interested in this episode.
(01:52):
If you're mostly interested in like whatto see and do in Japan,
probably a little bit less exciting foryou, but we'll have other episodes where
we dive more into that attractions placespart of it, yeah, for sure.
And also I think if you're interestedin Tokyo, we will talk about
Tokyo a little bit in this episode, but we also have some really great
content from the last time we werehere in Japan. We made a couple
(02:15):
of really, really, really funepisodes, so we'll make sure that we
link those in the show notes.So should we get started by talking a
little bit about our epic travel day. Yeah, so I think we cover
this a tiny bit in the previousepisode. But all the flights out of
Mexico City to Japan our red eyeflights because it's like a fourteen fifteen hour
(02:36):
flight. That means if you leaveat like midnight one am, you're arriving
in Japan bright and early, firstthing in the morning. And so that's
the way they're set up. Andso we were flying out of Mexico City
at like twelve to thirty in themorning, and coming from Cadeto, that
means having to get there get setup, and so we ended up deciding
to hire a driver and take usto Mexico City, which is about three
(03:00):
hour drive, and then we're atthe airport for quite a while before our
flight. Yeah, for sure.So there's a couple different options getting from
Keeto to Mexico City. We actuallyhave a podcast episode on ways to travel
around Mexico. But we decided insteadof taking a bus, you know,
from the bus station to the airport. We decided to hire a driver because
(03:22):
we just figured if there was anyhighway shenanigans or anything going on, it
would just kind of you be alittle bit more advantageous to be with a
driver. And the drive is threehours, like two and a half without
much traffic, and so it wasa little bit hard to decide when to
go because, like Rand said,our flight was at basically like midnight on
(03:44):
Thursday mornings lash Wednesday night. Howeveryou want to look at that. And
we were like, well, ifwe go at like six pm, we're
going to inevitably hit traffic. We'regoing to hit traffic in like leaving Kieto
and arriving to Mexico City, ifthere's any delays, we'll be running kind
of late. So we decided tojust give ourselves lots aboff time and leave
it three. It took us probablylike three full hours, maybe a little
(04:06):
longer because our driver was a bitdutty to get to the airport. So
I think we arrived between like sixand six thirties at right. Yeah,
And one of the thoughts was thattraveling at that time would be solid one
to give ourselves about francase or Shenanigan. Sometimes people blockade the highway and stuff.
I don't even want to miss ourflight. And two it lined up
quite well with like Lou potentially beingable to nap, which she ended up
(04:30):
not doing at all on the drive. Yeah, for sure. So I
feel like our travels actually started outa little bit rocky. We had hired
this driver. It was a companythat was that we haven't used before.
It's not our normal company that wego with, but they were recommended by
actually two sets of sets of friendsthat we trust, and we ended up
getting the guy who runs a companyhis partner, and one of our friends
(04:53):
was like, oh yeah, Irode with him, like he's not as
good as the other guy, andI was like, well, I'm sure
it's fine, Like how bad canit be? And it started off off
with him like not being able tofind our house and then taking the wrong
like exit to leave, and thenI just moved over to like attend to
Lou, and I see that ourcar is like super low on gas,
(05:13):
and so then I'm stressed because runningon a gas on the highway is crappy.
It's horrible of how it happen.Once. I do not ever want
to experience that again, and Iwas a bit frustrated, like we're paying
you know, like probably double whatit costs to take the bus so that
we don't have to run into situationslike that. It just felt like super
unprofessional, and he was very rudeto me about it, and so,
(05:35):
you know, there's that happening.And then, like Ryan said, we
thought Loo might nap a little bit, and then she ended up not napping.
She was like really not wanting tobe in her car seat, and
so I was a bit like,oh, here we go. But it
actually ended up being that, likethe three hour drive was probably the worst
slash most stressful part of the journey, which is totally not what I anticipated.
(05:58):
But we arrived to Mexico City Airport. We arrived, like I said,
around six six thirty, so wehad about six hours before our flight,
about five five and a half untilboarding. We were able to check
our bags, which was really great, so we got rid of most of
our luggage and then we went throughsecurity. Security was breezy, and then
because of our American Express card,we were able to go to the airport
(06:20):
lounge, which if you don't havea credit card or priority pass or something,
it gets you into airport lounges.This is such a game changer.
I feel like we just got thisin the last year and a half,
and because we weren't traveling a lotwhen Lou was super super little, we
hadn't used it that much, andwe've been using it a ton over the
last couple of months, and itis just the best to have that.
