after we got back from our day at harry potter studios and got the kids to bed, i got to go explore around asakusa – the area where we were staying – on my own for a bit. ian had gone out on his own the night before. this was so exhilarating for me! i absolutely loved wandering the streets and checking out sensoji temple, glowing in the middle of this massive city in the dark night.

the next day we had our now-traditional 7-11 breakfast (7-11 is the best in japan!) and then gabriel and eve and i headed to sensoji while august and moses had a bit more downtime at our hotel. it was so fun to see the temple complex during the day – so different with all the vendor stands open and of course so much more crowded! we explored the shops, walked through the incense, participated in a cleansing ritual, and saw a ceremony going on inside the temple.

then we met up with the ian, august and moses to explore more!

we spontaneously decided to go to the top of the tokyo skytree. we weren’t planning to do this since we’d already been to an observation point at shibuya sky, but we had some extra time so we decided to go for it! the views were pretty mindblowing (and totally different than the ones we’d seen from up high before!). and the glass floor that went down all the way to the ground was pretty wild to stand on!

we found some amazing lunch, then saw some cool city sites en route to … a sumo wrestling match at the national arena!

it was so cool to witness sumo as a sport and as such a richly cultural practice. we got a “food/souvenir set” included with our tickets and that was also a fun cultural experience.

august, moses and ian left the event a little early and eve, gabriel and i stayed until the end! then we got to walk along the river back to the asakusa area, exploring parks and bridges and grabbing a red bean paste fish waffle at sensoji temple on our way. we were meeting the others at the “ninja cafe” and on our way we happened upon this big akita kantō matsuri ceremony, where men balance these huge bamboo poles filled with lanterns in various ways. it was so cool! there was a drummer and a crowd and it was very exciting!

moses and gabriel were booked in to do a ninja training at the “ninja cafe” which was pretty epic! the workers there were so nice and the language barrier lent itself to some pretty hilarious moments. the boys were so excited and had tons of fun dressing in ninja garb, learning a routine with real ninja swords and then trying their luck with ninja stars and blow darts. we all got ninja-themed dinner and the twins cheered their brothers on (well, eve did – august fell asleep in the buggy!).

the next morning we tried out the “family bath” in our hotel – not quite an onsen (lots of onsen experiences came later in our trip), but still fun! then we headed to church right by the tokyo temple. we explored the area around the temple (clearly an ex-pat area) and then we went to another teamlab museum. this one was very cool but also really stressful to visit with four small excited kids – the whole idea of it is that there’s no route and no map to follow (it’s called teamlab borderless), and a lot of it is very dark so it was hard to keep track of everyone! it was very cool but ian and i were so relieved when we left, haha.

teamlab borderless is right by tokyo tower so we walked around for a while to see that iconic red and white tower up close. we happened upon a cemetery and temple right by the tower and that was very cool to explore.

we headed back to one more night in our tokyo hotel – on the subway and in the rain – and packed up to leave tokyo the next morning. we had one more 7-11 breakfast run and morning meeting in the little kitchenette that was part of our room, and then ian navigated us to an obscure part of town to pick up our rv that would become our home for the next while!