The land of colours

The time to fire up the travel blog is always a favourite time of mine. This time we are spending 17 days in Japan! So ready for a late Sunday night departure flight to Tokyo we seamlessly checked in, breezed through customs and grabbed some dinner before getting effortlessly seated at about 9pm. Awesome to start the trip with such efficiency! Willow was so excited that she ended up being entertained with some food and movies until 11pm! So the 10 hour flight was pretty smooth, although only a few hours of broken sleep were to be had by Ryan and I before landing at Haneda Airport, 5am Tokyo time.

Excited for Japan!

We had to kill about 90 mins or so waiting for a bus that would take us directly to a location a quick walk to our hotel. My sister Kirsty had just finished a week or so of work just around the corner, in Beijing, so thought she may as well come home via Tokyo, and hang out for a few days with the three of us. We were all a bit delirious but excited to be in Japan, and only 30 minutes from Haneda Airport, it wasn't too long before the bus dropped us off at a hotel around the corner from ours! And it was great to see Kirsty's smiling face greet us, and more importantly, help us wrangle Willow who had become a bit restless on the bus trip.


Kirsty has been to Japan over 10 times, so using her near-local knowledge, she was able to guide us to our hotel, Villa Fontaine Roppongi. Thankfully, since she had already been there a couple of days we were able to have some quick showers in her room since we couldn't check-in until 3pm, and it still wasn't even 9am!


So we soon set off, buying our Pasmo cards for the subway, and in search of coffee. I think Tokyo has upped the standard of their coffee since we last came here in 2010, or maybe we just didn't know where to go back then, but Kirsty took us to a very cool place called Blue Bottle near Omote-Sando. Feeling better, we went for a long wander around the Harajuku area. It's such a great area and has everything - some streets are really residential and quiet, and some are lined with tiny shops and swarming with hoards of people. Willow had finally given up on trying to walk and had allowed us to put us in the little blue Kmart umbrella stroller v2. We even bought a fresh new stroller to mark the occasion, but it's true that she might getting just a bit too big for it now!

Kawaii Monster Cafe!

Despite it being before midday, Willow suddenly crashed for a nap! And although we were planning on going to a "monster cafe" that was mainly intended to be for Willow's enjoyment (but let's be real, we all wanted to see it) so we went for another wander in some stunning Tokyo weather for some more coffee while we waited for sleepyhead to wake up. We stumbled across a cute and cool little coffee shack on the side of the road, and then sure enough, little miss Willow woke up so we headed back to Kawaii Monster Cafe. We didn't have a booking, but it was only a 15 minute or so wait which we were willing to do as this place is classic Japan - crazy rainbow colours, over-the-top decorations, and eccentric Harajuku girls serving up monster-themed food that you just could not get anywhere else!

We walked into a crazy theme park of colour and fun, and got directed to a cute little booth! Willow was completely loving it all (except when she met some of the eccentric Harajuku girls) but apart from that, it didn't disappoint, and even the hilarious looking food tasted good! What a fun and crazy place - just some standard fare for our first dining experience in Japan.

A Monster curry!!

A "druggy" cocktail!

Monster burger!

What a crazy place!

We headed back out into Harajuku, along Takeshita Street , where people fill the pedestrian street lined with shops selling all kinds of things which you can definitely not normally buy in Australia! And back on the subway to the hotel where we could check-in and I desperately needed a nap! Willow, after her nap was well-rested, so hung out "in Kirsty's room" for an hour or so, while Ryan and I had some much needed down time before dinner! And that we did, in a relatively spacious hotel room, as far as Tokyo hotel rooms go!

Takeshita Street in Harajuku

Kirsty wanted to take us to a nice restaurant, En in Shibuya, that she had been to a few times before. It was basically getting to rush hour, so the subway was fun! And then Shibuya was swarming with people! Because restaurants and shops are often on all levels of tall buildings (not just the ground floor) it can sometimes be hard to find places (well Google finds it hard to tell you how to get to the 17th floor in a building). So after some confusion that was quite funny, we made it! Willow was pleased to know that kicking shoes off at the door was actually an enforced rule, and not just her being silly.


We sat down at a lovely little sunken table on tatami mats and had a delicious meal including blackened cod and sashimi. Willow liked lying on the cushions, and was luckily entertained with the tablet or our phones, and finally got sleepy again. On the way home, she was finally asleep again, and we all had an early night after a great first day in Tokyo!!