(06:40):
So we went and we had somedinner, we had some drinks, we
relaxed a little bit, you know, read books, et cetera, et
c. Lou ended up falling asleepprobably around like eight forty five, and
she actually slept for like three hours, which was really great. So we
were basically like in line to geton the plane when she woke up,
and so she had had a reallysolid little sleep, and then I think
(07:01):
she was a little bit like,Hey, what's going on. What are
we doing. It's like, Oh, we're getting ready to board our flight
now. Yeah, And so onekind of big detail for us, we
talked a little bit about it onthe last episode, was we both kind
of got hit about a week beforethe flight with a bit of dread about
trying to have a wiggly fourteen monthold with us in economy seats, and
(07:27):
then a few days before the fight, got the email offer of like,
hey, you can bid for anupgrade, and they had the price for
what it would cost to like justlike guarantee you get it, and it
was expensive but not crazy expensive andfelt within the range of if you think
about it in terms of like investingand feeling better over the course of the
next like four or five days becauseyou're actually able to sleep on the plane.
(07:51):
So we ended up upgrading and gettinginto first class for the flight,
which I think made us feel alot more excited about the actual flight.
So like the whole daily you afterit, I think I felt excited as
opposed to like a little bit terrified. But We've got on the plane and
then had seats were actually kind oflike a little bit like skinnier than I
(08:13):
would have guessed, but like reallynice seats that could lie all the way
down flat, which I think wasjust like a total game changer for traveling
for us with the baby. Yeah, for sure. I mean we have
not traveled in first class very much, I think in either of our lives,
and so it's definitely like a lushtreat to have that and we've taken
(08:35):
a lot of long haul flights anda lot of flights that involve jat leg
and red eyes, and it's always, you know, you're kind of hoping
that maybe there's empty rows that youcan move into, or maybe nobody occupies
that third seat when you're a secondAnd like Ryan said, we were both
like pretty anxious. I feel likeit was to the point where it was
like waking me up in the nightor keeping me up with just like dread
(08:56):
about not sleeping at all. AndI know that's so silly because it's only
you know, fourteen hours of mylife, and you know, we can
do hard things and stuff. Butat the same time, we just decided
it was worth the investment for us, and like Rand said, it was
it was really nice. And sobasically how the flight went was lou like
(09:16):
I said, woke up just alittle bit before we boarded, and then
pretty quick after we took off,so probably within like an hour of taking
off, like she was getting readyto sleep. So pretty much as soon
as we were at altitude and Iwas able to recline our seats, I
did nursed her and she was tosleep pretty quickly, and it worked for
me and her to lie in thesame seat. Like she's pretty small still,
(09:39):
so I was able to lie onmy side and share with her,
and she was able to lie flat. I was able to lie flat.
It was tight, it was squishy, but I'm not going to complain because
it was pretty great, I think, in comparison to what I was expecting.
So she slept for about five hours, which was really great, like
about one thirty till six thirty,and I think you and I were both
(10:00):
just completely amazed. And also Iguess a little shocked by how on point
her circadian rhythm is because it waslike exactly the same time that she wakes
up every day, even though she'dgone to bed later and she'd slept her
first few hours and her stroller andthen she'd been up for about an hour
before she went back to sleep,and so yeah, I guess we were
almost halfway through the flight at thatpoint, so an hour from takeoff,
(10:22):
five hours of sleep. You andI both slept during that part as well,
so I feel like we were feelingpretty okay. And then she was
awake for about like three to fourhours at that point, which is kind
of her normal wake windows. Soyou took her for a bed. I
got a bit more sleep. Itook her for a bit, You got
a bit more sleep. We gotwe did breakfast, played. It was
(10:43):
kind of almost like a normal day. And it's weird because you're traveling through
time, right, And because ofthe way we traveled, which was I
guess west from Mexico to Japan,we were in the dark pretty much the
whole time. Plus we were ona Dreamliner and they dimmed the windows,
so it was like pretty much darkin there the whole time, but pretty
(11:03):
much right on point of when shewould have napped, she went down for
a nap. She slept for twohours. I slept a little bit with
her. I lied down with heror tried to sleep, and then she
woke up and she was awake fora probably lost like two to three hours
of the flight. Again, justwe took turns playing with her and I
even got to watch a movie.She wasn't super engaged with it, but
because we had like the big seat, I was able to we're able to
(11:26):
kind of like have some play spaceand for me to sit kind on the
end and watch a movie, whichI totally didn't expect. So that was
that was pretty great, and thenwe arrived around six am, I guess
in Tokyo, And maybe you wantto talk about like what it was like
sort of arriving and any other thoughtsyou have from that plane ride. Yeah,
I guessed for the plane I thinkthe way we were thinking of it
(11:48):
was kind of had this opportunity withjust having one baby and not having to
pay pay for tickets right now,to make it you can almost think of,
like, hey, pay for thenicer seat divided by three instead of
too. We could have joked thoughthat like Lou will be like the first
class baby and then definitely not happyan once we're paying for three tickets.
