We boarded the Shinkansen Monday morning, October 7th. Due to the mountainous terrain, the train route to Tokyo was somewhat circuitous. We went northeast along the coastline of the Sea of Japan and had occasional ocean views. Then we followed a valley that rose to Nagano in the south. Nagano was home to the Winter Olympics in 1998. We saw varied countryside from mountain forests to farmland as we left the mountains behind and continued southeast back to Tokyo Station.

We changed to a local train on the Ginza Line. We were familiar with the route – it was the reverse of the way we left Tokyo for Kyoto a week earlier. We originally planned to stay at the Banrai Hotel, but before we left Kanazawa, Donna changed the reservation to a traditional Japanese room at the Hotel Wing International. This room wasn’t available earlier, but appeared online when Donna rechecked availability.

We felt like old hands at navigating our way through Asakusa Station to the hotel. This time our room was on the 11th floor and we found out what traditional Japanese room meant. The entry was a small hallway and we had to leave our shoes there. The main room had tatami mat flooring. The short hallway had a door to the bathroom on the right and what turned out to be small closet at the end on the right. A doorway on left led into the main room.

The bedding dominated the room and I wondered how we could manage to unpack and get comfortable in the room. Donna got the bright idea to fold up the futon bedding into chairs.

The room included a coffee maker and coffee packets that were actually quite good. That reminds me, I forgot to mention the breakfast buffet at the Torifito Hotel in Kanazwa. We usually went out of the Torifito for breakfast at Family Mart before the buffet opened. One morning we decided to give the buffet a try.

The buffet was more than twice the price of breakfast at Family Mart, but still relatively inexpensive. We weren’t sure of what to make of some of the food it offered though. There was steamed rice, of course, and some fruit. The scrambled eggs were the wettest scramble I’ve ever seen. There were some kind of fish dishes, but fish isn’t my idea of breakfast. They had fruit juices and tea. We had to search to find the coffee. It was made with a machine like you would find a convenience store, but didn’t have as many choices as we usually found. It had a button for coffee, which gave about a half cup of awful coffee. Then there was a choice of “weak coffee.” After filling my cup twice to get a nearly full cup of coffee and I told Donna the buttons should be honest and say “Bad Coffee” and “Really Bad Coffee.” I had the scrambled eggs and a couple of sausage links and rice for breakfast. I was wishing we had stuck to the Family Mart. Donna figured out the runny scrambled eggs were meant to be mixed with steaming hot rice. I wish I had figured that out before I ate. Back at Asakusa, we stuck with convenience store breakfast – the Wing didn’t offer a breakfast buffet, just a few pastries and drinks.

After unpacking, we went out for the remainder of the afternoon and figured we would find something for dinner along the way. We walked south along the boulevard from the hotel – the opposite direction from the way we usually went. We wanted see if we were missing anything in this direction. After wandering around for half an hour or so, we found ourselves heading back to the more familiar area north of the hotel.

Before we knew it, we were back at the Kaminarimon Gate where the large lantern marks the entrance to the Asakusa outdoor shopping area. Behind the gate and lantern is a wide alley with market stalls in the center. These stalls are like connected one-car garages with roll-up doors. When the stall is open for business, the doors are rolled up. When they close, they roll the doors down and lock them.

The large lantern is a tourist attraction and we always saw a small crowd in front of the gate to take photos and selfies.

We found a liquor store I wanted to visit. I was thinking about bringing a bottle of Japanese whisky back to the US. The store turned out to be mostly high end liquor with a lot of decorative or collectable bottles. I figured Duty Free at the airport would be the way to go anyway. Donna took a few pictures of the some of the bottles while I browsed.

We continued to wander and look for interesting finds. The Axe Throwing Bar seemed interesting, but we passed on it.

We found a statue of Ten Ryu next to the giant lantern. I’m not sure if it’s commemorating Emperor Daigo II or the “Divine Dragon,” a mythical being.

I can’t remember what we found for dinner, it wasn’t anything special. Later we found ourselves at another familiar place – the Not Suspicious Bar.

The trendy drink was a Tokyo negroni and Donna had to try one. I think the Not Suspicious version of the drink contained absinthe. I stuck with my favorite – Hakashu Japanese whisky.

Back at our room at the Wing, we had another nightime view of the Tokyo Sky Tree.

After striking out on finding old Japanese barber’s straight razors, I decided to make another trip to Morihei in Asakusabashi. I sent a message to a friend in Louisiana, Eric, to see if he wanted/needed anything from Morihei. He responded with a request for one of the Oozuku hard awasedo stones and a chu nagura. I need to explain two things.

