Third Time's the Charm in Tokyo: Winter Break Part One

Bryan Johnson
Jan 8, 2023
7 min read

Katie had this really ambitious Christmas trip planned to hit Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand during her winter break and my leave period. During trip planning, Katie found it was cheaper if we flew out earlier and stayed two days in Tokyo, so we added another city to our list for this Christmas trip!

Saturday, December 17, 2022

Nagasaki Airport: 長崎空港

On Saturday morning we sadly said goodbye to Hugo and Reynolds and headed to the Sasebo bus station where we jumped on the 9:50 am bus headed to Nagasaki Airport! After our 2-hour bus trip, we made it to the airport, where we grabbed lunch and used two of Katie's Christmas teacher gifts: free Starbucks drinks! On the other side of security, we grabbed a couple of lemon chuhais for our flight, before making our way to Tokyo.

Henn na Hotel Tokyo Hamamatsucho: 変なホテル東京浜松町

After landing in Tokyo around 3:30 pm, we grabbed our luggage, jumped on a train, and headed towards our hotel. Katie booked us two nights at the famous original Henn na Hotel. You're probably wondering, "why are these hotels famous? I've never heard of them." Well, you might have seen or heard of the hotels in Japan that check you in and out via robots. This was our third time using an "unmanned" hotel here in Japan, but it was the first time we had experienced being checked in by an animatronic. While a little creepy, the first version of the robots were dinosaurs! Check it out here, if you don't believe us!

Akasaka ACT Theater: TBS赤坂ACTシアター

During our most recent trip to Tokyo over Veterans Day Weekend, Katie and I visited the Harry Potter Cafe and stumbled upon Akasaka Theater, which we discovered would be playing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child until May 2023. You know we tried to buy last-minute tickets that day, but unfortunately, they had canceled all performances that weekend due to a mass cast illness (presumably COVID, but Google Translate didn't directly state that!)

While we were disappointed, we were hopeful we could get tickets for this December trip. Katie looked online and they were sold out until February, so we were really hopeful that we would get lucky at the ticket counter and be able to purchase them at the door! Katie and I even reread the play so that we would know what was going on since the play is, obviously, entirely in Japanese.

We got to the theater about an hour and fifteen minutes prior to showtime and there were around ten people ahead of us in line. I wasn't going to hold my breath. They finally opened the ticket counter and started to sell to the customers in front of us; when we finally made it to the front of the line, we discovered that there were about fifteen seats still available, so we grabbed the best ones left, sixth row on the far left of the theater! Sure, they weren't the best seats in the house, but we were actually going to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the very first time! Katie and I were so excited!

We entered the theater, jumped in line to purchase a pin, and then went and grabbed our seats. Again, good thing Katie and I read the play prior to this trip, because it was an entirely Japanese cast and not a single word was in English. (Well, unless you count the character names and the spells... everything outside of that was in Japanese!)

Overall, we were able to follow along based on our memory of the written play. Thank goodness Katie brought home copies of the play for us to read before this trip! Sitting sixth row did have its benefits; we were able to follow the general storyline much better by reading facial expressions and body language this close up! One of our favorite scenes was when Albus and Scorpius go back in time during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament and end up underwater; it was super cool how they set the stage! This show was spectacular and we hope to enjoy it again (in English) in the future; what a great way to start our trip!

DON BLANCO: ドンブランコ

After our three-hour show, Katie and I were quite hungry. Remember, we jumped off a plane, rushed to our hotel to drop our suitcase, and then busted our tails to get in line for tickets hoping to see the play....so at no point had food crossed our minds until our stomachs gurgled!

Katie was really feeling some Mexican food, so we found a restaurant called Don Blanco that was only a few minutes from our hotel. We ordered a couple of margaritas, chips & guac, and some chicken and beef tacos to split between the two of us. The food was okay, but we were so hungry that we only thought to take one picture.