So kind of a brief blip intime, but I think it was really
(12:13):
nice having the extra space, andthen we just kind of thought of it
as like, hey, this iskind of an investment and like making this
day feel a lot lighter, makingour first couple days in Japan be things
we can enjoy instead of things we'rejust kind of like groggy and stumbling through,
because it would have been really hardjust being in two seats an economy,
given the size louis right now andnot being able to like have her
(12:35):
sleep on the floor. Overall,flight was really solid. The flight to
Japan from Mexico is a couple hourslonger than it is on the way home,
so kind of hopefully the way backwe'll feel like even more comfortable at
different time of day. But gettinginto Japan, they have one of those
kind of like send in all yourinformation apps that you can fell out before
(13:00):
you get to Japan, and soarriving is actually really smooth. It's kind
of interesting heard from a couple ofpeople coming in that we've talked to that
like, hey, everything in therival was really smooth and easy, and
a couple others who have been like, oh, huge line. So I
think where you're flying into and thetime of day matters a lot. We
got that redd at s Exam.We flew into Narita. I think it
felt like our plane might have beenlike the only plane arriving because once we
(13:22):
got out of there, like justlike us and a bunch of Mexicans who
were on the air of Mexico flight. A few of the people we talked
to who had flew into Hanada Airporthad mentioned like, oh, really long
lines to get through immigration and customs, so kind of seems like it depends
a little bit which airport you're cominginto, but for us, we were
like off the plane, through everythingin the airport within like thirty minutes.
(13:46):
Yeah, I mean taxing in probablyboth airports in Japan is like you drive
for like a long time because it'ssuper super big airport. So from the
time we touched down until the timewe actually got to our gate, I
feel like that was like longer thanalmost the whole other process. But yeah,
it was kind of weird. Italmost felt like, you know,
(14:09):
flying during like early COVID days,like for anyone who did like a rush
trip back to wherever they're from duringthose early pandemic days or maybe traveled,
you know in the US in thoseearly days something like that. I feel
like we just walked for ages andjust like didn't see anyone, and I
was like, what's happening here.It just felt like so strange, and
especially because it is a busy airportand it's a busy city and all that
(14:33):
type of stuff. But yeah,everything was really smooth, like Ryan said,
And yeah, the only other thingwas going to add was that as
of I think it's May eighth,this is the date where they're like finally
getting rid of all their COVID stuff. So I think basically, anyone listening
to this planning a trip, youwant to to do the app not gonna
have to deal with anything like that. For us, it seemed like kind
of one of those stages where they'vedecided they're getting rid of it, so
(14:54):
they're not really like doing too muchof it. People did check our temperatures
and they have kind of all theselike booths set up from like I guess
where they had like public health peoplebefore, which was kind of weird to
see. Yeah, I feel likeit was a little bit like post apocalyptic,
which I mean, maybe that isthe time we're in in some ways,
but yeah, you can just seelike the remnants of I guess kind
(15:18):
of COVID times and stuff, andyeah, I guess interesting and a little
strange to see, I think,especially having been in North America for so
long where so much of that stuffhas been gone for a while now.
But yeah, everything was really reallysmooth. We got through immigration quickly,
we got through got our bags reallyquickly, we were through customs super quick,
(15:41):
and then we arrived on the otherside of all that, and it
was so early in the morning,like it must have been just a little
bit before seven, and so wewere kind of like trying to figure out
what we needed to do. Andyou know, the first thing we needed
to do was get out cash.So we found an ATM so we could
get some cash, and then wesimcards. The airport does of Wi Fi,
(16:02):
so I connected my phone and wasable to you know, look up
directions to our hotel and you know, just check a couple of messages like
send our parents a little bit likehey, we're in Tokyo. We made
it safe, etcetera, etcetera.But we had to wait a little bit
until the simcard stations opened up.So then we got simcards, and it
would have been ideal probably to activateour JR passes at that point, but
(16:23):
they actually didn't. I don't thinkthat office opened to like eight or eight
thirty. And we didn't think itwas worth it to stick around because Narita
Airport is actually an hour away fromwhere we were staying. It's pretty out
there and you know, it's insanelyexpensive to take like an uber or a
taxi or something there. So wetook the train and we were staying by
the Skytree, which is a supergreat location. So we were literally able
(16:45):
to like walk on a train,take this same train right to the sky
Skytree stop, and then get outand our hotel was literally like right there.
It was super super close, sosuper convenient with having baggage and a
baby and stuff like that. AndI was really impressed with lou because,
like I mentioned, she was upthe last like two or three hours of
(17:06):
the flight, and then by thetime we got to the hotel, it
had been like three hours from landing, so it was about nine am.
