Day 1 - Nippon Rising
This was the plan, and then a weird thing happened on a random May night. I forget the exact series of events, sadly, but it somehow ended with my parents joining the trip. They needed to go to India in the fall, and were debating various things to either attach before or after that trip, and I threw out why not come to Japan. My dad had been to Japan a couple times for work, and my Mom never. Surprising, really, given the amount of countries they have visited, but Japan and Korea were missing. They are now set to close both of those two gaps. Now, they are taking a slightly separate trip - we are spending the first two-and-a-half days in Tokyo together, and then the last three in Kyoto, but in between they are seeing different places, and then going to Sapporo after Kyoto before continuing to Korea and then India. It is two trips, but one key aspect - we are flying together, and my luck of getting upgrades to clear on EWR-HND continued, with getting both of my parents upgrades to Polaris. For once, I will use every single last plus point.
The flight was fun if only to watch them experience Polaris, and a good version. As well known, United's catering is at worst very bad and at best an unknown, but it is getting better. Their collaboration series for meals is also seemingly paying off, with my Mom and I both getting that, which was a starter of a chilled tomato soup with lump crab meat (very good), and an Ethiopian Coffee-Glazed Short Rib main, which was easily the best short rib I've had on United - what is usually fairly rubbery was tender adn well sauced. My Dad got the Japanese meal, which if nothing else will be crafted more carefully than the US meals, but was also quite good with a really nice fried chicken main, and a delicatedly plated starter course of four bites, which he did say looked better than it tasted.
The other food element is United's now standard offering of "tapas" midflight, where you can pick up to four items. Now, they sounded interesting, so I got three of them - a chicken & mushroom curry, a red beet gnocchi, and corn & bean empanada. I was picturing something small. Instead, two first two were basically served in teh same portion of the main dish of the dinner, and the empanadas came with three of them. These aren't tapas. They were actually good - at the very least the empanadas adn the chicken & mushroom curry. It's also weird for me to sit here and complain about being served too big a portion.
In the end, seeing them sleep and lie flat and enjoy the 13:30 was a thrill. They've flown business class before using their own miles over the years, but not on a flight this long and not when I was, in theory, gifting it to them. Again, I'm no saint - I am not using up all my pluspoints this year. The only long-haul flight I have left is to South Africa in October, and I still have enough to get upgraded if possible there and back. These extra ones were going to waste. Now they aren't wasted, in teh best way possible.
Before the flight, we did also hit up the Polaris Lounge, which was fun for them even if for some reason the a-la-carte breakfast had like half the menu unavailable. The dependable omelet was excellent though, as was their version of a bloody mary, their scotch selection (I convinced them that we need to start operating as if we are in Japan, and it is 9pm, not 8am. The lounge also was fairly empty, given how few Polaris eligible flights are flying int eh morning.
Overall, the flight was a great experience, save for teh one weird, unavoidable part of flying to Japan, which is that the flights have this weird timing of leaving at aroudn 10:30am, and landing the next day at 1:30pm (our flight was delayed an hour, so add an hour to those). There's some weird reason this is the case, vs say any other flight nonstop to Asia from New York which leaves late at night and arrives in the morning two days later (like the flights to Seoul, China, etc.). It results in this setting where if you want to adjust to the local timing you should try to sleep straight away, but that itself is difficult unless you avoid sleeping the night before - and it is bright outside the entire flight. Three times I've done it now (2023, 2024 and now), and never slept more than six of the 13-14 hours, but I've also enjoyed the time. I will say this is arguably the first time I felt like a veteran flying Polaris, and god willing that continues.
Day 2 - Tokyo, in Moderation
It's funny that the first thing my Mom said after we started driving in the prebooked van taking us from Haneda to our AirBNB in Akasaka is that "Tokyo looks normal, was expecting a lot more". I say it is funny because after just the three hours of proper tourism on this day, seeing Shubiya, Shunjuku, she gets it. My dad re-gets it. Japan is something to see to believe, and see means more than the drive from Haneda through the port area.
We were able to get to our AirBNB in about 30 minutes from Haneda, but even that was a bit inauspicious - as I didn't realize the two bedrooms are on a second floor, and the room with "western" beds (e.g. not on the floor) is a single bed in a nromal frame, and a second that is quite low. Anyway, after a bit of needling around, we all got used to it - had settled in, and we left to explore and get my parents used to the marvelous maw that is Tokyo.
Our first stop was Shibuya, the famous Shibuya Scramble Crossing, the worlds busiest pedestrian crosswalk - a cavalcade of seemingyl thousand a light that wander across. Now, a good amount of these people at this point are crossing it for the photo - the "busiest street crossing" being a self fulfilling prophecy in a way at this point. But the whole crossing area is glistening, both with the neon lights in teh crossing itself, to the modern buildings on each side - especially the Shibya Scramble Center, a newer grand building to one side. The lights, the maw, the craziness - this is Tokyo and I think in that moment, my parents "got it". If they didn't yet at that point, the next stop, after a brief dalliance at Uniqlo, cemented it.
Shinjuku is probably the ones place to experiecne all things Tokyo in one go - the bright lights, the shopping, teh department store food halls, and the Golden Gai, and all of that within a ten minute walk. That was basically our route - first exiting the Shinjuku metro station right into the Isetan food hall, which we wandered aroudn for a bit, more observing than craving (there was a LOT of food on the flight by the end). From there we walked around Shinjuku a bit, got a cofee, experienced the lights and main streets, adn then I took them to the Golden Gai. By this time it was about 7pm, it was already dark, and the Golden Gai was still getting started. They loved the small alleys, the old school nature of the small bars. Yes, it is a bit kitsch - but dammit Japan as a whole is kitsch central. We stopped at the one place that hit the combination of (a) not having a cover charge and (b) accepting credit card, but it was still good enough to enjoy a sake in a tight bar,
After a quick stop at the AirBNB, we headed for our first meal proper in Japan, and what better way to introduce my parents to Japanese cuisine in situ than at a good ol' Yakiniku - the places that were the lifeblood of my first trip to Japan in 2013, and similarly quite well frequented in my trip in 2023. This one was named O-zeki, which also showed them an interesting dichotomy. It is situated on a street in Akasaka near quite a few other Yakiniku's. O-zeki is not particularly notable on Google (4.3), but it is on Japan's Tabelog (a stellar 3.67), and it showed. It is not a fancy place - it was quite homely, but so good. The meat is all A3 wagyu beef, and it was just incredible - from sirloin to fillet to short rib, to the special Japanese cut of Ichibo (something of a picanha cut). Even their scallop was excellent. The best part of the grill it is live charcoals. If nothing else, I think they became converts to the church of Yakiniku over that meal.
From there, we went our separate ways for the night - them being quite jetlagged and tired went back to the AirBNB for the night. Me also being jetlagged and tired, went out - trying to give another data point to my strategy of beating jetlag by going out as late as you can that first night before crashing. The first stop was my favorite cocktail spot from my last trip, Bar Trench, which is a little cocktail bar tucked into a quieter part of Tokyo, but serves up some great concoctions. The most notable part of Bar Trench might be that every cocktail, or at least the three I tried, are perfect mixes of sharp, sweet, bitter, fruity, etc., There is no one style - but they are always just a mix of incredible things. Their main offering is a locally made absinthe, for which they have a sub-menu of five absinthe infused cocktails - had two of those and one of their classics, and called it a night for cocktails, before heading to my favorite EDM club from last visit - Vent. It was a night of checking off the hits.
