Kaiju Hunting – Tokyo, Day 0.5 (2019)

I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in months, heck, maybe in YEARS. The map is in kanji and the few English words aren’t enough to help us find our way at the massive Tokyo Station. The little Taxi sign indicates at least three possible pick up spots, but we are not sure which exit we just came out of much less in which direction to move to find any. W, my husband and travel agent, looks overwhelmed. He refuses to ask the uniformed police officers for assistance; he’d rather die in the 80°F from heatstroke than admit defeat.

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Fun times!

A post shared by MrsEnginerd (@mrsenginerd) on Sep 27, 2019 at 11:41pm PDT

After going around the block, back to the same entrance we came out of, we see the pick up line. A cabbie notices us and pulls to the curb to figure out where we are going. The Matsui Garden Nihonbashi Premiere is a new hotel a mile or so away from the Imperial Palace. Even though we are only traveling with carry-on bags it doesn’t seem feasible to walk the 10 minutes Google maps estimates because good old Aunt Flo showed up early for her monthly visit. Ugh! All this happened after I had confessed to W that I didn’t pack the prepaid JR Passes because I had totally forgotten about them. Mercifully, the Icoca and Suica passes I had stashed in my pursue were enough to subdue W, that and the NEX counter attendant’s confirmation that he could get a refund once he was back stateside.

This is starting to feel like Barcelona 2.0, the worst vacation we have ever had in the 20 years we have known each other.

Our first half day in the city goes by in the blink of an eye. The early evening arrival only have us time for dinner at the Ping Pong cafe in the hotel building’s basement, and a nightcap.

If a Kaiju were to show up, would it come from the east or west of Japan?” W is trying to figure out how a 90 ft tall monster would look from the 9th floor Bar Matsu if it rounded the corner and headed for the city. Yamasaki 18 yo whiskey in hand, I replied that it should come from the bay to the east, surfacing close to the Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea areas we planned to visit the next day. He agreed and went back to his mineral sparkling water and complimentary nuts. The alarm for his meds would sound in a few more minutes and he wanted to leave enough of the precious liquid to down the antibiotics cocktail.

Here’s to hoping W’s walking pneumonia gets better…