And it's such a time warp whenyou arrive somewhere from overnight. And yes,
we slept, we got a littlebit of sleep, but it's like
you're still sleeping on a plane,you're still going through like the start of
jet leg and stuff, and soit kind of felt like the day had
(17:27):
just been so long already. Butit was only nine and so we show
up at our hotel. I hadbooked it through American Express Points and so
I had made a request with themto get early check in and we were
able to get it, but notuntil eleven am. And so what we
did is we took advantage of thosetwo hours to go get some breakfast to
(17:48):
walk around where we were, orientateourselves and get some sun light. One
of the biggest like tips that isout there for jet leg is to try
to start your day or just kindof live your from when you land.
So if you land in the morning, like we did, you want to
just like do your day as normal. If you land at night, you
want to try to just go tobed as normal. You want to just
(18:10):
like get onto that time zone prettyquick. And you know, Lou had
been up for a while, we'dbeen up for a while. Everyone was
pretty tired, and so I waspretty impressed with her that she made it
until we got into the room.But do you want to just talk about
like how you kind of felt LikeI feel like it was so surreal to
like walk off the plane be inJapan, but then like get on the
(18:30):
chain, everything's in Japanese. Youknow, we don't understand anything. We
don't understand anyone, and then it'slike, oh, we're at this hotel.
You know, we've been We've hada booked for so long, We've
been looking forward to this for solong. Like what did that feel like
for you? Yeah? I thinkit was. It was interesting because this
is something we planned well, wehad a trip we wanted to do to
Japan a couple of years ago didn'thappen, and then we ended up booking
(18:52):
this in October. So to belike finally at the day where we're like,
oh, we're driving Mexico City,getting on a plane, and then
making it happen, I think kindof felt felt cool because it was I
can't remember the last time we'd bookedsomething and planned something that far in advance.
And then getting here too, Ithink, yeah, just like getting
through the flight it being really solid, sleeping pretty well, getting through all
(19:15):
the immigration stuff, getting to thehotel, it's like, oh, wow,
like we're finally here. Obviously itfelt like we were gonna there wasn't
any risks of not making it there, but just something that feels like,
oh, there's so many roadblocks inthe way. So yeah, really cool
and really excited to be in Japan. And then I think we both were
like we kind of found out afew days before that like cherry blossom season
had kind of come a little bitearly to Tokyo. So we got there
(19:38):
and we're able to see like somecherry blossoms walk around and just felt like
really excited to be there. Ithink something else that was really cool for
us was our friend Madison was inTokyo at the time. Our friend Becky,
who you guys have heard on thispodcast was in Tokyo at the time.
So just like getting there too andknowing like, oh, we're gonna
like get out meet friends made itreally exciting to be there. Yeah.
(20:00):
Absolutely, And so I want totalk a little bit about what it was
like to be in Japan again aftersix years, but maybe we can talk
a little bit about like the jetleg aspect of the first few days,
because we were in Tokyo from Wearrived early on the seventh and we left
on the eleventh, and I wouldsay those were like our worst days of
jet leg. But the last timewe traveled back from Asia, I remember
(20:22):
being super super messed up from thejet leg. And I don't know if
this was like I just didn't planfor it, or maybe it was because
we've been in Asia for so long. I don't know what it was that
made the jet leg so bad,but I remember just feeling like absolute garbage,
just absolutely terrible, And so Iwas kind of planning for like feeling
(20:44):
really bad and on top of thatalso having like a baby who was probably
gonna be feeling bad and then obviouslyneeding to take care of her. But
arriving there, I was like,Okay, I don't feel so so bad.
So we got early check in.We got into our hotel after walking
around seeing some trayble awesome is gettingsome food, We put lou down for
a nap. I think you wentand like maybe did some work or explored
(21:06):
a little bit or something like that. I stayed in the hotel room with
her. I think one thing,and maybe we can talk about this a
little bit more, is that wewere in a pretty small hotel room like
things here in Asia in general,but definitely in Japan or just smaller.
So despite being in like a nicehotel probably even like a pretty sizeable hotel
(21:26):
room, like, it was prettysmall. So we only had one bed
really only one like living space thatwas right beside the bed, and so
it wasn't super functional to have liketwo of us in the room while she
was napping, or if there weretwo of us, it's like one of
us needs to be like at thedesk or in the bed, and the
other one needs to be like atthe desk or vice versa, or in
(21:49):
the bathroom, like we had areally nice bathtub. So I think for
a lot of sleep times we rotatedtaking baths and stuff like that. But
I think you went out and explored. I stayed with her. I tried
to close my eyes a little bit, but just felt like way too overstimulated.
