Tokyo Travel With a Child part 1

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Japan has an abundance of national holidays. I love it! This past week was Silver Week, a bunch of national holidays that means 5 days off! We decided to use the time to get off the island and have a family holiday to Tokyo.

Since we were travelling with an almost 4 year old child, we opted to pay a bit more for flights and fly into Haneda airport, rather than Narita. I love Haneda and i'll find it hard to ever fly into Narita again. Unlike Narita which is really far from the centre of Tokyo, Haneda is just a 15 minute train to Shinagawa station or Hamamatsucho, then just another 15 minutes to the Shibuya-Harajuku-Shibuya area.

I booked an Airbnb apartment in Harajuku because I wanted to be close to everything, and I also wanted more than just a hotel room so that we could put Griffin to bed in the bedroom, but still get to stay up and hang out in another room until we were ready to sleep. The layout of our apartment was great, but the beds were probably the worst beds i've ever been forced to sleep in, and the apartment was actually pretty dirty, so although the location was great, I wouldn't stay at this place again. Also, the apartment was just off Takeshita-dori, which is the busiest street in Harajuku, which meant that getting to to and from the apartment to the train station took a long time. It was like walking through festival crowds! Crazy!

Takeshita dori- the crowds!

Our first morning we set out for a real breakfast at Bills. I've already harped on and on on this blog about how much I miss my Melbourne coffee and breakfasts, so that's why we chose Bills. We got there just before it opened at 8:30, and there was already a line-up, then even when we ordered, we were told there would be a 30-40 minute wait on our food. It wasn't so bad though because they brought out a snack for Griff and we got our coffees.

A flat white!!

Bills Omotesando

After Bills we wandered down to the outside area at the Starbucks downstairs from Bills. Even though it's a Starbucks, I would definitely suggest stopping in here for a rest and a drink/snack if you are in Harajuku. They have a large, lovely wooden outdoor area with sun lounges, swinging egg chairs and couches overlooking Harajuku. It's great for kids, and at 9:30am, there was still plenty of seating available. If you are in Tokyo with kids, it's worth stopping by. Part two of day 1 will be coming up in the next few days..... stay tuned.