Of Mass in Japanese, Don Quijote, and an Evening River Cruise
tokyo day 2. sunday, january 15, 2023.
click here for part one and learn how NOT to pack for Japan with a baby
click here for part two and see how our first day in japan went
And here we are, at part three.
(hi, yes, i’m early. yay. i’ve decided to switch my newsletter days to from sundays to fridays to leave the weekends as more intentional family and friend time. trying to keep sundays as a day of rest and all that. especially after last time’s scramble to post 2 am monday morning lol. this means one newsletter two days early and more tech-lite, leisurely, prayerful weekends for the foreseeable future. that is something i’ll happily exchange. just so ya know <3)
In any case, this is part three and it will be all about our second and (for the time being) final day in Tokyo. It definitely felt a bit odd having the mindset of wrapping up our time in the city when we had literally just arrived, but we had decided to bookend our trip with one stint in Tokyo on either side rather spending all our time there at the beginning and then just needing to rush back to the airport at the end. This gave the trip a nicer flow for sure, and we’re very happy we did it, but, again, it left the morning feeling somewhat odd. We’d just arrived, and yet it was nearly time to pack up and go.
Fortunately, despite our first leg in Tokyo being rather brief and a relative mish-mosh of things to do, this ended up being one of the more memorable days of our trip, particularly with respect to how it ended, but it was a Sunday and that means we had to start off our day answering one big question…
What is it like to Attend Mass in Japan?
Ok, so you’ll need to forgive me for being a total liturgy nerd here, but oh my goodness did I love, love, love this.
Now, my husband, son, and I went to Mass for all the three Sundays we were in Japan. Vacations don’t really keep us from that kind of thing. It’s very important to us. Even beyond our desire to fulfill our Sunday obligation, however, I also just really love visiting churches. Whenever I travel anywhere new, I always want to find the churches as soon as possible and check them out. Between the art, the architecture, and the chance to say a quick hello to Jesus, it’s always a priority of mine.
Even so, that’s probably not what most people think of when they think of a trip to Japan. Churches on a trip to Europe? Sure. Visiting shrines and temples while in Japan? That makes sense, and we did that too! But churches are not the first thing people think of when they think of Japan. With a Christian population of approximately one percent and a history of outlawing Christianity (along with nearly everything else perceived as Western) for nearly 300 years, it’s not exactly a hot spot for churches. But as someone who loves the Church and who loves Japan, the history of Christianity in Japan and the current state of Christian life in Japan are both things I find deeply fascinating. I’ll probably talk about different aspects of this (and other things about religion in Japan) over the course of these posts, but today we’ll just stick with the Mass.
Because, yeah, it was Sunday, and we went to Mass.
I (being a nerd and obsessive planner) had already scoured Google Maps for all the Catholic churches in Tokyo before we had departed and found a small, historic church within a twenty minute walk of our hotel. Google Maps calls it the “Old Cathedral of Saint Joseph,” and their website calls it “Catholic Tsukiji Church,” but whatever one may desire to call it, it was a nice, simple little church and is pictured above. It is also apparently the oldest Catholic church in Tokyo, built in 1874, within decades of Japan opening its doors for the first time in several centuries.1
So that’s pretty cool.
In any case, the parishioners and ushers were all very welcoming, and we were given a handful of booklets upon our arrival to guide us through the Mass. Because, yeah, we didn’t go for an English Mass, we went for a Japanese one, all three times Sunday came around during our trip (next time in Kyoto and after that in Osaka). English Masses are available in major cities like Tokyo, but we were very curious to see what Mass would be like for an average Japanese Catholic. A smaller, more local Mass in the native language therefore seemed appropriate. And besides, when you’ve gone to Mass pretty much every Sunday since childhood, you can follow along pretty well even without the lovely translation books we were provided with.
We were really, really happy we did this though, as I’m not quite sure if I have the words to describe how incredible it was for me to hear the words of the Mass in Japanese.
I go to Mass a lot. For 27 years, every Sunday and then some. There have been times when I’ve gone daily. I could recite it in my sleep.
I hear the Japanese language a lot.2 I studied it in college. I’ve listened to it in a lot, a lot of anime and Japanese music. I think it’s an absolutely beautiful language.
But those two worlds don’t often cross for me. They’re very separate.
But for that one hour on a Sunday morning, they connected. I was on the opposite side of the world listening to Christ’s words of consecration in a language I loved. I could only catch slight bits and pieces of it, but they were the same.