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Soul Food House

After a later start on Sunday morning, Katie and I headed to a southern-style soul food restaurant called Soul Food House. We were so excited that our stomachs ordered before our minds could think; I ordered the hot chicken and waffles, a side of macaroni and cheese, and garlic butter sauteed green beans while Katie ordered biscuits and gravy (with extra gravy) and fried pickles. We also ordered a regular sweet tea in addition to apple pie moonshine & peach cobbler moonshine sweet teas. Of course, we shared everything (except for the fried pickles, not my thing) and it was heavenly.

Before the food even made it to the table, we met the owners and found out one of them was from Georgia and the other was from Mississippi and they came to Japan originally for mission work before opening their restaurant. It was great having some really good southern-cooked food nearly 7,000 miles away from the south. And those drinks were banging.

Mikkeller Kanda

After a very filling lunch, Katie and I headed to the second of the two Mikkeller Brewery locations in Tokyo, located in the Kanda neighborhood. Katie and I visited the other Mikkeller Tokyo location during our visit on Veterans Day Weekend; we have now visited both Mikkeller Tokyo locations, Mikkeller Singapore, and Mikkeller Seoul. We are only two Mikkeller breweries away from completing the Asia gauntlet.

Since today was a more relaxed day and we don't have much scheduled, Katie and I just grabbed a few drinks and headed to a quiet corner on the third floor for Katie to read her book and for me to hang out and get sports updates on Twitter. Not a bad way to spend a cold Tokyo Sunday!

Harajuku District: 原宿

After hanging out for a few hours at Mikkeller, we made our way to Harajuku District, also known as Girl Street. We visited this previously on our trip to Tokyo last December, but this time we came with a purpose: to visit the Mipig Cafe, but more on that later. We attempted to bump up to an earlier reservation, but unfortunately, they were fully booked and we'd have to kill a few hours. While we didn't get any ourselves, Harajuku is famous for its dessert crepes and giant cotton candy! We made our way up and down the street looking at the many shops selling snacks and trinkets and admiring all the cutesy shops along the way!

Mikkeller Kiosk/Bar

After an hour of hanging on Harajuku Street, we still had some time to kill before our cafe reservation, so we did a quick Google search for a warm place to hang! Katie found the Mikkeller Kiosk Bar on Google Maps, so we made the 10-minute walk to the third, and unknown, Mikkeller Tokyo location.

Mipig Cafe Harajuku

After spending an hour at Mikkeller, we made our way back to the Mipig Cafe. One of the unique things about Japan is its animal-themed cafes; most people have heard of cat or dog cafes, but not many people have heard of pig cafes. You make a reservation for 30 minutes to hang out with these adorable mini pigs (for those wondering, yes, since it is a cafe, they do provide unlimited coffee, soda, and water during your 30-minute visit).

It was super cool getting to hang out with these cute little creatures! I made a special bond with one particular pig who refused to leave my lap for the full time while Katie had a group of three piglets who were particularly interested in her! We had a great time and it was cool getting to do something unique to Japan! These sweet pigs were full of snuggles and we left feeling the warm and fuzzies of loving on pigs. When in Japan, am I right?!

DevilCraft Hamamatsucho

Following our visit with those precious little piggies, we made our way to one of our favorite places to eat in Tokyo: DevilCraft! We ate there each of the two previous times we've visited Tokyo, so we had to make it three for three. Katie loves deep-dish pizza, something you won't find anywhere in Sasebo, so every time we've been to Tokyo, we've paid this place a visit. It also doesn't hurt they have an awesome beer selection to warm us up after a fun day in the freezing temps outside!

Monday, December 19, 2022

Narita International Airport: 成田国際空港

On Monday morning, we woke up around 4:45 am to jump on an hour-long train to Narita International Airport for our 8:55 am flight to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We made it to Narita around 7:15 am and found ourselves waiting in line for around an hour to check our luggage. Eventually, our luggage was checked, and we made it through immigration and customs and to our gate. Now we are off to Vietnam!