Matt and Lisa's Adventures

8 December 2025

Quiet start to the day and I managed to get a run in before doing all of the admin that comes with going away. Alan and Gail came around at 2pm so we could fully brief Alan on how to care for the cats. It’s complicated as they are very spoilt animals!

Then it was off to the airport for a quick beer and then the short flight to Auckland.

We are staying at the Jet Park hotel which is best known as a Covid isolation hotel. It is a sprawling complex and the inside is old. It would have been a very dreary and depressing place to have been isolated.

9 December 2025

Poor night’s sleep, but can’t attribute it to jet lag as we haven’t even left the country yet! 

Check in was very easy and we had a nice breakfast in the Auckland lounge. It was then a long walk down to our gate where the flight was then delayed with was frustrating. We finally boarded about an hour late. As Lisa’s ticket was scanned she got the “bad” noise – we were both concerned. After a quick check with gate staff it was because part of her seat was broken so she was moved to another seat. As business class on Air New Zealand is a weird layout you can’t really talk with your companion, so being seated apart wasn’t an issue. I think we were both worried she was going to be downgraded and I would have to be chivalrous and give up my seat.

The 10 or so hour flight was really good. I watched:

• The Life of Chuck – weird three-part story from Stephen King, but I enjoyed it
• Caught Stealing  – easy crime watch with lots of action
• The Roses – we had seen the trailers for this a million times, it was ok but the trailer gave away most of the movie

Food was great. I had pork for lunch which came with an amazing kumara mash and the short rib for dinner. Even managed to have an hour or so nap during the flight, which was nice surprise on a day flight.

Customs was very easy except for our standard problem with Lisa not having fingerprints. She would make a great criminal! 

10 December 2025

We had breakfast as part of our stay and at check in last night we received eight meal tickets – one for each of us for each morning. We traded two of them for breakfast. There was a very wide array of food – I had four meats: sausage, bacon, roast pork and chicken skewers – amazing! I finished off with some fruit so that I could maintain my healthiness. Lisa had cereal and fruit – so boring! We both stayed away from the cold square omelettes.

After realising that most shops don’t open until 11am we switched up our plans and booked in a walking tour at the Imperial Palace. This was a forty minute walk from the hotel and we slowly ambled our way there getting accustomed to the city as we went. It is definitely not car centric as despite being peak hours the roads were quiet. Drivers are also very polite and give way to pedestrians without fail. There was also a lack of the honking that seems to happen in other major cities. 

Our tour was meeting outside a Starbucks so we grabbed a drink beforehand. Lisa did the ordering which was a challenge with their limited English (and our non existent Japanese). However, when I went to pick up there was only one drink and a food item I didn’t recognise (or thought we had ordered). This led to much confusion as I tried to give feedback. They made me the missing drink and then took away the other drink (the coffee). I was concerned about how Lisa would react if I didn’t have coffee, so I made them bring back the coffee and in the end I just took both drinks and the food item without further discussion. We will need to work on our ordering approach for the future. 

Our tour was with Miguel who was Portuguese. We slowly walked into the imperial gardens and heard some of the history of Japan and the palace as we went. 

• Kyoto was one of the three original capitals of Japan before the emperor moved to Tokyo and it became the new capital. The city was called Edo prior to the move and Tokyo literally means “East Capital”. 
• The first emperor was said to be the grandson of a goddess. The imperial line has continued unbroken for two thousand years. The link to the gods is the key justification for the imperial family. 
• For a period of time Japan was ruled by shoguns. These were essentially the most powerful lords who controlled the army and therefore the country. They couldn’t take over the role of emperor as they didn’t have the lineage from the gods – I appreciate this commitment as European (and British) royal families held no such qualms and regularly killed off the old lot and took over. 
• The shogun and emperor essentially split power with the emperor was more religiously focused while the shogun held the real world power. There was often passive aggressive conflict between the two
• The palace itself is hidden from view to give privacy and security for the royal family. Buildings near the palace are height limited so that they can’t see into the palace. 
• Edo castle used to be the largest castle in Japan. It burnt down in 1657 and was not rebuilt. The stone base remains and we were able to walk through that. 
• The fire killed over one hundred thousand people and largely destroyed the city. There are legends about how the fire started including one about a flaming kimono. The story said that a lady lusted for a man and had a fancy kimono made to try to catch his eye – however the lady fell ill and died. The kimono was then donated to another woman who also died. This went on for four women before monks burnt the kimono and it was this flaming kimono that got away from them and caused the fire. Miguel suggested that it could just have been that there was something toxic in the kimono’s colours that caused the deaths – sounds like a rational explanation to me! 
• The complex was designed to protect the emperor with a moat and wall on the outside. There were then large gates and three checkpoints that were manned by samurai. The second one was manned by one hundred samurai which would be very intimidating for a visitor to the palace. 
• Buildings often have two half fish / half dragon sculptures on top. There are meant to protect the buildings from fire but are not always successful (clearly). There was one sculpture displayed but as it had lost its partner it had also lost its power
• Two ginko trees were in the garden. This was because after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a ginko tree survived and bloomed. This led to the emperor planting the two symbolic trees to show that Japan could survive and rebuild. One of the trees looked healthy but the other was missing a lot of its leaves – we didn’t bring this up with the guide but it didn’t seem like a good sign.
• We ended the tour at a traditional Japanese garden. According to Miguel a proper Japanese garden needs to have – water, a waterfall, pine trees, a lantern and stones. There were some impressive koi fish in the pond. Our cats would have loved them! 

