Godzilla, Sumo & Shabu-Shabu
After eight wonderful days exploring Hokkaido, it was time to trade mountains, lakes, flower fields, volcanoes and long stretches of nearly empty highway for something just a tiny bit different: Tokyo! One minute we were in peaceful Hakodate looking out over the harbor, and a few hours later we were standing underneath flashing billboards in Shinjuku while Godzilla peered down at us from the top of a skyscraper. Welcome back to Tokyo, WanderLyn. Apparently, we were done relaxing.
Goodbye Hokkaido, Hello Tokyo ✈️
We started our final Hokkaido morning with breakfast at the Premier Hotel - Cabin President Hakodate, packed up our considerably fuller suitcases and headed toward Hakodate Airport. One of the things I really liked about staying near Hakodate Station was how easy it made everything. The airport bus leaves from the station area and takes only about 20 minutes, making it a simple and inexpensive way to get to the airport without much fuss.
Our little group actually split up for the morning because Chris and Mario were flying out earlier on JAL, while I had an 11:50 AM ANA flight. The flight from Hakodate to Haneda took only about an hour and a half, and by early afternoon I had officially traded the peaceful landscapes of Hokkaido for one of the biggest cities in the world.
This was my second visit to Tokyo in 2026, and I was excited to be back. Tokyo is one of those cities where you can visit over and over and still barely scratch the surface because there is always another neighborhood, shrine, restaurant, observation deck, strange little café or enormous electronic animal waiting around the corner. This time, however, we were visiting in August, which meant we were also going to experience Tokyo's famous summer heat and humidity. Let’s just say this is the kind of weather where your hair starts making its own decisions and eventually you stop arguing with it.
Our Tokyo Home Base: Shiodome 🏨
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kbad4q6ARDU
For our five nights in Tokyo, we chose the Hotel Villa Fontaine Grand Tokyo - Shiodome, and the location turned out to be incredibly convenient. The hotel is connected to the Shiodome transportation network, giving us easy access to trains and subways, which is exactly what I want from a Tokyo hotel. Our room was definitely what I would call an efficiency room. Tokyo hotel rooms aren't exactly famous for acres of extra space, and with three people and our luggage, there may have been a little strategic maneuvering required. Still, it had everything we needed, and when you're spending most of the day exploring Tokyo, I would much rather have a smaller room in a fantastic location than a giant room that requires a long commute every morning.
We dropped our bags, freshened up and immediately headed back out, proving that we had apparently learned absolutely nothing from our carefully planned Hakodate rest day. There would be no leisurely first afternoon in Tokyo because Shinjuku was waiting.
Godzilla Welcomes Us to Shinjuku 🦖
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kbad4q6ARDU
From Shiodome, we hopped on the Toei Oedo Line and headed straight to Shinjuku without needing to deal with complicated transfers. Before long, we emerged into one of Tokyo's most energetic neighborhoods and headed toward Kabukichō, where massive electronic signs flash from every direction, restaurants are stacked on top of restaurants and crowds pour through streets that seem to get busier as the evening approaches.
If this is your first trip to Tokyo and you're looking for that full “OH MY GOD, I'M IN TOKYO” moment, Shinjuku delivers beautifully. As the afternoon started turning toward evening, the signs came alive with the giant tabby cat - really, he's HUGE! Our first mission was Godzilla Road, where the enormous Godzilla Head peers over the edge of the Toho Cinemas building as if he's considering whether Shinjuku might make a nice afternoon snack.
Naturally, we took plenty of pictures because if a giant Godzilla is hanging off the side of a skyscraper and you don't take a photo with him, did you even go to Tokyo? This is exactly the kind of wonderfully over-the-top thing I love about the city. Tokyo can give you a serene centuries-old shrine in the morning and a giant radioactive monster hanging off a building in the afternoon, and somehow both feel completely appropriate.
Getting Up Close With Sumo 🤼
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ApKUv6qe0lc
From Godzilla, we headed to the Shinjuku Sumo Club for an exhibition-style sumo show that I had been really looking forward to. This isn't a formal tournament but rather a fun, interactive introduction to the traditions, rules and techniques of Japan's national sport, presented by retired professional wrestlers.
