Tokyo Week 2: Reflections and Recommendations
Listless, unmoored, and slightly apocalyptic.
2/2/25—2/8/25
After drinking my body weight in green tea, getting nose-punched by wasabi a million times, and running around looking like a headless chicken/stupid gaijin, I’ve finally settled in to write this piece.
Now that the immediately pressing matters of Week 1 have been dealt with, I’m beginning to dial into my environment a little bit more. The details in my new life are beginning to take shape, like the sakura outside my balcony and the plum blossoms in the driveway. It takes me six minutes to walk to the train station from my apartment, four if I run. I pass a cafe, bike shop, realtor’s office, and pachinko parlor, in that order, on the way there. If I’m walking home around half past ten, I’m guaranteed to run into the surly-looking older Japanese man who takes his nightly smoke breaks across the street from my building.
Every afternoon there are two women who seem to be canvassing for something at the intersection, calling out to commuting passers-by in cheery voices. They stop abruptly, almost alarmingly so, whenever I pass. After a few days of this happening, I realize that they’re stopping when any visibly foreign person walks by. A million possibilities pass through my mind as to why this could be. It could be as innocuous as assuming we don’t understand Japanese, or something else — but they disappear after the election.
I felt a bit stuck in my head this week. I’d just uprooted every routine and my daily life had done a complete 180 over the course of a few days — even if I’d been preparing for this for half a year, it still came as a shock to the system. And my response to that discomfort wasn’t super healthy — I felt this desperate need to fill my time with something so that I wouldn’t be doing nothing. So even though I still felt out of sorts, I kept running around the city, jumping from ward to ward, doing things just to say I’d done them. I wasn’t giving myself a moment to rest or reflect. I was just trying to make the “most” of my time.
In contrast, I had spent much of January resting and reflecting. Excessively. Like, to the point that it really was too much, but the sun was setting at 4:30pm and I had already put all my goals for the next year in motion months ago. That’s the thing about New Year’s Resolutions – starting them in the dead of winter and right after a major holiday is an awful idea. Who decided that Jesus’s birthday was on the 25th of December and designated January as the first month of the year?! The Romans, that’s who. Specifically Caesar. Why would I listen to the guy who got stabbed to death by all his coworkers? If I missed that vibe so bad I’d just go back to corporate America.
So my January of rest was a big, fat middle finger to the Romans and the mass delusion that is wintertime New Year’s resolutions. Be delulu and make resolutions! But maybe don’t start them on the slowest, saddest month of the year!!
(Well, maybe second saddest.)
I was going to be traveling nonstop for the next four months, so it made sense to take things slow in January. But by Week 2, I had shifted to the other extreme. I was trying to do everything, which, in a city like Tokyo, is going to burn you out fast. I wasn’t allowing myself to fully sink into and appreciate anything.
The other reason for getting stuck in my head was that no amount of practiced isolation can make someone immune to needing social contact. I felt listless and unmoored, which immediately pisses me off to read back because I sound like a haunted Victorian woman.
I also think being away was letting me process a lot of pent-up anger. It isn’t really a secret that I have a lot of anxiety, but the truth is that I am an anxious person because I am an angry person.
I feel like the anxiety most women feel is actually just anger with nowhere to go. The body needs to find some way to metabolize it, and anxiety is simply the more socially acceptable emotion for us to express. Admittedly I only feel truly like myself when I am very angry, in the same way I only feel like myself when I’m alone. All the pretenses drop, and the person I actually am reveals themself.
Before this trip I had so many people say to me, “You’re going alone?”, or, “Won’t it be hard being so far away from everyone?” And honestly, no. Not really. Or I guess, given the above, maybe it is — but not in a way that actually distresses me. I like being far away because it’s when I feel most like myself. As a child, I craved the fantasy of a disappearing act. Going somewhere that nobody could impose on me felt like the most liberating thing in the world. That never scared me, it was what I wanted most.