Lisa has seen about Christmas “illuminations” being a big thing in Japan. We headed to Roppongi which had a couple of areas. The first one was pretty disappointing in terms of lights – about a dozen trees with lights wrapped around them. But it did have a passable imitation of a European Christmas market. We had been to lots of these in previous trips, but always after Christmas. I had a beer and Lisa a pretzel while we did some people watching. Then we walked down to mid town where there were a few more trees wrapped in lights. 

For dinner we ended up at a burger bar – which was pretty good. However, after the first day we haven’t really had any true Japanese food, something we plan to rectify tomorrow. 

11 December 2025

We had booked in for Team Labs Planets which is a modern, interactive art exhibition. They have several different variants of them around the country. We made the mistake of getting there in the subway during rush hour and it was very crowded. There was a distinct lack of personal space and it was a bit uncomfortable but thankfully we were off there soon.

Team Labs was awesome and quite a unique experience. It was broken up into different areas with different attractions:

• A catch and collect forest with massive screens and animals on the screens. You can touch the screens to have the animals interact with you. Using an app you can “catch” the animals and then release them. Catching them gives you information about the extinct animal. We caught a dodo and a moa – which was cool! 
• An adventure forest with activities. There was an adult slide and several climbing activities with lights and projections. There were interactive computer displays that were lots of fun. 
• There was a garden area with orchids hanging down from the roof. As you moved the orchids would move up slowly to get out of the way and would descend back once you have moved. It was a short experience but fascinating to be surrounded by the orchids at eye level. 
• The water area required us to remove our shoes and roll up our jeans. One exhibit had us in milky water that projected fish onto the water so it felt like you were walking through the fish. It’s unclear how clean the water was, but our skin didn’t peel afterwards, so we assume it was fine. There was a room with thousands of LED strips hanging down from the ceiling – which was very impressive. 
• We each coloured in a picture (I did a plane and Lisa did a dolphin) these were then scanned in and flew about on a wall.

Lisa had an issue with her feet expanding (she wants me to point out this is pregnancy related and not just a random expansion) and so she needed to get some new shoes. Being very loyal to our favourite brands Lisa found an All Birds store in Harajuku. Slightly confusing getting there as when we arrived it wasn’t clear how to exit the metro station – we ended up in an exhibition centre and after back tracking we found an exit through an electronics shop that seemed to sell practically everything. Eventually, we realised we were two levels below ground and so after going up we found an exit back to the real world. Lisa purchased the same shoes as she was wearing just one size larger and that made things much more tolerable for her. 

We then headed to Shibuya where we had a walking tour booked in. Before the tour we had a McDonald’s lunch as we needed something very quickly. We have been very impressed with the cleanliness and safety in Japan. At McDonald’s we saw people who would leave the bags and belongings on the table while they went to the bathroom – no concerns at all. Everyone clears their own trays and sorts the rubbish – very polite.

Our tour was with Scott, who was very good and gave out Hi-Chew lollies for correct answers to his questions:

• Shibuya is the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. Up to three thousand people cross at a time and over two million in a day. It is manic trying to get across and not helped by people stopping to take photos (ie us). There are sensors in the ground to track the progress of walkers so that the lights can be aligned with the slowest walkers
• There was a big line for photos with a statue of a dog called Hachiko. In the 1920s Hachiko used to walk to the train station with his master and then meet the master at the end of the day when he returned. One day the master didn’t return as he had a heart attack and passed away. Each day the dog would still come down to the station to wait. Eventually the dog was adopted by the community and became famous with movies made about him and everyone in Japan knew the story. The statue was even erected while the dog was still alive – imagine being so heroic you can pose with your own statue. Goals.
• We went to a knife store. After samurai were abolished the samurai sword makers needed a new market and so they started making knives.
• There were some laneways with old school bars and restaurants. It looked like something from out of the 1940s.
• After the war Japan was very poor before they had an economic miracle when their car makers and technology companies became world class. This led to strong growth in the 1980s. Japan now has major economic issues caused by an aging population. The advantage for us is that it is relatively cheap – which we do enjoy compared to Europe and the USA. 
• Went down cat street which was a key fashion street with lots of shops and boutiques. It was called “cat street” as it used to have lots of “cool cats” because of the clothes shops. 
• People in Japan often struggle with resigning from their jobs as there is often a lot of pressure from bosses and culturally people struggle with going against authority figures. There are now resignation services where you can pay someone to resign on your behalf and therefore avoid those awkward conversations in a professional way. 
• You can also rent “friends” for tasks like farewelling you at the airport. Japan has a lot of issues with isolated and lonely people so here is a way to feel a little less lonely. Maybe a short term fix but doesn’t seem likely to help with the underlying problems…
• Finished at the Meiji shrine. It is a major green area in the city and Scott taught us about how to make wishes in the shrine. The shrine looked great but we were pretty tired so we left entering the shrine for another day. 

