As my time in Tokyo draws to a close, I’m trying to do as much research as I can to make sure there’s nothing I’ve missed, that I’ve done everything on my Tokyo bucket list.
There would be no worse feeling than having been here for two months, only to discover once I get home that there was some incredible hidden vintage shopping area, or amazing art gallery that I had entirely overlooked.

I am trying to deep-dive as much as I can, and avoid revisiting the same places over and over. I figure there’s no point living here for two months and never exploring further than Shibuya and Shinjuku. The past couple of weeks I have been making pilgrimages out to second hand stores a bit further off the beaten track, to get a better feel for the city outside of the major central areas. Today I ventured out to Kichijoji via Shimokitazawa (my favourite area), and over the weekend, Ekoda and Sakuradai. Last week was Chitose- Karasuyama, a suburban area in Setagaya (and very strange location for a vintage shop), and the week before I caught the train to Koenji, the ‘vintage/retro’ precinct. If I have time, I read there are some more good ones in Sumida City!

Before I leave, I’d like to explore Ueno and give Akihabara a brief once-over (definitely not an anime fan, but there’s a street corner dedicated to bizarre vending machines that I would love to see! ). I want to see the Choi Jeong-Haw Exhibition at Gyre in Omotesando, go to Ota Fine Arts and Mori in Roppongi, Scai the Bathhouse in Yanaka, Vanilla Gallery and the Okuno building art space in Ginza. I want to go to a flea market, the Kawaii Monster Cafe, Teamlab Planets and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. This seems like a lot for a little over a week, but even if I manage half, I’ll still be stoked.

Although there were plenty of days where I did nothing much except go to work and then go home, perhaps via the supermarket, I feel like I’ve finally more than scratched Tokyo’s surface. I have visited shrines, participated in a tea ceremony, a sushi-making class and a Taiko drumming lesson, been to a cat cafe, trawled countless vintage stores, seen a ninja show, a drag show, snow, more international DJ sets than I can count, been to various galleries and museums, from Teamlab Borderless to the Edo Architectural Open Air Museum, gotten lost more times than I can count… Although there will always be things I wish I had made more time for, I can definitely say I gave it a pretty good shot.

Last week at work, I pitched a bar scavenger hunt event, which my boss absolutely loved, so this week has been focussed on getting the wheels in motion. My idea is a self-guided bar crawl, where players hunt for clues and win prizes as they discover new, interesting nightlife spots. This week we focussed on setting up a chatbot for players to interact with, which delivers clues, registers their teams and takes payment etc. We’ve planned it for my last weekend in Tokyo, so there’s a lot to be done over the next couple of weeks! I have also just taken over the social media marketing campaign for one of Flip’s PR clients, Erosscia, an inclusive pleasure product brand. This has been super interesting and I’m excited to have been given free creative reign on such a big project so early on!

On Thursday, a restaurant Flip is looking to partner with, Beer Loves Gyoza, invited the staff to dinner and a ninja show. Intrigued by the promise of free vegan gyoza (almost unheard of in Tokyo), I headed along. Although the ninja show was definitely aimed at tourists, it was actually really entertaining. At random intervals during dinner, the ninjas wandered around the restaurant doing cartwheels and backflips, with one even doing a handstand on a hover board! The food was pretty great too, and it was a good chance to get to know my co-workers a bit better.

Over the weekend, Courtesy of CRCC, Massey and Education New Zealand, the CRCC interns embarked on an expedition to see the Skytree and Sumida Aquarium. Although it was cloudy and snowing, so the view was hugely obscured (see photos below) it was still pretty amazing to see snow falling from 450 storeys high. We could actually seepage chunks of ice pelting down! Unfortunately no chance of a glimpse of Mt Fuji though…

The aquarium was fun, the displays were really beautiful, particularly the jellyfish. Pink and blue UV lights had been set up above their tanks, to emphasise their colouring, and some exhibits actually had projections shone through them. It was more like being at Team Lab Borderless than any aquarium I had seen before!

Aside from my CRCC internship at Flip Guide, I haven’t gotten up to too much this week, as I’ve been busy battling the flu!

This week at Flip I focussed on building up a social media presence for Flip Mysteries, their newest venture. Flip Mysteries, due to launch within the next month, will be a series of scavenger hunts which take people on self-guided tours of the city, depending on their interests, while teaching them about Tokyo’s culture and history. Despite only having been at Flip such a short time, I’ve already learnt to use several new social media tools and software, which have been really fun to experiment with. For the latter half of the week, I helped the Flip team shoot new video content, introducing viewers to unusual things in Japan that they might not have encountered elsewhere, particularly unique food and alcohol. While I got to try some really interesting delicacies I hadn’t eaten before, I was very grateful they’d shot the episode on Natto (fermented soybeans) before I arrived!

Over the weekend, I visited the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Shinjuku. Although the gallery was surprisingly small, it canvassed a wide range of works, from Kusama’s earliest creations to her most recent work. I was particularly taken by the installation ‘Ladder to Heaven’, a huge neon-lit ladder set up between two circular mirrors, giving it the impression of continuing on infinitely.

I also loved having the opportunity to see one of her pumpkin sculptures in real life! It’s always amazing getting to see work you’ve admired for years in the flesh (or more accurately, fibreglass).

During our week off of our internships, for the Japanese New Years holiday period, CRCC, Massey University and Education New Zealand planned a series of activities to give us a crash course in Tokyo’s history and culture. Here are some of the highlights:

The week began with a sushi-making class and trip to the Tsukiji fish market. The class was really fun, and I was surprised how involved the process of making seemingly simple sushi, like nigiri (literally just a piece fish on rice) was. Although the fish auctions aren’t actually held at the original markets anymore, it was still fun to get amongst the hustle and bustle, and see the strange array of street foods on offer, like glazed strawberry skewers and hot mochi. I found it very confronting, and quite uncomfortable to see live crabs and octopi still squirming on the ice, ready to be sold and consumed.

