cocopunk

I was, of course, over an hour early for the Shinkansen. But Kyoto Station was a relative breeze, and though the miniscule waiting room was full there was plenty of space to stand about. I perused lunches and leaned on a wall for 45 minutes. Story of my life.

After another pleasant Shinkansen ride I got back to Tokyo, dropped off my stuff at the hotel, and, too early to check in, did a little nerd shopping in Akihabara (volumes of Dragon Ball manga). Loot in hand, in the afternoon I returned to the robot hotel in Akasaka.

Henn na Hotel, literally ‘strange hotel’. I didn’t book it because of the robots; that’s just kind of their thing. They have self-service kiosks with mannequins performing stilted animations standing behind a counter. It’s a chain and they even have a place in New York. Otherwise it’s the same as every other business hotel.

Had some great katsu curry too at ‘Happiness is KATSUDON‘. Much better than the gorilla curry, though that was fine. This place used to have a ticket machine a few years back according to my ticket-seeking research but had since changed to a QR code web portal thing. Not as fun but that’ll do. And the place had good vibes, welcoming to both locals and dumbfounded foreigners alike. Akasaka in general had good vibes. It’s not primarily a tourism neighborhood but there were plenty of options and plenty of professionals out and about after work.

Then I walked to the nearby Hie Shrine after dinner but it was closed for the night.

Beneath the robot hotel there was, for some reason, an Irish bar on the ground floor. The clientele looked and sounded exactly like the clientele at an Irish bar in midtown Manhattan. They might have been robots too, not sure.

My room in Kyoto was floor 9, room 11, and my room in Tokyo was floor 11, room 9. So that’s something.

Just 4 miles walked.

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Part of the fun of planning a trip is planning the gear.

For a camera—and for me this is the primary motivation for traveling, as if I’m a documentarian heading to an hereto unforeseen land—I used my trusty Nikon D3400 DSLR with a Sigma 17-70mm lens. Though petite compared to full-frame pro DSLRs, it’s a big chunk of plastic, and lens itself is heavier than the camera. Neither discrete nor light nor good for video, but great for photos, which you can browse on flickr.

I also brought an old GoPro which I occasionally hand-held. I wish I shot more, actually, but it’s tough to find the line between obnoxious tourist holding a POV camera to film content and, I don’t know, a not obnoxious tourist with a camera.

Just a week before my flight I became obsessed with watches that can display multiple time zones. Mechanical watches that can do that ain’t cheap but I found a Casio designed for multiple times zones that had also a 10mm world map on it, which is stupid in a lovely way. Helpful if I forget where I am.

And finally I put a lot of thought into what shoes to wear to prevent blisters when walking long distances. It’s been an annoying problem. The short answer is that you should probably wear merino wool socks regardless of the type of shoes. There are popular name brands for hiking but cheap Amazon brands served me fine. I also had a theory that slim, flat soles might work better for me than thick-cushioned jogging shoes but it didn’t really matter. I wore Onitsuka Tigers and they served me well but as a forty year old man I also felt the impact of walking on thinly cushioned soles after a dozen miles, and alternated with some cheap Sketchers.

4-25-2026

On the final morning in Tokyo I visited Todoroki Ravine Park, a nice quiet little canyon about 5 miles southwest of Shibuya. (Or Todoroki Valley? I’ve seen it referred to either way. Todoroki Keikoku Kōen. ) It was a bit of a train journey but fun to figure out: I walked about 20 minutes from where I was staying in Akasaka to Aoyama Itchome Station, rode the Hanzōmon line to Futako Tamagawa Station, then transferred to the Oimachi line for two more stops. Every time I board a train I’m probably only 60% sure that it’s the correct line and direction but that’s fine; if you don’t have a deadline you roll with it and adjust as needed.

Todoroki Ravine Park is a small ravine through a semi-suburban area with paths along a stream. You can walk the length of it in like fifteen or twenty minutes, but it’s a very nice spot. I was probably spent less time there than I did on the trains to get there.

No regrets though. I had a 7pm flight so in effect I had an extra day with nothing to do.

So I reversed the train journey, went back to Akasaka, and then stopped by Toyokawa Inari Betsuin, a temple with hundreds of fox statues.

And also visited the Hie shrine that had been closed the night before, the most interesting part of which are its torii gates and various staircases that climb the hill on which the shrine sits.

After getting my things together I walked to Tameike-sanno Station, a couple of blocks from that stone arch, rode two stops to Shimbashi, then went one stop south on the Yamanote line to Hamamatsucho Station where you can jump on the monorail to the airport.

A final 8.6 miles walked.

That makes it two 6,755 mile flights, two 280 mile bullet trains, a lot of subway train cars, and about 50 miles on foot.