She slept amazing, and so oneof the tips that I'd received from
a number of mom friends and parentfriends who have traveled with their little kids
(22:11):
is that you want to keep themon a pretty regular routine. So I
think she went down around eleven fifteen. That's a little later than she would
normally nap in the day, butpretty close to her like nap that she
takes and the longest she will evertake a nap for his three hours,
And we hit the like two hourforty five minute mark, and like girlfriend
was out. So I feel like, because that time in Mexico is like
(22:34):
nighttime, I feel like her bodywas like ready to go to sleep for
the whole day. And so rightaround the three hour mark, we woke
her up. So she slept fromlike eleven till two, and then we
went out, Like Ryan said,we had friends, so we met up
with friends, did some walking aroundagain, got more sunlight just to try
to really accustomize all of our bodies, and did some exploring, got some
(22:57):
food, and we Lou was tiredbecause that evening she got pretty fussy while
we were still trying to keep herup, and then she actually fell asleep
in her stroller while we were onthe way home, which is like really
unlike her. But we ended upjust getting like sushi from the grocery store
and eating sushi like in the hotelroom. So not a super luxurious first
(23:17):
first evening, but I think allof us were pretty tired, and I
think you and I went to bedaround like I think we made it to
nine pm, and we were kindof like high five. We made it
to nine, let's go to sleep, and we wanted to make sure we
got to bed early because we weren'tsure how Lou would do. She did
really great, though she woke upa little bit around like two am,
had some milk, rolled around alittle bit. We kind of just kept
(23:40):
sleeping and she went back to sleepand then woke up around like four forty
five four fifty in the morning,so about like an hour and a half
earlier. Than normal, but Ifeel like, considering what it could have
been, I was like, Okay, I feel pretty grateful that she did
so well, especially considering the firstday. Yeah, I think that's the
scary thing with having the baby,is like is she gonna wake up at
(24:03):
midnight? Is she gonna wake upat one am? She not gonna refused
to sleep entirely, so we remember, Yeah, we went out. I
think I felt pretty good, madeit through the day pretty strong, and
we're kind of planning on getting dinner, meal out and stopped at a Starbucks
just to have a tea and chatwith our friend Madison. And it was
like six forty five seven, Andthat's kind of really when I feel like
(24:25):
I got hit by the like sleepbug and just was like I need to
go, like get some food andgo to bed, I think, And
that was kind of lou was gettingsuper fussy, and then walking from there
we all fell asleep. So yeah, overall went really well, and yeah,
she slept better than I would haveexpected. It's kind of funny with
(24:45):
jet leg I feel like it's oneof those things where once you pass through
it, it's kind of hard toremember. Like I don't like looking back
on it, I'm like, whatwas it like being super jet lighted.
I feel like, overall, yeah, you're just kind of like feel a
bit groggy, and then one dayyou're like, oh, I feel like
myself again. I think for me, maybe it's like day four or something.
I had a day when I wentout and did something and then I
(25:07):
came back and I was like,I feel like I feel like myself again.
But overall, yeah, not toobad at all, and I think
way better than we could have expected. Is in terms of how Lou handled
it. Yeah, for sure,I feel like it is weird thinking about
jet Lake because it's like, youknow, it kind of sucks. But
then at the same time, it'slike, you know, we just kind
of like we haven't been in Japanthat long. It's been like less than
(25:29):
two weeks, so it's been likeless than ten days at the time of
recording, that we like kind ofwe're getting over this. I feel like
it. To me, it feelslike a little bit like dazed and confused
when you get there, and thenlike the afternoon, I remember getting struck
by a wave of tiredness, andagain, same thing that you described in
the evening, getting struck by thatwave, and then over the course of
(25:51):
the few days that we were inTokyo, I feel like it was kind
of the same thing. Like partof it was that Lou woke up pretty
early for those first few days,Like it was right around five am,
which is super early, Like evenas parents to a small infant, that's
like super early in the morning.And so it's just like natural to get
tired, right, especially when you'renot napping, and we were. I
(26:11):
was resting with her a little bitwhile she was napping, but trying not
to nap myself, just so thatmy body could adjust, and I wasn't
getting daytime sleep when I normally wouldn't. And yeah, I feel like just
getting that, like you get hitby this like huge wave of tiredness just
in like strange moments that you maybenormally don't. But I feel like we
kind of utilize the jet leg toour advantage, like just being up super
(26:33):
early in the morning. We werelike, Okay, this is one of
the biggest cities in the world,Like there has to be stuff going on
early in the morning, and sojust taking advantage of doing things first thing
in the morning. So we kindof got in the routine of like getting
up, getting going right away,bringing Lou back to the hotel room.
She would take a pretty long nap, like she was sleeping three hours all
those days. We were needing towake her, getting up, go meet
(26:56):
with friends, do something fun,get a pretty early dinner, get back
for a pretty early bed time forher, and then you know, do
things like one of us takes abath, we rotate sauna. Maybe you
should talk about the sauna experience atsome point. I think that that would
be cool. And yeah, justkind of taking it easy and whatnot.