So I felt — which words did I use — listless and unmoored? And that feeling kind of persisted for the next two weeks. I thought about wishes that could never be fulfilled and wished for them anyway, so that maybe I could embody the person I would be if they had happened. I wish for a good childhood. I wish for a partner I could have grown alongside with in my twenties. I wish for a good college experience. I wish to be a few inches taller. I wish to find veggies to eat.
Then I wish for things that are achievable – I want an apartment with big windows that will let in lots of sunlight. I want to visit Socotra, and Mexico City, and Shanghai, and Geneva, and the Isle of Skye all within the next two years. I want to dine at Maido, so I guess I’ll need to add Lima to that list. I want to get paid to travel. I want a boyfriend. I want a girlfriend. I want stronger relationships with all my friends. I think about this fantasy life where I actually get to properly integrate the people I love into my life rather than experience them as an aside to it. I think that was contributing factor to the frustration I’ve felt over the past several years – I couldn’t build a home that included the people I cared about.
I know two weeks is really no time at all, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit down at that point in time, especially with the election underway and the public murmurs that came alongside it.
It was held on Sunday the 8th, and to the surprise of few, Takaichi’s LDP gained a historic supermajority. Reading about it led me down a rabbit hole on the political architecture of modern Japan, and I began to gain a greater understanding of just how deeply American power is woven into it. After all, the United States forced Japan’s borders open in the 1850s, dropped two atomic bombs on it nearly a century later, then occupied the country and rewrote its constitution — including Article 9, which stripped Japan of the right to maintain a traditional military. (I don’t mean to erase Japan’s own imperial ambitions and atrocities, only acknowledge how thoroughly the postwar order was shaped by our hands.)
In the decades that followed, Japan became one of Washington’s most important strategic allies in East Asia — a bulwark against communism, our largest host for military bases (which were conveniently located far from the mainland) in Asia Pacific, and eventually a key player in the global economic order that the US propagated. Even the Plaza Accords of 1985 — which pushed the yen sharply upward and helped accelerate Japan’s asset bubble and eventual economic stagnation in the fallout — were negotiated on American terms.
So when I see Takaichi echoing Trump in her promises to restore Japan to “greatness,” I find myself asking which era of greatness she’s actually referring to. A return to the legacy of the Meiji Restoration? The economic “miracle” of the 1980s? Or something else entirely? What do the Japanese hope for? Are they experiencing a crisis of identity, just like how much of the West is?
Then I think about the girls my age working a busy udon shop on a Friday night, serving me food. To me, they’re passing characters in my great adventure. To them, working on this hectic and greasy little corner of Shinjuku is their livelihood. How annoyed are they to see me bumbling around, throwing money at food that has doubled in cost for them? How would I feel in their position? I don’t like my answer.
Highlights
The Spiral
The Spiral itself was a little underwhelming (I was expecting the actual spiral to be…taller?), but the student art exhibition that happened to be going on while I was there made it worth the visit. Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience is right upstairs, too.
Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience
This was really lovely, and I think it’s worth booking in some cases.
Hamburg YOSHI Omotesando
A really solid and relatively affordable hamburg spot right next door to the Spiral. | Beli
Sushi-ro
Sushi has no business being this cheap. I paid $12 for my portion, and I ate a lot. I haven’t tried other rotary sushi spots in Japan, so maybe there’s better out there, but I thought this was great for a quick fix. | Beli
鳴門鯛焼本舗 (Naruto Taiyaki Honpo)
Don’t expect to be blown away, but it’ll definitely hit the spot when you’re craving taiyaki. There are multiple locations, and I noticed that the taiyaki gets cheaper the further out from central Tokyo you get…
Shimokitazawa
I had fun wandering around and window-shopping in Shimokitazawa (affectionately dubbed “Shimokita” by locals), which is a neighborhood that was trendy about eight years ago. At this point, the “thrifting” prices have become absurd — especially for the bohemian styles, the army surplus, and the American college sweaters that make up about 90% of the racks. It was just a bunch of stuff I’d find at home, only more expensive. One of my language school classmates was similarly underwhelmed, though as a non-American she saw more value in the imported pieces. So, YMMV.