皆、これを取って食べなさい。これはあなたがたのために渡される、わたしのからだである。
Mina, kore wo totte tabenasai. Kore wa anatagata no tame ni watasareru, watashi no karada de aru.
Take this, all of you, and eat of it. This is my body, given up for you.3
It was deeply, deeply moving.
I’d get two more chances at it over the course of our trip, and it, though small, is one of the couple of things I would absolutely want to do most again if I ever find myself once more in Japan.
Now.
Onto More Traditionally Tourist-y Things…
Fluffy souffle pancakes.
Perhaps you’ve seen them before? If you like to look at pictures of food, particularly Asian food, online (who doesn’t?), you’ve probably seen them. Fluffy, bouncy, jiggly pancakes about an inch or so thick, often piled high with fruit and some kind of sauce and/or cream.
They’re quite lovely, and in spite of the fact that we have sampled quite a lot of Japanese food from the New Jersey/New York area, souffle pancakes were never something we had ever really gotten to.
(Aside from one time when we were at a diner and my husband got excited when he saw them on the menu and ordered them without hesitation, but tragically they were vegan and whatever egg substitute they were using to make this very eggy variety of pancake just did not cut it. They apparently had the texture of a brick, and so we don’t really count that time.)
In any case, once Mass was over, we headed over to A Happy Pancake in Ginza to give them a try.
Now, like a lot of restaurants in Tokyo actually, you kind of need to look for it to find it. Tokyo is a city that very much makes good use of vertical space, and it is not uncommon to see 5-10 restaurants stacked on top of each other in a single building.
A Happy Pancake was in one of these kinds of buildings, though on a bit more of a side street, and on the seventh floor. We needed to take a rather small elevator up, and then… heh… wait over an hour before we were seated.
Yeah.
It’s a popular spot, and though it was delicious, I’m not sure if I would recommend a Sunday 11 am visit. It would probably be better on a weekday.4 But we put our name in, waited outside for a while (chatting with a family from California while we were at it), and then waited inside for a while when our name was toward the top of the list. At this point, my arms regrettably began to give out as I was, ya know, holding a baby.
At long last, however, we were seated and had some, yes, very delicious pancakes.
They’re definitely eggier than a traditional pancake, as it is whipped egg whites (like a meringue) that give them their fluffy, souffle-like texture, but that’s very much a plus for me. I really enjoyed how rich and airy they were. I got one served with chocolate and banana, and my husband got one with caramel and granola. Both were lovely, and aside from the wait, we had a great experience with A Happy Pancake!
It was also really fun because at the table behind us there was this cute little girl (like 2 years old), and she and our son (almost 1) kept staring and pointing at each other throughout our meal. It was absolutely adorable. At one point our son literally stood up in his high chair to turn around stare and wave. She started playing peek-a-boo with him. It was the best.
One of those things that absolutely makes traveling with children worthwhile.
A Tale of Don Quijote
Now, while we’re on the topic of traveling with children, if you recall the first post in this series, you know that we made some… grievous errors in our packing before we left for Japan. Feel free to read more about that here.
But long story short. We needed another suitcase, ideally a large one in which we could consolidate a lot of our luggage, if we wanted the rest of our travel days to be… not awful.
After a bit of research online, we found that you can get a pretty decent quality and affordable suitcase from a place I had heard of many times having followed many YouTubers in Japan over the years. Fortunately, I wanted to make a stop there anyway, and this seemed like a good opportunity.
It was time to visit Don Quijote.
Now, unless you have, one - also extensively familiarized yourself with Japanese travel and culture online, two - live in/ visited Japan or one of the other Asian nations where these stores exist (and Hawaii and California now too), or three - played the video game Yakuza… you probably have not heard of such a store.
And no, you did not read the title of this section incorrectly. The store from which we ended up purchasing our suitcase was indeed called Don Quijote, or as it is often abbreviated, Donki.
And so you’re probably wondering what literally everyone I know has asked me when I ever mention this store.
Why is it called Don Quijote?
Bafflingly, yes, it does actually relate to the novel.
Kind of.
According to the website from their Hawaii store, “Our company stores were named after the hero in Miguel de Cervantes novel, whose style corresponds to ourselves defying unfair restrictions and regularity, bravely, and aggressively offering challenges to the conventional retail industry.”