(27:17):
And we both used a little bitof melatonin, which I think was really
helpful, just taking a small dosagebefore going to bed and that really helps
you sleep through the night and getadjusted. So I think melatonin, sunlight
and just getting on a normal routineas fast as possible was like the best
thing we did, I think,for all three of us. So maybe
we can talk about just like arrivingin Japan and what that was like.
(27:41):
Obviously we've been to Japan before,but it's been six years, and it's
been six years since we've been toAsia in general. And we also figured
out it's been six years since we'vebeen in a country where we don't speak
the language because we speak Spanish.So let's talk about what it was like
to arrive in a place where wedon't speak the language and we also read
the alphabet. Yeah, I thinkit was both. I think we both
(28:03):
had some like instincts to say thingsin Spanish, just because obviously we're like
English first language speakers. But thatassociation between like, oh, I'm traveling
somewhere and that place being Spanish hasbeen kind of ingrained now that we've been
in Santas speaking countries for so longand taking so many trips to Panama,
(28:23):
Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia.So much of our travels over the past
six years have been to those Spanishspeaking countries. So I think we both
had moments where we were like,uhsee or it said things, or like
wanted to say something in Spanish,and yeah, it's funny, like we
both learned a few Spanish words sothey're not Spanish words in Japanese words,
and so that's been kind of helpful. But yeah, definitely kind of awkward,
(28:47):
like fumbling and being like a pointgetting back to like oh, pointing
at things or asking do you speakEnglish? Google Translate has definitely been a
good friend of ours these these lastcouple of weeks. Now, Yeah,
although I think we probably use it. I think a couple things In Japan,
people tend to speak more English thanthey let on, especially like if
(29:08):
you're in Tokyo, you're in Osaka, you go into a coffee shop,
like even some of those words,like the Japanese might use like hot latte
instead of whatever. Hot latte islike literally translated to like if you go
into the seven to eleven here andsay hot latte, like they'll give you
the coffee cup for the coffee machine. So I haven't used to translate a
(29:30):
ton over like the past week.I don't think. I feel like I've
been using it to like take photosof packages and stuff constantly. I feel
like I use it every day.That's a good point. Yeah, Actually,
like trans I was thinking more soin conversation, but yeah, using
it to like just look at packages, look at menus, that's definitely been
been happening. So um, yeah, I was thinking more just like in
(29:52):
conversations, but I feel like inconversations it's like kazaimas good morning in Kunichia.
I got the zaimas Hey, googa, what kadi mesca, which is
like do you speak English or doyou understand English? Has been kind of
the big goat toos. Yeah,for sure, and I think it's been
really humbling. I think that beingin a country where we don't speak the
(30:12):
language, I'm kind of reminded ofhow uncomfortable that can be. Like when
you want to tell somebody that theymade you a great coffee or that you
really enjoyed the meal, and it'slike you just don't have the words,
so you're kind of using like handsignals or saying English things, and they're
saying Japanese things, and I'm like, I don't know if we're saying the
same thing, but this was great, or you know, our daughter is
(30:36):
a disaster in restaurants, like throwingmenus on the floor, throwing rice on
the floor, throwing food everywhere.The Japanese people and culture is very clean,
so I feel like she's just makinga mess, and it's like we
want to apologize. And on topof that, there's no tipping here.
Tipping is not a part of theculture, and so I feel like we're
like, we'd like to communicate howsorry we are. And also give you
(30:57):
a nice tip and thank you somuch for your great service. But obviously
that stuff is just a little bitdifferent. But it's been really fun to
be back here. It's been reallyfun to be kind of out of our
comfort zones, but also like ina place that's very comfortable, that's very
easy to be. It's been veryrefreshing to be in a place that's so
(31:18):
safe, that's so organized, that'sso clean, that's so quiet. It's
just remarkable, like how things runin this country. And I think after
being in Latin America for so long, and particularly Mexico, which we love
Mexico, don't get me wrong,Like I love Mexico, but Mexico is
not organized, quiet, clean.Things often do not run on time,
(31:41):
and that stuff is fine, butsometimes it's nice to have the opposite of
it. So I feel like that'sbeen really refreshing after you know, so
long of being in Latin America.Yeah, it's kind of like travel therapy
a little bit, to like havea few weeks of training, show up
on time, everything is super clean. You can, like, you know,
just wander in any direction and you'renot worried. One of the things
(32:06):
it's really striking for me the pastfew days walking around the neighborhood where and
we're just in a random suburb ofOccer where we found an affordable airbnb.