First, I said a friend in Louisiana. Actually, I’ve never met Eric face to face. I first found his YouTube channel, The Cajun Blade, where I learned many things about straight razors and honing them on natural stones a few months ago. Then I figured out a guy on the Badger and Blade forum was him. I bought a couple of Japanese whetstones from him and he gave me a good deal.

The second thing I want mention is the nagura. What’s a nagura? A nagura is a rubbing stone. You rub it gently against your base stone with water to create a fine slurry of stone particles. The slurry can come from the nagura, the base stone or both. The slurry helps the stone to cut the steel faster and also can work on both sides of the edge as it comes over the top of the edge.

I hadn’t thought about a chu nagura. I have a few different nagura stones, but never tried chu. Tuesday morning, Donna and I took the train to Asakusabashi and walked to Morihei’s shop. The guy that helped me the week before was tied up with another customer. I think he was a wholesale customer negotiating a large transaction.

I browsed around and waited. A woman came out to see if she could help me. Her English was limited but I managed to let her know what I was looking for. She showed me a couple of stones and a synthetic nagura. I tried to explain that I wanted a natural stone nagura.

Then an older gentleman came out. He offered Donna a chair so she wouldn’t have to stand around while I shopped. He found a few stones for me to examine. When I told him I was looking for a natural nagura, he didn’t seem to understand at first, so I tried some rudimentary Japanese. I told him I would like to see tennen toishi ao nagura. It basically meant a natural stone white nagura. He motioned for me to wait while he disappeared out back. Later I learned that there was a second floor to the store and also a small museum of their private stone collection.

He came back out with three small chu nagura stones. Then he took me over to a sharpening station and demonstrated the awasedo stones I was looking at by honing a razor with them. I bought two more Oozuku awasedo and two chu naguras. Before we left, Donna asked if she could take a photo of the two of us. He motioned me over to the sharpening bench to pose with him.

The gentleman was very nice, but didn’t speak any English to me. He seemed to be the head honcho of the place and we noticed a couple of poster size blow-ups of magazine articles with his picture on the back wall.

I later learned he was Oguro-san, the president of Morihei and a well-respected expert on Japanese stones, mines and also Japanese knives. He is an advisor for natural whetstone researchers at universities and government agencies. I can vouch for him as being a nice man.

We walked back toward the hotel and stopped for a great ramen lunch. After resting in our room for a bit, we went back out and it was raining lightly. Rainy days are not uncommon in Tokyo at that time of year.

Rain doesn’t stop activity here, much like light rain is a normal condition in Seattle most of the year. We window shopped and Donna found something interesting.

It was beautiful portable shrine in a window display.

We found the covered street to shop without an umbrella. We had umbrellas that we picked up at the lobby of the Hotel Wing – they keep loaners in a basket for guests. When we returned with wet umbrellas, they have a special dispenser that you poke the collapsed umbrella into and it gets covered with a thin plastic bag so it doesn’t drip on the floor!

The following day we did more of the same. We wandered around the area looking for anything interesting. We found the Mishima Shrine. This was confusing, the Mishima Shrine Taisha is a famous shrine in Mishima, not Tokyo. I later found out that the Mishima Taisha is the most famous and other Mishima Shrines can be found such as the Mishima Jinja which is in the Shitaya District of Tokyo.

Later, we made a stop at the upscale Hotel Tobu. I don’t remember how many floors this hotel has, but it was one of the taller buildings in Asakusa. We went to the top floor bar for liquid refreshment and a look at the expansive views.

Another strange thing we found in Tokyo was go-kart rentals. If you posess an international driver’s license, you can rent a go-kart and convoy behind a tour leader for a two-hour tour, zipping around the streets of Tokyo.

I guess danger equals excitement to some people. This looked like a dangerous activity to me. We weren’t interested in the least bit about touring Tokyo via go-kart.

The next morning was the 10th of October, the day of our departure from Japan. We had a lazy morning and packed our bags. We checked out a little before the 11am checkout time and left our suitcases in a storage service across from Asakusa Station.

We had a lot of time to kill. Our flight was scheduled to depart from Narita Airport at 8pm. We walked across a bridge over the Sumida River and headed toward the Tokyo Sky Tree. We didn’t need signs or directions, it can be seen from miles around. It turned out to be a longer walk than I expected. Once you get closer to it, the scale of the tower starts to sink in.

Along the way we saw some people playing a game called padel. Padel (Spanish for Paddle) is a game that originated in Mexico. It’s like a combination of tennis and raquetball. It’s played on an enclosed court and the ball can be played off of the walls enclosing the court, which is slightly smaller than a doubles tennis court. I’d heard of the game, but never saw it played before.

The enclosure was a clear plexiglass, so we could observe from the sidewalk. It was a very quick game and good reflexes are needed along with paddle skills. I think I’ll stick to tennis for now.

