Thursday

With the early sunrises in Tokyo, I was up far earlier than I needed to be at around 6, so I decided to go for a run around Shinjuku in the cool morning air. It was a beautiful morning to observe the business core of Tokyo with near a complete lack of people.





After breakfast in the lounge, another Japan DO attendee and I visited the observation deck at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. It’s located around the 40th floor and has no admission fee. It’s also only 1 block away from the Hilton. Unfortunately Mt. Fuji wasn’t visible this morning.







I decided to take a walk around the imperial gardens area after taking the train to Tokyo station.







After the walk it was time for a beer at Craft Beer Market, located in the bustling business area south of the gardens, where I had a couple pints and a good chat with a US military guy who was in town from the base trying to sort out visa issues! Apparently even they aren’t immune to that struggle… I had a couple beers from Baird Brewing, a local shop.



Now it was lunchtime and I was off to find Tokyo Ramen Street, a subterranean part of the walkway off of the maze that is Tokyo station. It’s supposedly ~10 of some of the top ramen restaurants in the city in one place. Not knowing where to go as everything was in Japanese, I picked a random ramen restaurant, paid my 1000Y, and took a seat.



Ok. So good. Rule number 1 of ramen: make sure it has an egg in it. If it doesn't, most shops have an option to add it for ~Y100. I missed this on day 1!

The afternoon got away from me, mainly because I got lost in the underground, so I didn’t have time to check out the Japanese whisky store that lives in the labyrinth of the Tokyo station underground mall, and headed back to the Hilton for a couple of beers in the lounge and meet up with the Japan DO folks that were going to a baseball game.

We took the subway back to the baseball stadium only a couple blocks away to see the Tokyo Swallows play…somebody. I don’t remember. We bought unreserved outfield home seats for about Y1300.



I love the beer girls here though. Whoever thought to put a pony keg into a cooler backpack was onto something! Y750 for draft beer wasn't too bad of a price either.



After a relatively quiet game in which the Swallows finally pulled into the lead in the bottom of the 9th, we headed out. The umbrellas signify excitement, or something…



Friday

On Friday we had a morning walkabout scheduled for the Shitimachi part of Tokyo. This part of town was spared bombing in WW2.





Gotta get some matcha ice cream!



Following the walk, many of us headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest and some drink before the official DO dinner, which was hosted at a restaurant just east of Shinjuku station.

Hilton Exec Lounge afternoon snacks





Dinner pics, well in part:





ALL THE ALCOHOLS



Following dinner I redeemed my diamond free drink chit at the lobby bar, which featured a nice band at ~10pm. This is an Old Fashioned, IIRC. Very delicious!



Saturday

Today we were taking a day trip to Matsumoto, a town about a 3 hr train ride from Tokyo. The Azusa doesn’t have a café car, but rather a cart with a pretty sad selection of food, mostly pound cakes and sweets. On the plus side, beers are Y280-300, a bargain compared to Amtrak trains!



I love alcohol with my pancakes!



A low flying Chinook helicopter while we were walking about, though I wasn’t able to find any military installations near Matsumoto



All about frogs in this market



The main attraction was the Matsumoto Castle, a 1500s remnant of Japanese samurai culture and is included on the country’s national treasures list.





There were some exceptionally steep staircases in the 6 story castle which posed comfort issues for some of us. For me the main issue is they don’t allow you to wear shoes, so you’re wearing only socks in a really cold old drafty building. This made the safety plastic strips they installed on the stairs uncomfortable to step on.





After the castle visit, we split up and some of us went to find Matsumoto Brewing, which turned out to be perhaps the world’s smallest brew pub. Somehow our group of 7 managed to fit into their upstairs area, but only by “borrowing” chairs from other patrons



We then stopped for lunch at, well frankly, the first restaurant we found open at 2:30 pm. Many restaurants close from 2-5, so, it was basically this or McDonald's and I think we made the right choice. Y800 later… I know it looks bizarre, but it was delicious. Our server didn't speak a word of English, so we made do with gesturing to the English menu and her following along with the Japanese menu



Unfortunately all of our trains back to Tokyo were delayed due to a train accident on the line, so we basically lurched from station to station with intermittent and undefined stops for the first 2 hrs of the scheduled 3 hr trip.

Even my Y280 Kirin is in the spirit of the season!



Sunday

Travel day to Korea! We were getting ready for our visit with news like this:



Though it's hard to worry though with a view like this…



I used the return portion of my NEX ticket and we were back to Narita promptly. No issues with security and the like, and thankfully one of my fellow Korea bound FTers was kind enough to guest me into the United Club at NRT. The NRT UC puts all of its stateside siblings to shame with its spacious seating areas, free pour soda, liquor, beer, and what appeared to be real food. And by real food I mean breakfast sushi though hey, I ate it and survived!

After putting back a couple servings of Buffalo Trace, it was time for the Asiana flight to Seoul.