Afterwards, we walked through the Hamarikyu Gardens, a rare, and quite refreshing, green space amongst the kilometres of concrete. It was such a shocking contrast to the towering buildings surrounding its perimeter.

On the Monday, we ventured to Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city. The polar opposite of Tokyo, Yokohama is devoid of any neon lighting or skyscrapers, no bustling crowds. Instead, the sleepy seaside port was a city of European-inspired architecture, post-war monuments and large, open spaces. It hosts Japan’s largest Chinatown, a labyrinth of more than 600 shops, stalls and restaurants. We were more at home here, amongst the shouting street hawkers selling panda-shaped buns and bags of roasted chestnuts, frenetic crowds, fluorescent signs and endless stalls of souvenirs.

Tuesday highlighted Tokyo’s extreme juxtaposition of old and new, beginning with a traditional tea ceremony, followed by a visit to Teamlab Borderless, the world’s only digital art museum. I didn’t expect to be as taken by the tea ceremony as I was, but I found it to be a really special, spiritual experience. Tucked away in a shoebox apartment in Ginza, our hostess invited us into her tea-room, a tiny tatami-floored paper structure. The air was thick and sweet with the smell of incense, a pot of boiling water bubbling away on a tiny sunken fire in the centre of the room. We sat in a circle, sipped matcha from intricate floral cups, and ate sweet bean cakes shaped like blossoms. It seemed as though we were impossibly far away from the world outside.

Afterwards, I tried (vegan) ramen for the first time. I still really can’t understand the hype… it’s just noodle soup..? Post-ramen, we headed on the monorail to Odaiba, a man-made island with a distinctly futuristic feel. Upon arriving at Teamlab, we were met with a daunting two-hour long queue to get in. Although we considered walking out, I’m incredibly glad we decided against it. Teamlab was possibly the most incredible visceral experience I have ever had. I barely have the words to describe how phenomenal it was. There was an entire room full of mirrors and a forrest of shimmering LED lights, one with artificial lily pads, with patterns of fish and flowers projected onto their surfaces, a mountain that looked like a giant waterfall, a room full of projected waves, one full of psychedelic flowers, another had geckos scuttling along the floor.

Christmas here is odd, if it weren’t for the fairy light-wrapped trees and the Frozen soundtrack blaring from shop speakers, you’d barely know it was happening. There was no 10pm Christmas Eve manic rush, no Hollywood-level fights over the last Barbie aeroplane, no shoppers acting as though they were preparing rations for the apocalypse/ the one day a year supermarkets are closed.

Although I’m not particularly sentimental, spending Christmas approximately 9280km from home was a bit strange and sad. I avoided Facebook all day, I didn’t need to see everyone who got to spend Christmas with their families.

I decided to venture out to Harajuku for the afternoon, fill the void with silly extravagant purchases and take myself out for lunch. I didn’t really find much (except an exceptional pair of purple, holographic platform boots), which was probably good. I went to Madosh Avocado cafe, met a cat on the street and played dress up in RagTag. Although I was in this incredibly manic, magical place, doing all the things I loved, I still felt a bit hollow. I longed to be watching American Horror Story and making fun of my extended family with my mum and sister, dressing their dog up in his Santa outfit and perusing online Boxing Day sales. It seemed strange to be all alone.

I got back to the accommodation to the sweetest, most haphazard Orphan’s Christmas with the other CRCC interns. Although we were all somewhat displaced and alone, we were alone together. With our subpar cooking facilities (and abilities), it was the motliest assortment that shouldn’t have worked, but somehow did (much like ourselves).

My first week in Tokyo was a delirious, 100 yen cold brew coffee-fuelled blur. Although I have been here twice before, so wasn’t expecting to feel any sort of culture shock, you can’t help but feel utterly overwhelmed upon arrival. It is easy to forget how vast a city with almost triple the population of the entire country you live in is. This trip is the longest I’ve stayed here by far, and although I have a fairly good sense of the subway system and know where to find decent espresso and cheap second-hand designer clothes (very important), there was one thing I was really not prepared for: Trying to find vegan, or even vegetarian, food. Having come previously as a tourist, I could afford to eat at restaurants for most meals, so it wasn’t such a struggle. Definitely not easy, but do-able. Staying for two months however, this was not a sustainable option.

The majority of my first three days in Tokyo were spent trawling through various supermarkets, convenience stores, food markets and bakeries hunting for gluten-free bread and a coffee filter. It was then that I realised everything I had taken for granted at home, easy access to affordable fresh fruit, hummus, falafel, honey, soy lattes, were rarities here. Comparable to the Victorian era, where wealthy people would import pineapples and other exotic fruits to impress their posh friends at dinner parties, fruit in Japan is given as a gift, more of a luxury than a daily staple. Only the most pristine, perfect specimen makes it onto the shelves, individually wrapped in styrofoam sheaths or elaborate gift boxes to protect them from bruising. Every strawberry is perfectly symmetrical, grapes are the size of plums, peaches are so flawless they look Photoshopped. And you certainly pay for it. Even the cheapest supermarkets in the basements of discount chain Don Quixote charge $80 NZD for a box of 12 oranges.

By the end of the week, I had managed to overcome my initial horror, found some local grocery stores with cheap avocados, procured a box of powdered hummus (better than nothing!), softened to the idea of seafood (what is the point of coming to Japan to eat nothing but onigiri?), and had found my beloved gluten-free bread. I have also discovered a vegan falafel joint, vegan delicatessen and salad bar within a stones-throw from my workplace.