There's like a million bikes and thisis true of Tokyo too, and like
no one locks their bikes. Thebikes are just all unlocked. You can't
find garbage anywhere. You can walkdown like side streets and back alleys and
like bosh, people around. Everyone'slike super friendly and there's no sense of
(32:30):
like everyone just kind of like trustseach other and everything kind of stays organized,
so it's very fun. I thinkfor us we both love kind of
the like freedom and chaos that youexperienced in certain parts of Latin America and
just the liveliness the warmth of people, which like here people are very like
polite and friendly and do an amazingjob at work, but you don't get
(32:52):
that same sense of like warmth.So I think, yeah, that's been
that's been really cool to experience here, especially with having a small child,
like just that some of the thingsthat make it feel easier, Like I
know, one of the things evenas simple as like traveling in Mexico or
Colombia when you've got a baby,a stroller, two suitcases, backpacks.
(33:15):
Like if you're stopping somewhere, you'rekind of like stressing about Like I got
to be mindful of where my stuffis, like because someone could just come
and take your stuff. And hereit's like, you know, you can
just put your stuff down, putyour stroller by the door. Like at
the hotel we stayed at last,people just like left there strollers in the
lobby. They were all like youknow, sorted and organized, and the
(33:35):
staff had a little cordoned around them. But I'm like, now we're not
doing that. Stuff would just likein you know, Mexico, if you
did that, someone would probably takeyour stroller. So yeah, I think
it's been a really cool change ofpace for us. And it's been just
like kind of feeling like just breathinga little deeper and feeling a little less
stressed. Yeah, for sure.It's so interesting to think about how like
(34:00):
your norm just kind of becomes sointegrated in the way that you are.
And I think an example of thisfor me is like, especially with the
pandemic, there's been so many changesin like hours of operation or when things
are open, and businesses in Mexicoare notoriously bad for updating their like Google
(34:21):
profiles. And so you look onGoogle. You find a restaurant, it's
got great reviews, it's open fromten to six. Beau you go,
and I mean, if it's notopen at like ten fifteen, that's not
so weird. But you could goat like one and it's like it's just
closed. There's no updates on socialmedia, there's no notice on the door.
It's just like the business is closed, like we have no idea what's
(34:43):
going on. And I think,on our like second or third morning in
Japan in Tokyo, we wanted togo activate our JR passes because we needed
to get our train for when we'releaving Tokyo to head to Nagano. And
I checked online to see, like, wa place we could go to,
and I double checked, and Iwent to the website and then I checked
(35:05):
the little like JR brochure. Thenthey'd sent me in the mail with our
like coupons that you have to take, and in my head I was thinking,
I feel like there's a chance thatthis just like doesn't happen. But
we're like, okay, let's gofor it. Let's use this early morning
let's get there when it first opens. And so we go. We show
up. Of course the office isopen, there's a bunch of people working,
(35:25):
a bunch of people available to attendus. There was a little bit
of a line, and I wasa bit like, oh, is this
going to take forever? No,everyone is efficient. Everyone got helped quickly.
We got our passes activated, wegot our first train booked, we
had our train tickets for where weneeded to go, and I didn't even
connect until we were like back home. About like my actions of like double
(35:46):
checking, triple checking and then settingmyself up for disappointment is like so much
of what has been ingrained in meover the last few years of living in
Latin America, because that's just likehow things are. It's it's no like
Haye on Latin America. It's justlike how things are, and it's just
not how things are in Japan.And so yeah, that type of stuff
has been really nice for us,and it's been really refreshing, and I
(36:07):
feel like we've really enjoyed being here. And like I said before at the
beginning, we're going to talk moreabout places we've been, what we've done
over the last couple of weeks andjust in general our trip, but I
wanted to spend a couple of minutestalking about Tokyo. Tokyo is a city
that we've been before. We spentwe book ended our last trip with it
the same as this trip, soabout a week at the front and about
(36:30):
a week at the back last time, and we had four days to start
there. And so I'm curious whatyour thoughts are on returning to Tokyo,
Like, what was it like foryou to be back in a city that,
I mean is really one of ourfavorite cities in the world. Yeah,
it was really exciting. Tokyo isdefinitely one of those cities where it's
just so huge that like you stayin different parts of it and it feels
(36:52):
you might as well be in adifferent city entirely. So we were staying
the first time there near the Skytree, which is actually the first time you're
in Tokyo on a very first trip. We staged in more or less the
same area, but like fifteen awalk from there, so it was an
area of the city we were somewhatfamiliar with, and it was cool to
be there and explore. I thinkwith the baby. One thing we kind
(37:15):
of realized when we got there.This time was just some of the distances,
Like if you want to go fromlike where we were to Shibuya or
other places, this can be likeforty five minute one hour trips and so
you can't really go explore as widely. But yeah, it was I think
one just one of those cities wherethere's like so much cool stuff going on.