To which I say… okay???
It’s kind of a wild way to describe a discount store, but you’ve gotta appreciate the gusto.
And all things considered, it is actually a pretty good place to shop. It is affordable and you can find a lot of stuff there. Beyond our suitcase, we regularly purchased diapers, wipes, and baby formula there, along with souvenirs (so many kit-kats) and various other quick necessities. It’s also where we purchased three Pokemon starter plushies for our son to choose from for when we got to the Pokemon Center in Osaka. It is a good store, and we visited it beyond this first time not for the novelty but because it actually is very convenient.
The name aside, however, the, shall we say, manic energy of the store makes it rather clear why a lot of visitors to and foreign residents of Japan are somewhat… captured by the place.
Before I share any photos, I’d like to try to conjure up an image of what a store like Don Quijote might be like.
To start. Picture a seven story Walmart.5
A good start for sure.
Now. Absolutely pack the shelves. On an individual shelf level, it’s rather well-organized, but on a store level, it’s labyrinthine. Either way, the shelves are packed. They’re packed with anything from snacks to anime costumes to children’s toys to suitcases to board games to cosmetics to kitchen tools to rubber masks of United States presidents to quite frankly whatever you could possibly think of. They pitch themselves as a store from which you can purchase nearly anything at a decent price, and they’re not kidding.
Next, add lots of bold, brightly colored signage.
And penguins. Penguins everywhere.
Because the store’s mascot is a blue penguin in a Santa hat named Donpen. There is also a pink penguin named Donko, who is described on their official website as “mostly shrouded by a veil of mystery.”6 The mascot was almost replaced late last year, but the people rallied to keep him and now he is here to stay.7 In any case, the penguins are everywhere, in any number of costumes. A samurai, the Statue of Liberty, whatever, just penguins everywhere. Penguins on printed signs, as hanging decorations, in hand-done drawings, in stuffed animal form. Penguins as far as the eye can see.
Finally, add the song below playing in an eternal loop… which amused me the first couple of visits but eventually left me truly feeling for the employees who need to listen to this all day every day.
Hilariously enough, my son is absolutely in love with both Donpen and this song. I play it for him on long car rides when he is getting fussy. He’ll be getting a stuffed Donpen for Christmas. He loves it.
Anyway.
Put all of that together, and then you have Don Quijote.
We got a really nice suitcase for under $100 and had a great time. If you ever find yourself in Japan, go to Don Quijote and see what you can find. It’ll be fun.
Time for Dinner on the Sumida River
Now, for the main attraction of our final day of our first visit to Tokyo… a yakatabune, often translated as a houseboat, dinner cruise. Yakatabune were once lavish boats owned by Heian (794-1185 AD) through Edo (1603-1867) period nobility for entertaining guests. Nowadays, they’re still rather lavish, but are available to anyone willing to pay approximately $100 a person (though babies are free yay) for an evening river cruise, over two hours worth of delicious food, and unlimited drinks. One of the pricier experiences on our trip for sure, but… honestly worth every penny.
There are several different companies that offer yakatabune dinner cruises in Tokyo, often running along the Sumida River, and the one we ended up booking with was called Funasei. There are options both to rent an entire boat for a party or to just have a private table on a boat with other guests. As we were merely two adults and a baby, we obviously did the latter.
The boat departed from Shinagawa, one of the more southern of the 23 special wards of the city.8 Much of the district borders the water, making it a most appropriate point from which to launch boats. But our experience with Funasei really began before we even boarded.
They had a large, lovely dock where we could sit, listen to music, and admire the boats before they departed, for one. And the little man slept the whole time we were waiting to board as he had fallen asleep in his stroller on the walk over, looking very cute with his hood halfway draped over his face while doing so. It was a win all around. We were getting on a dinner cruise though, so the real star of the show was unsurprisingly the food. We ate a lot of good food while we were in Japan, but this was definitely one of our more memorable experiences for sure, between the variety, quality, and amount of food we had the chance to try.
There was tempura, lots of tempura, shrimp, fish, and a whole variety of vegetables. Crispy but not greasy, it was delicious. We were brought freshly cooked, individual pieces of it over the course of the cruise in addition to the spread of sashimi, simmered vegetables, and other small dishes that were on our table when we arrived. We also discovered the joys of umeshu, or plum wine, for the first time. Neither of us had had it before, but it was really delicious, light and sweet. I’ve tried different plum wines since then, both in Japan and at home, and this one was by far the best. I have yet to find out what it was, but I now often order umeshu at Japanese restaurants in hopes of finding something close. We’ll see if I ever do. Worst case scenario, we’ll go back to Japan someday and take another dinner cruise with them??
