tokyo typhoon
It wasn’t the weekend we had envisioned but it was a good one nonetheless! Months earlier we had purchased tickets for the hotly anticipated New Zealand v Ireland pool game at the Rugby World Cup. With flights and hotels courtesy of a prize won at my work Christmas party and both of us heading to Japan for the first time - excitement levels were high! Unfortunately as it got closer to the time and Typhoon Hagibis bore down on Japan our trip started to look less and less likely. At some point we had to make a call on what to do, there wasn’t going to be a decision about the rugby game going ahead until after the no-going-back point for us so we decided to just go anyway. Figuring our 4 days in Tokyo were not only about the rugby and our flights and hotel weren’t refundable - we thought we may as well go for the adventure regardless!
We arrived pretty late on Friday night and just managed to sprint onto the last train from the airport to the city thanks to some kindly locals helping us out. We hadn’t really had a chance to get to grips with the convoluted train systems and trains for the night seemed to be ending so we took our chances a little bit and jumped on a connecting train that didn’t quite go as far as we expected so we ended up having to leave the trains and find a taxi to our hotel - again with the help of a friendly local man. We were pretty hungry by this time so we set out to see what one could find to eat at 2am in Tokyo. Turns out not too much near where we were staying apart from 7-11s and this one 24 hour diner-looking place. Ended up with a pretty yummy unidentified meat - egg- noodles dish to satisfy the craving.
By this time the news was fairly Typhoon-filled and there was word of supermarkets running out of food and water and Tokyo shutting down all together. By this time we also knew that the rugby game we had come to watch the next day would not be getting played at all due to the weather. We made sure to stock up on drinks and hotel-room-friendly snacks and turned in for the night.
We awoke to heavy rain and news that all the public transport in and out of Tokyo would be stopping around lunchtime and businesses (inc restaurants) were expecting to all be closed as well, and everyone was told to take shelter for the Typhoon to hit Tokyo that afternoon/evening. I was determined to see some sights before the Typhoon arrived so we suited up and armed ourselves with umbrellas and headed out to Asakusa. It was fairly well pelting down with rain by this time but we soldiered on regardless taking shelter where we could. According to friends who have spent time in Tokyo we were seeing the very strange sight of Asakusa close to empty, apparently it is usually heaving with tourists. Most of the small stalls, restaurants and shops around the area were closed but a few bigger places were open so we had a bit of a look before attempting to find some lunch. This turned out to be much harder than expected as most places had shut up shop, in the end we found a teeny tiny chicken karage place near our hotel and had a delish meal just in time. We got back to our hotel room early afternoon just as the Typhoon arrived in Tokyo. It was certainly intense rain and wind but not as bad as anticipated from what we could tell. As instructed we stayed in our hotel room the rest of the day and all night, only venturing to the lobby at one point to see what food or drinks were available (not much).
We got through the night just fine though and still had food supplies remaining when we woke to a bright sunny Sunday in Tokyo. Heading out excitedly to the streets we could barely tell there had been a Typhoon, it was warm and dry weather and people and cars were starting to move about again. We explored some new neighbourhoods as we chased food recommendations from friends around the city (with medium success as not everything was open again post-Typhoon). We had an afternoon booking at the Yayoi Kusama museum which was a fun spot to check out - make sure to reserve your time online before you go though - it is very popular and they only let a small number of visitors in at a time.
We attempted to watch some rugby via the public viewing spaces on Sunday night but it was a bit of a disaster, the first one we headed to was a bit out of the city but when we got there we were told that they had moved it indoors (rather than the huge public plaza it was supposed to be on) meaning there was limited seating and we were too late. With not long before kick-off and no sports pubs nearby we decided to rush back to an area with more likely viewing spots only to find them all bumper-full and not letting anyone else in. Somewhat disappointed by now as we really wanted to watch Japan play (v Scotland) together with some Japanese supporters, we started ducking into restaurants to see if they had TVs. Eventually, we struck the jackpot, a super quiet steak restaurant with a TV playing some random rubbish. We convinced the owner to switch channels, grabbed a table with a good view of the screen and ordered anything they suggested to us in grateful-ness that we could watch the remainder of the game. During the game (which was a very exciting one), as we got more into it and a couple more tables of locals turned up, the staff also got a bit more into it, and by the end we had found the vibe we were after… a room full of Japan supporters cheering along with us! After the very exciting finish to the game we were on our feet high fiving and selfie-taking with a big group of young locals who had arrived at half time. We then decided to check out what the famous nightlife of Tokyo holds, we found ourselves in an amusement parlor, ten-pin bowling and lots of interesting other games such as punching bags and drum playing. Here again we found ourselves interacting with the locals, they were interested to know what we were up to and invited us to play some random arcade game with them. The interaction between us tourists and the locals is certainly a noticeable change for us from Hong Kong where this is much less common. We ended the night at a street/alleyway known for the bars and nightlife, lots of very small hole-in-the-wall type bars up dodgy staircases where you crowd in elbow-to-elbow. We ended up with a window seat looking down on the alley-way - making for some excellent people watching.
Our final day in Tokyo started with an awesome morning watching Sumo wrestlers training, their speed and flexibility relative to their size was incredible and they put on a helluva show considering it was just training. I cannot recommend this highly enough if you are in Japan!
We spent the rest of the day perusing the shops while continuing to eat delicious food before we had to make our way to the airport. Despite the rugby being canceled and losing a night and half a day sheltering from the Typhoon I am definitely glad we went and super keen to return to Tokyo for the Olympics next year.