Shimokita now feels like it operates for rich tourists, which is, well…what I am. I want to explore, but I don’t want to intrude. Is such a thing possible?
Matcha Passport
Matcha Passport’s co-owners are Balinese and Japanese, but for some reason you’ll step in thinking you’ve been transported to an LA cafe. It helps that all the staff are super friendly and speak really good English. Open till 11pm, they serve alcoholic drinks in the evening. I’ve tried the strawberry matcha and earl grey cloud, and both were delicious.
Their matcha basque cheesecake has the tagline “MADE BY A MICHELIN STAR CHEF”, which made me laugh because I saw the exact same tagline on the carrot cake at Turret Coffee in Tsukiji. Is some guy in the fine dining scene running a back alley dessert-peddling operation? Or are restaurant margins so tight now that even the crème de la crème have to resort to outsourcing their talents to third-party provisioners? Soliciting more information from co-owner Taro and his crew only got me a first name — “Jerome”. A quick google suggested it’s probably Jérôme Quilbeuf. Now my curiosity’s been piqued, and I’ll be investigating Turret Coffee’s mystery supplier the next time I find myself in Tsukiji. | Beli
dotcom space
I wouldn’t come here with limited time as the drinks aren’t worth it. But it’s a super cute space to work from, and surprisingly idyllic for being one street over from the famously chaotic Takeshita street. I got a lot of writing done here after obligatorily braving the crowds at the…
…Harajuku Cosme
Hey, a girl needed to re-up her primer! Cosme is Japan’s equivalent to Sephora.
I really liked this limited edition Sakura sparkling primer by Paul & Joe, which closely mimics the Laniege glow serum (which is itself a budget-friendly version of YSL’s Touche Eclat – my holy grail). Even better, it’s WOC-friendly as a clear primer — a lot of primers in Japan unfortunately come with white casts. Beware that the fragrance on this one is strong, so if you’re scent-sensitive, it may not be for you.
Despite the insane crowds, I really enjoyed browsing this Cosme for their award-winning makeup display — it made braving the sheer number of unrecognizable brands so much easier, and helped me discover this Decorte Harmony Veil loose powder as well. I’ve felt it sets my makeup just as well as my other go-to loose powders.
Lumine
I’m struggling to find cute, affordable pieces in central Tokyo, and the prices in every store I visited at Lumine are outrageous. The yen was stronger when I came in 2022, and it was less of a struggle then.
You can come here to window shop, but please, please promise me you will not spend $70 USD on AliExpress. People already think Americans are dumb!! I’m begging you!!!
Trying my first Tokyo take on Neapolitan-style pizza in Ebisu @ Pizzeria Carlino’s
I’m starting to realize that the cheese here in Japan kind of sucks, though the pizza was well-crafted otherwise. Chatting with chef and owner Hisa as he prepared the next customer’s orders on a rainy Ebisu afternoon was a fun time. I had an interesting conversation with folks about their thoughts on over-tourism—they felt comfortable complaining about the Chinese tourists to me, which got me wondering whether they felt comfortable complaining about Americans to the Chinese. | Beli
Daikanyama T-Site Tsutaya Books
Japan’s Barnes & Noble equivalent, the Daikanyama branch of Tsutaya Books is a sight for sore eyes. The buildings are beautifully designed and expansive, and I preferred the setup here to the more urban Ginza Tsutaya location. With the larger space, the crowds felt way more manageable too. Share Lounge is an absolutely lovely place to kick back and get some work done, but so expensive. Thankfully, there’s a Starbucks with a much slimmer cover charge downstairs.
AFURI Ramen Harajuku
As a certified yuzu fiend, the ramen is delicious, but I found it even better when I went to the Nakameguro location three weeks later and didn’t have to wait twenty minutes in the rain for a seat. Maybe go there instead — and add extra chicken oil when prompted. It’s yum. | Beli
Omotesando
Much busier than my 2022 visit, though the pop-ups and concept stores are still awesome. I love window shopping around here, just maybe go off-peak hours.