Five nights in 東京
Part of our Spring 2025 trip to Japan
The last leg of our trip—five nights in Tokyo, staying in an apartment in 要町, near 池袋—came next.


The first night, a Saturday, we went out for dinner at 大戸屋, a family-friendly restaurant chain, with the Smiths and with Robin, who just happened to be in town. It was great to catch up. Robin’s not around W3C these days, so we don’t get to see each other all that often.

After dinner, the Smiths headed home while Robin, Eryn, EJ, and I headed out for a nightcap at どん浴, a kid-friendly spot in 新宿二丁目—Tokyo's gayborhood. It’s owned by Satoko, my friend Mamiko’s partner. Erin had a chocolate banana crepe that looked like a fish.

We had breakfast the next morning at Global Ring Café near 池袋駅 before meeting up with the Smiths at 井之頭弁財天—a small temple inside 井の頭恩賜公園—for 花見.






We ended up spending a bunch of time at the nearby 井の頭自然文化園.








That night the three of us had a lot of trouble deciding what to do for dinner. Fortunately, we came across this adorable little Taiwanese dumpling spot, 線條手打餃子専門店, where we ate many colorful dumplings with all sorts of different fillings.

We had a lazy morning the third day, which all three of us desperately needed. We started the day at Coffee Valley in Ikebukuro, and eventually made our way down to 渋谷, where we saw the statue of ハチ公, crossed the scramble, and had souflée pancakes at FLIPPER’S for lunch.

Afterwards we wandered through 代々木公園 and got to see so many people enjoying 花見.

We shopped at KIDDY LAND in 原宿—we each picked up souvenirs—and Eryn found an 帯 for her 浴衣 at Chicago (the thrift store where she got the yukata two years ago).
That night, Mike and Nao had Erin over for dinner while Eryn and I had a lovely date night at 和膳処やまいち, a wonderful restaurant in their neighborhood. The proprietor took very good care of us over the six course meal.







Fiona, Erin’s best friend at school, also visited Tokyo with her family for spring break. We met up with them one day at Ueno Station and went on a rain-soaked adventure.


We quickly determined that it was raining too hard to get up to much in the park, and that we were all hungry. After lunch at a nearby Ootoya, we visited 浅草 to see 浅草寺. We posed for photos at the 雷門 gate, bought the kids treats along 仲見世通り and entered the temple grounds through the 宝蔵門. By this point we were all soaking, despite the heroic efforts of our umbrellas. We went to Tokyo Skytree to try to see the city from above, but were waved off of buying tickets because the view was almost totally obscured by clouds.


Instead we visited すみだ水族館, conveniently located in the same building.





We had ramen for dinner and then went our separate ways.

We set off late the next morning to meet the Smiths at the Tokyo Toy Museum, housed in an old elementary school. On the way there we stopped for coffee at All Seasons Coffee in 新宿二丁目, and Erin had her first bento box in Japan, from 花園弁当.

Afterwards we wandered through 新宿御苑, visiting the greenhouse and taking many more cherry blossom photos.

I made a brief stop at Selection to buy a Hanshin Tigers hat, and then we had one last meal with the Smiths–pizza, per Erin’s request.


- L–R: Eryn, Mike, Mila, Nao (top row); Tess, Erin, Zen, Mui (bottom row)
- What great timing! This guy rode by on his bike at precisely the right moment to ruin the shot.
Our penultimate day was chill. We had a somewhat lazy morning, and we had to do some laundry, so we didn’t get coffee until lunch time. It turns out there’s a second All Seasons Coffee right in 要町, just a few minutes walk where we were staying. After coffee and finishing our laundry, we had お好み焼き for lunch at ぼてぢゅう, a restaurant in the upper levels of the Tobu department store. Eryn had been looking forward to okonomiyaki all trip, and it didn’t disappoint.

Then Eryn took EJ to the Pokémon Center while I ran an errand in Shinjuku. We met back up and visited Coffee Valley again before going out for スープカレー at SHANTi for dinner. I try to have a bowl at least once a visit, ever since first trying it in 2015—I don’t know of any restaurant in the Bay Area that serves it. I should probably have ordered it a bit less spicy this time.
Our last day was very simple. We packed up, checked out, and had lunch with Karl somewhere along 地蔵通り in 巣鴨. Then we caught our train back to the airport.

Thanks for all the memories, everybody. じゃあ、ね。●