The wrestlers demonstrated how they warm up and showed us both legal and illegal sumo moves, keeping everything lighthearted and funny while teaching us quite a bit about what is actually happening inside the ring. Then they wrestled for real, and seeing sumo from that close gave me a completely different appreciation for the sport. There is an incredible amount of technique involved, but when that much mass, strength and speed come together at once, you can practically feel the force of the collision.
It was educational and cultural without ever feeling overly serious, which made it such a fun way to learn about sumo. I loved being able to see the movements and techniques up close and then watch those same techniques put into action. Of course, watching two enormous men launch themselves at each other is also surprisingly exhausting, so naturally we decided that we had earned dinner.
Forget Beef — We're Having Lamb Shabu-Shabu 🥢
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LR_PF5eAZuo
Dinner that night was at Lamb Shabu Gold Eyes Shinjuku, which I had reserved ahead of time through TableCheck. Most people hear shabu-shabu and immediately think about thinly sliced beef, but this restaurant specializes in lamb, and it was absolutely delicious.
You can choose traditional shabu-shabu or a hot-pot style meal, and then the fun begins as paper-thin slices of lamb arrive at the table and you gently swirl them through the bubbling broth until they're cooked. The lamb was tender and flavorful and made a wonderful change from the beef versions we had eaten before. Vegetables came along with the meal, and later they brought noodles to cook in the broth, soaking up all those wonderful flavors that had developed throughout dinner.
We finished with a little mochi for dessert, which made the whole meal feel complete. Meat, vegetables, noodles and mochi seemed like a perfectly reasonable representation of all the important food groups as far as I was concerned. The service was also excellent, and the restaurant turned out to be one of those terrific Tokyo finds that I might easily have walked past if I hadn't specifically gone looking for something different.
Tokyo Night & Light 🌃
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZUwJbxmUkxU
After dinner, we walked about 15 minutes toward the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building for one more experience before calling it a night. The TOKYO Night & Light show uses the enormous exterior of the government building as a giant canvas for projection mapping, with colorful graphics and animations moving across the skyscraper while music plays throughout the plaza.
The sheer scale of the show is what makes it so much fun. This isn't a little projection on the side of a building; the building itself becomes part of the performance. Tokyo apparently looked at projection mapping and decided that using an entire government skyscraper as the screen seemed perfectly reasonable, which is exactly the kind of thinking I appreciate in a city. Oh, and mother nature came out to play with a lightening background for that extra tough of WOW!
And another thing, the show is free, and Tokyo has a surprising number of experiences like this that don't cost anything. You can absolutely spend a fortune in this city if you'd like, and Tokyo will be more than happy to help you accomplish that goal, but there are also wonderful parks, temples, shrines, viewpoints and experiences that cost little or nothing.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building also has a free observation deck on the 45th floor, making it a great place to see just how enormous Tokyo really is. Looking across the city at night, the lights seem to stretch forever in every direction. After spending the previous week surrounded by Hokkaido's mountains, forests and wide-open spaces, seeing that endless sea of buildings and lights really drove home just how dramatically our trip had changed in a single day.
Tokyo, We're Back ❤️
By the time we headed back toward Shiodome, I had to admit that we'd managed to squeeze quite a bit into our “arrival day.” We had started the morning in Hakodate, flown across Japan, checked into our Tokyo hotel, ridden the subway to Shinjuku, saw a giant cat, wandered through Kabukichō, posed with Godzilla, watched retired sumo wrestlers throw each other around, eaten lamb shabu-shabu and finished the evening watching a skyscraper turn into a giant projection screen punctuated with lightening flashes. Not bad for Day One.
And this was only the beginning. We still had more Tokyo neighborhoods to explore, more fabulous food to eat, more wonderfully weird things to discover and, because apparently my feet had not suffered enough during our Hokkaido road trip, plenty more walking ahead of us.
The WanderLyn 10K continues!
Until next time,
Eat well. Move well. Wander well.
Lyn, WanderLynTravel
Check us out on Social media: @WanderLynTravel
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