Abuelo and Gram Explore Japan: Tokyo Part 2

Continuing our time in Tokyo with Abuelo and Gram brings us to our Sunday and Monday in Tokyo. Sunday we started our day at the New Sanno for their Sunday Brunch. It was great! We all really enjoyed it and the boys loved the spooky hallway that led to the bathroom. This was right before Halloween and the New Sanno had a hallway decorated like a haunted house…boys got a kick out of it…the rest of us not so much lol (I liked it!)

After brunch we headed over to the Imperial Palace Gardens. We were kind of off-season for any big flower blooms but it was still such a lovely place. Hard to believe it’s smack dab in the middle of Tokyo.

After visiting the garden we walked over to Tokyo station just to look at it because it just looks so cool.

We then hopped on a train to get us closer to our next destination. It ended up being a little bit more of a walk than expected but we found it! Sakurazaka Park, aka Robot Park, in Roppongi. The boys played here for a bit before our dinner reservation. Slides galore!

After some play time we walked over to Gonpachi Nishi-Azabu for dinner. This is a Japanese Izakaya-style restaurant most famous from the movie “Kill Bill”. Lots of famous people visit here and they had their pictures displayed on the wall at the entrance. Definitely seemed like a more touristy restaurant but the food was really good and the atmosphere was really cool! Jon couldn’t hang, fell asleep, and then got grumpy when he woke up. Abuelo was kind enough to take him outside and show him train videos until the rest of us finished our dinner. We didn’t capture all our food but tried to get the fun food from our sets captured.

We caught a bus back to our hotel for the evening, enjoyed dessert at their coffee shop (coffee and smoothies!) and called it a night.

Monday morning, after breakfast and checkout, we headed over to Shibuya to see the famous Shibuya crossing.

After crossing, we found the Parco mall where they have the Pokemon store and the Nintendo store as well as other fun stores, including a card store where Abuelo could check out some baseball cards. It was pretty busy! The Nintendo store even had a line to enter! Even if you don’t buy anything it is still fun to visit these store because of all their design and displays.

After the mall, we were still early for our next appointment so we wandered around Shibuya for a bit looking for somewhere to sit, but it was raining so outdoor options weren’t good and they didn’t seem to have benches in their malls…maybe we missed them! We ended up going to our next stop and they had a nice place for us to wait in front of their store.

One of my favorite memories growing up is running errands with my dad and he would always buy me a KitKat afterwards, so of course I had to take him to the KitKat Factory! KitKats are very popular in Japan, they have a bajillion different flavors and its always fun to try new ones as they seem to change every season. Our last event here in Tokyo was to make our very own KitKats! We got to choose our chocolate flavor and what toppings to put on and they walked us through the process of putting it all together.

So fun! After we ate some sweets from their cafe while we waited for our trays to cool so we could take our kitkats home. Then we went back to get our luggage and headed home on the busy train. Abuelo and Gram are expert train travelers now. And of course, we enjoyed our Kitkats at home.

Such a fun trip! There is so much to do and see in Tokyo, but I think my parents got a well rounded experience. We had such a good time!

BRB, Out to Japan – Jackie