Day 2: Arrival in Tokyo - Japan Trip 2026

Day 2: Friday 15th May

Arrival in Tokyo - Asakusa

📍 Tokyo, Asakusa

We Made It!

Arrived in Tokyo at 17:15. The moment we stepped off the plane, everything felt different. The airport was so clean and organised. Working our way through immigration etc was really easy. Once we were through, both of us found the toilets and both came back completely excited about Japanese toilets with their built-in bidet functions, accompaniment sounds (flowing water and birdsong), and heated seats. It seems weird, but nobody can visit Japan and not talk about the toilets. They are awesome. 😂

We muddled our way through purchasing Suica IC cards. We registered them to ourselves, because if you lose them, you can apparently claim back money on them and have them reissued. This turned out to be a pointless exercise - more on losing Suica cards later (see Day 7 - Nara). Having an IC card is essential. The card makes travel way more seamless and you can even use the card to pay for things in vending machines and at some convenience stores.

The trip from the station to our hotel was an experience. We took the monorail out of the airport and then changed lines at Hamamatsucho, to the Asakusa Line to Asakusa Station. The change at Hamamatsucho was a little stressful because we got a little bit lost and were still trying to make sense of everything. It didn't help that there seemed to be renovation work at the station and we had to navigate around outside a bit. But it ended up being reasonably straightforward and the journey took around 45-50 minutes.

While we were booked into an APA hotel in Asakusa, we weren't expecting to find that APA hotels are almost as common in Tokyo as pubs are in the UK. Asakusa must have around 5 or 6 APA hotels that all look pretty identical and which are all separated by one or two blocks. That meant finding our hotel was a little challenging. And not just on the first night. We frequently ended up walking towards the wrong hotel.

Checked into the APA ASAKUSA Kaminarimon Hotel and we were allocated a room on the 3rd floor. After dropping our bags, although we were a bit tired, we were still on UK time and that meant that we felt pretty wide awake, so we decided to start exploring and check out our local surroundings.

Selfie pic at an arcade just a short walk from the hotel — Just off the plane and checked into the hotel - we started roaming Asakusa and took this selfie in an arcade just beyond the hotel

First Evening in Asakusa

We went for a gorgeous evening walk around Senso-ji Temple. The place was alive with teenagers hanging out around the temple grounds. There's something magical about seeing a centuries-old temple being used as a casual meeting spot by local kids.

Senso-ji Temple at night — Senso-ji Temple lit up in the evening

Senso-ji Gateway guardian demon — Hi there! A guardian at the gate to Senso-Ji.

Senso-ji Buddha at Night — One of several Senso-Ji Buddha statues around the temple. We have a lot of Buddha pics.

Senso-ji pagoda lit up with the Tokyo Skytree tower in the background — The Senso-Ji Pagoda and the Tokyo Skytree tower in the background - that's the tallest structure in Japan, and the tallest tower in the world.

A tori gate at Senso-ji that leads to a Shinto shrine - a symbol of the intersection between Buddhism and Shintoism in Japan.

Dinner was at a moderately western-themed pizzeria diner not far from the temple and our hotel, called Eat-Alley Asakusa. Not the most traditional choice for our first meal in Japan, but it was late and we were worried places would close, and we were still trying to work out where we could get something vegetarian to eat. Maria had the antipasto misto and I had the teriyaki eggplant with rice. And we had a garlic bread, a beer and a glass of wine.

Very cool 3d sign for a restaurant in Asakusa - we didn't eat here. — There were some pretty cool 3d signs in Asakusa - like this one, which wasn't for the restaurant that we ate at, but I liked it.

After dinner we roamed around the area a bit more, but it was getting late and we knew that we were going to get hit with jet lag the next day, so we headed back to the hotel and got to bed before midnight.