12 December 2025

I enjoyed noodles, roast pork and eggs for breakfast. Lisa was her boring cereal again, but this time with chopsticks. One thing that is cool is that we get given a card on arrival at the breakfast restaurant that we put on our table  to reserve it. At the end of the meal we turn it over so they know we are finished. Very simple and effective. 

First stop of the day was the Tsukijji fish market. This used to be the largest fish market in the world but they moved the wholesale section to a different area of the city. I was keen to check that out and watch the tuna auctions until I discovered they started at 5am – we are on holiday here people! Without the wholesale section the fish market was consumer facing. Lots of stalls selling all sorts of fish and sea related products – there wasn’t much we would eat and some of it I don’t think anybody should have been eating! 

There were also lots of other stalls selling everything under the sun. We tried some strawberries covered in a sugar coating – it was nice but I could feel the diabetes invading my teeth when I bit into it. 

Then it was back to Shibuya. We started with a coffee at Starbucks above the Shibuya crossing. I tried a new chocolate Frappuccino with marshmallows (because unlike hot chocolates, it was on the menu and I could point to it) – it was super sweet and I couldn’t decide if I enjoyed it or not. We were going to sit and watch people crossing but it was too hot being inside the glass with the sun. Ironic considering it was very cold outside. 

After all of the hype of IKEA arriving in New Zealand we decided to check out the Japanese IKEA. I was unimpressed. It looked very cheap and that may be the point, but I don’t think it was worth the NZ media losing its mind. I did manage to make a few good puns from the Swedish words which impressed Lisa. 

The Don Quijote shop sells all sorts of crazy products. Lisa had heard about the 400 types of Kit Kat in Japan and had been looking out for them. We hadn’t had much luck but Don Quijote had a good selection that we purchased from. The store was manic but we were impressed with the music which was basically just saying the name of the store repeatedly – it did work as we walked away humming it: “Don, Don, Don Quijote” (repeat a million times).

Lisa was very keen for soufflé pancakes which she was VERY hyped up for. We checked the map and found a couple of options. The first option just flat out disappeared – we arrived at the correct location but couldn’t find any sign of it. Next up was Flippers which definitely existed because there was a huge line outside – we weren’t doing that. We ended up at a little French cafe. Lisa had a quiche and I had a galette. It was pretty good although I did have a small issue slicing my galette where a piece of lettuce fell off my plate – Lisa thought this was the funniest thing ever, she laughed so hard it hurt.  Lisa says this description minimises what actually happened.

We walked to Harajuku and to the famous Takeshita Street. This street celebrates Japanese culture in a very over the top way:

• Massive crepes with all sorts of crazy flavours.
• Several plastic collectible shops – this seems to be a big thing in Japan to collect these different capsules. Not something we understand.
• Clothing stores for the classic Japanese looks. In particular the massive oversized shoes that you often see young women wearing.
• Animal cafes including: samoyeds, cats, micro pigs, capybara and even otters (with one outside wearing a hat). These looked like fun but Lisa says she would get too upset at having to leave the animals and didn’t like the stories about poor animal welfare.

From there I went to the Meiji shrine, Lisa was tired so she chilled out instead which was wise as there was quite a bit of walking. Emperor Meiji ruled Japan at the end of the 19th century into the 20th century. He is well known for opening up Japan to foreigners again which was a major change for Japan. The shrine is dedicated to him and his wife the empress. 

• The shrine is inside a massive park. You walk from the craziness and noise of Harajuku into the forest and the change in noise and serenity level is incredible. 
• There are several massive wooden gates to pass under. 
• Along the path there was one side with sake barrels and the other side with French wine barrels. These had been donated by the brewers and vintners in honour of the emperor. 
• The shrine itself is very large and tranquil. Photos weren’t allowed of the actual shrine area. I followed Scott’s advice from yesterday on how to pray correctly: two bows, two claps, make your prayer and then bow again. 
• I also completed a prayer card with my desires on a piece of paper. I didn’t have any coins to put in the envelope with it, but I figured the emperor would overlook that and I’d hook him up with double the next time I’m in town – if the prayers are successful.
• Other people wrote their prayers on wooden blocks and then strung these up on the pagoda. This meant that others could read their prayers which seemed a bit personal.
• There was a couple getting married and having photos taken. I joined half a dozen other tourists in getting pictures of them alongside the official photographer. Their happiest day will now appear in blogs, photo books and photo libraries of people from around the world! Good luck to them! 

Then it was back to the hotel for a quick rest before heading off to Tokyo Sky Tree for more illuminations and a Christmas market. The illuminations were underwhelming but we did get one good photo. The market was outdoors which wasn’t pleasant in the wind. Lisa had a pretzel and I had a beer which we are at a table inside the tent. 

For dinner we went to a food court area and had a beef BBQ bowl with rice. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t for Lisa. We finished off with crepes which were very good. It was good seeing a different area of Tokyo but it’s tiring with the long trips there and back in the metro.