(cries because flights to Japan currently average well over $1000 a person - it’ll be years from now at minimum. someday.)
Anyway, the food was great. We tried to share some of the simple stuff like rice with our son, but he really wasn’t having it. That was kind of a trend of this trip on the whole. He recently started eating solids before we left, but was still very iffy on it (we were saying about 3 days before we left that he was starting a food strike), and while we were overseas, he kind of vetoed everything but formula, cheerios, and dry cookies and biscuits. Alas. Feeding a child. We tried. He’s great with food now though, thank goodness.
In any case, they actually did have a children’s meal plan we could have purchased, but he was too little for that to begin with. We simply put that we would be bringing a baby on our reservation form, and they were super accommodating. There was even a little seat set out for him, along with a children’s dinner set with a bowl, fork, and spoon. He did not eat with this set, not at all, but he really enjoyed throwing the bowl under the low-lying table for us to fetch over and over and over again.
It was definitely a less relaxing experience than it would have been without a child, and we certainly had to do our fair bit of playing keep away with our plates and glasses as the table was a traditional, low to the ground kind of table… but it was actually a pretty decent environment for a baby all things considered. All the tables had dividers between them, so it was rather quiet and private. Everything was at his level so he could pull himself up to the window to look at the city lights passing by outside. And he could just cuddle on our laps with his bottle as we ate.
It worked out pretty well.
And the view, man?
The view.
The Sumida river is lined with often illuminated bridges we went under one by one until we eventually reached and briefly stopped in front of Tokyo Skytree, which is pictured above. We reached it once our meal was mostly complete, and everyone was invited onto the deck atop the boat to admire the scenery (and take photos!). We did not stay up there for long as it was rather damp from the rainy weekend it had been, but it was quite a sight to behold.
Once we found our way back to our seats, we were offered a simple fruit and mochi dessert. We took another bit of a detour around Odaiba, a large, illuminated entertainment district on a man-made island in Tokyo Bay, and then eventually found our way back to port.
All in all, it was an absolutely lovely experience. A bit pricey, but the combination of the nighttime river cruise and the magnificent spread of food made it both a lot more memorable and worthwhile than many other pricier things we could have done on our trip. We’d absolutely recommend it to anyone making their way over to Japan.
And then… even our walk back to the train was kind of magical. There were still lingering Christmas light displays in certain squares and parks and we really enjoyed wandering on our return leg. Even though it was raining slightly.
I kind of finished my last post on this kind of just marveling at what a beautiful city Tokyo is, but I’m going to do it again. It’s crowded and bustling for sure, but there are so many places that feel lived in and quiet that are just incredible to explore. One thing that I had heard online before we took our trip was that a first time traveler to Japan could very easily get away with and enjoy spending one or even two weeks just in Tokyo (or maybe Tokyo and Kyoto). And while we are very pleased we took the cross-country trip we ended up taking, now having been to Tokyo, I get it. It would take a lifetime to explore, and I can really see why a visit to it and it alone could be the better kind of trip for a lot of travelers. There’s endless things to do, and it’s often more relaxing and interesting to stay in one place and explore it deeply.
Because Tokyo really is a world in itself.
But for now, it’s time to say farewell to the city. We’d be back soon enough, but we were crazy and had Hakone, Kyoto, Nagasaki, Hagi, and Osaka to explore first :)
More on that next time, though.
Thank you as always for reading! Feel free to like, comment, and/or subscribe - I’d love to hear from you :) Either way though, I hope you can enjoy a few more random photos from our day down below, but that’s all for now.
Next time… we’re heading for the hot springs.
This is not the same as speaking it. My speaking skills are much poorer than I’d like them to be.
Though we learned in retrospect that you can make reservations up to two weeks in advance. Would recommend next time.
They’re not all seven stories, but enough of them are and the ones we visited were always at least two.
https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/don-quijote-almost-replaces-its-iconic-penguin-mascot-121922
UPDATE: While I do love this series, as of April 2024, I'm pivoting my attention Substack-wise to be more focused. There is always the chance I may return to it, but do not expect updates going forward.