As we got closer to the tower, the size was awe inspiring.

We finally reached the entrance and I was shocked at all of the space and attractions inside. There was an aquarium, a theater, rooftop viewing area and a food court along with stores and a large grocery.

There are several floors of retail space inside and you can also take an elevator up to the viewing section near the top. It requires a reservation though.

We had lunch in one of the food courts. They had many different styles of food available. We had our last authentic Japanese ramen meal – it was delicious.

We walked back to Asakusa following a different route. We went through the Sumida Park and crossed the river on a pedestrian bridge. Walking ahead of us on the bridge was a guy wearing what looked like a security guard outfit. I noticed he was using a microfiber cloth to clean the hand rail as he strolled across the bridge. The handrail was spotless.

Donna took pictures of Love Locks on the bridge. Couples put padlocks on the bridge fencing to symbolize their love.

By this time I was much better at recognizing the various trains from the platform. We caught an Express train to Narita. This had fewer stops than the train we first took from Narita two weeks earlier. It also cost less than I anticipated.

At the airport, the first thing we had to do was return the portable wifi. They had provided an envelope and instructions to return it via mail and warned us to post it before we went through security as there are no mail drop boxes on the secure side. We did that with a little assistance from an information kiosk then went to departures to check our luggage.

I was dismayed when I saw the long lines there. We walked past the first long line and I saw it was a departure line for China. Our flight was on Hawaiian Airlines which was partnered with Japan Airlines (JAL). We saw the line from the checkin counters going way to the back of the large building! They didn’t start check-in yet, we had about a 10-minute wait before the line would begin to move. Donna asked an attendant if it was the right line for us. She looked at Donna’s ticket and told her we should wait behind a couple of other people near the head of the line.

When they started boarding, first class/business class went first. We then saw some people from the long line move up as they were in the wrong line. We were through quickly and felt a little weird as we had jumped ahead of a lot of the people from the wrong line. Oh well, we were just doing what we were told to do.

We found directions to the JAL airport lounge. Now this is what first class is all about. It was a spacious lounge with three levels and lots of open space. We had already eaten and soon regretted that fact. Donna found a full dinner buffet on the upper level. We found a comfortable spot and I found a well-stocked bar with open bottles to pour for yourself. They had top shelf liquor – I had a Japanese whisky on the rocks.

We had money left on our Suica cards – nearly a thousand yen each. The Suica cards expire after 30 days and we had no way to use them. They are non-refundable. I also had some coins which I couldn’t use. I could exchange the paper money at the bank at home, but not the coins.

There was a young girl busing tables and cleaning up. Donna went to her and gifted her the Suica cards and coins. The girl didn’t speak English. She quickly left with the cards and left the dishes she was picking up in a tub on the table near us. Seemed strange. A little while later she came back with a supervisor that spoke English. The supervisor asked it why we gave the girl the cards and money. I told her it was a gift- we were getting on a plane a wouldn’t be able to use them. The supervisor looked like she wanted to keep the cards, but she relinquished them to the girl and gave her an explanation in Japanese. It wasn’t much money, but I thought the cards would get the girl back and forth to work for the next week or so. The girl went back to work. I was impressed that she would go to her supervisor instead of just quietly accepting the cards and small change. Integrity.

Once again we were comfortably seated in the front of the plane and headed to Hawaii. I didn’t buy any duty-free liquor at Narita because I was worried about going through customs in Hawaii. That wouldn’t be a problem, but getting back through TSA security would. I didn’t want TSA to take it away.

When we arrived in Honolulu, we were quickly through immigration with our USA passports. Then at customs they didn’t even stop anyone or ask any questions – we were waved straight through! That’s when I realized I could have bought duty-free and then packed it in my suitcase in Honolulu before I checked in for the next leg of the journey home.

We checked our bags then took an Uber into Waikiki. We had a few hours of layover time. Many of us think of Hawaii and Waikiki as paradise. This time I didn’t. It seemed crass and dirty compared to places we had just visited. Even the beach was less inviting.

Walking down Kalakaua Avenue we saw a couple of presumably homeless drug addicts picking through trash cans right in front of us. We needed to find a restroom and couldn’t find a public toilet. We eventually went into a Macy’s store where you had to have a key code from a store clerk to enter the restrooms.

I hate to say it, but we went from a polite and very civilized society to something that was far less.

We had backtracked across the International Date Line, so although we left Japan at around 8pm Thursday evening, we arrived in Phoenix at 11pm Thursday night! Jet lagged, but home again.

When Donna is asked what she liked best about Japan her answer is “The people!”

She also told me she could live in Kanazawa. We thought it was a once in a lifetime trip for us, but we’re scheming out ways to go back again.