(37:37):
You turn a corner and you findsomething neat or interesting, beautiful,
and then just remarkably quiet. Likeyou show up in a city like that
and you're like, I don't gethow there's so many people doing so much
stuff and it's just so calm andpeaceful and quiet, extremely walkable, like
you definitely notice on your feet thefirst few days where you're like, oh
(37:57):
my feet are sore. I'm puttingit a lot more steps. And then
I guess the final thing would justbe like amazing food. Like the thing
about being in Japan is you cango to a convenient store, great great
food, grocery store, great greatfood, can rear Bolt sushi get great
food, or go to like areally high end upper class restaurant, higher
priced restaurant and have amazing food.So kind of everywhere you go, there's
(38:21):
lots of good food options. Soyeah, overall, was just supercited.
We ended up staying like four daysbefore we left, and definitely like excited
to be in Osaka now, butalso itching to get back to Tokyo.
Yeah, for sure. We wentback and forth quite a bit about how
long to spend in Tokyo on thistrip, just because we have been there
before. But I think, likeyou said, it's a city where just
(38:44):
staying in a new area gives youlike a new experience, and the last
time we were there, we dida lot of stuff. So we've done
a lot of kind of the mainquote unquote tourist things to do. Like
I think if you were to lookat a list of top ten or top
fifteen things to see and do inTokyo, we've done probably the majority of
them, and there's a bunch ofthings that we want to kind of repeat
(39:06):
and see again. But what wekind of decided to do in this first
four days was, I mean,one, take it a little bit easy
because of the jet leg and justadjusting too. We had two friends in
town, like Ryan Mentions, wereally dedicated time to spending with them,
so it was very go with theflow, and then three we looked at
a map and kind of looked at, like, Okay, what's in our
(39:27):
neck of the woods here where we'restaying now, because when we come back
to Tokyo we're staying in a totallydifferent area. We kind of looked at,
like, Okay, what's like closerto us that we could do at
that point when we come back,And so we kind of just divided things
up based on that. And sowe made a visit to the Fish Market,
which is something we did do thelast time we were there, but
went and revisited. Went early morning. One of our early morning wake ups,
(39:52):
had some delicious, amazing Tunabelle forbreakfast. It was just incredible,
such a good intro to being inTokyo and Pan in general. We went
over to Winno Park, which isa really popular area. We also were
at Tokyo Station and in that area, and then we also went to an
area that our friend Becky had encouragedus to go to, which I'll need
(40:15):
to look on a map and getin the show notes because I don't remember
the name. But it's amazing beingwith somebody like Becky who's lived in Tokyo
for so long because she just knowsthese like little places that are not on
like the top ten or top fifteenlist, and it's so fun to just
go check out an area. Youhop off the train and it's like,
oh, you're in another new place, and it's equally as cool as other
(40:37):
places with great restaurants and nice experiences, and you know, it's clean,
it's safe. It's so nice notto worry about all that type of stuff.
So yeah, we had a reallynice time being back there, and
I think it's just the type ofcity that I feel like I could go
back to, you like, everyyear, until you know, I'm an
old lady hopefully and still find newthings to explore because it's just so big
(40:59):
and diverse and cool and fun.And like you said, the food is
incredible. So we've just been walkingour hearts out and eating our faces off
and it's been it's been pretty amazing. Yeah, definitely, And it was
also fun you mentioned kind of hangingout with Becky, hanging out with our
friend Madison, who was in Tokyofor the first time, so kind of
seeing her excitement for being there andit kind of yeah, just being able
(41:22):
to get somewhere new in the worldand see friends who haven't seen for a
long time was really fun as well. Yeah, for sure, So I
think we'll leave it here. We'vetalked lots on this episode, but in
the next couple of episodes you canexpect updates from the other places we've been,
so Nagano area, Kindazawa, Osakaand then heading back to Osaka and
(41:45):
area I should say, and thenheading back to Tokyo. So we still
have lots to explore, so we'llbe over here having a good time,
living large, enjoy in Japan andthen also keeping you guys updated through the
podcast. So stay tuned for moreupdates on Japan. And thanks so much
for listening. Until next time.Thanks for listening to this episode. If
(42:05):
you want more to make sure tocheck out the World Wanders Insider available on
Patreon at patreon dot com, slashthe World Wanderers for show notes, head
over to the World Wanders dot com. Find us on social media at the
World Wanders podcast, join the privateFacebook community at World Wanders, a community
for travelers. You can always getin touch with us at info at the
World wanders dot com. And ifyou enjoyed the show, don't forget to
(42:29):
subscribe and leave a review. Itreally helps us find new listeners. See
you next time.
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