Back in Tokyo after 9 years

My first memory of traveling in Asia goes back about 20 years when my family toured Tokyo in the early 90s.  I'm passionate about travelling and food because of my family's influence.  It's what we do best as a family - travel together and eat well together.  Every trip and every vacation has always been food centric.  Japan has some of my earliest and my favorite food and travel memories.  The last time I was in Tokyo was in 2003, 9 years ago.  (Fun little fact - at that time we stayed at the new Park Hyatt in Shibuya and saw Sofia Coppola walking through the lobby.  Turned out she was doing pre-production research for "Lost in Translation."..Yeah, it's been that long since we've been to Japan..)

This trip was a highly anticipated reunion with one of my favorite food cities.  Tokyo is just as I remember, and even more tasty now that I was pairing cold beer with every meal.  I'm in love with Japanese beer.  Sapporo, Asahi, and Kirin are the first beers I remember drinking.  They are all so much better on tap in Japan!  It's the freshness, the chill, AND the creamy frothy head.  Every glass of beer was perfect.


Aside from Tokyo, we also toured through Osaka and Kobe.  There are so many food destinations in Japan.  Every area has their own specialty.  This trip was like our re-starting point into discovering more of the country.  


This week I'm featuring Tokyo, next week will be Osaka, and the following week will show are day trip to Kobe.  To start it off, here are some tourist shots of the infrastructure, night lights, and scenes around Tokyo.

If you can't see the slideshow here, check out my Flickr album: Around Tokyo