{"id":1871,"date":"2026-10-15T07:06:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T14:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/?p=1871"},"modified":"2026-10-15T07:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T14:06:35","slug":"breaking-communication-barriers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/15\/breaking-communication-barriers\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Communication Barriers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our final full day in Tokyo started with preparing for the next phase of our journey by forwarding our rolling suitcases onto our apartment in Kyoto. We certainly didn’t want to carry all of our luggage on the Nakasendo Trail! Thankfully there is a nationwide luggage transportation system that makes it very easy to send your bags onto the next destination in your journey. Most visitors rely on their hotel front desk staff to coordinate this process. Since our apartment had contactless check-in the task of forwarding our bags fell to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get to the luggage forwarding facility we hopped back onto the Yamanote Line. Getting our bags onto the trains in the midst of the morning rush hour was a fun challenge but we have found that local travelers are very accommodating and will make space without you needing to say a word. So far our rudimentary Japanese has been more than enough for us to navigate basic interactions (ordering meals, buying groceries, etc.) but forwarding luggage is far from a simple task when we are not staying in a hotel. The staff at this facility unfortunately did not speak any English. Through a combination of hand signals, broken Japanese, translation apps and AI we are 95% confident our bags will arrive on time at our apartment in Kyoto. Since we have AirTags in each bag we are able to track them all throughout the process!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our final day in Tokyo wasn’t limited to administrative activities as we had more sites to see! First on the list was Sens\u014d-ji Temple (Tokyo’s oldest temple which was built in 645 in honor of Kannon, the goddess of mercy). This active temple is surrounded by blocks upon blocks of street vendors which made for a very lively atmosphere. We sampled some smalls bites such as daifuku, jerky and a “square” burger both of which were made with wagyu, and a freshly squeezed orange juice from a vending machine. This morning was the epitome of ‘eating our way down the street’. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From the temple we made our way to Sumida Park which flanks the river from which it derives its name. We spent some time in the park looking up at a fixture of the local skyline (Tokyo Sky Tree) and watching the comings and goings of the river and nearby rail lines. This was a nice reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the city. Our next stop took us back to the crowds through the Ameyoko market. The market features everything from touristy trinkets to fresh fish and vegetables, that dichotomy made for a very enjoyable people watching experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a sit down lunch featuring eel we made our way over to Ueno Park and the scenic town of Yanaka which offered a slower pace from the markets we explored earlier in the day. Ueno Park is a serene park complete with a lotus pond, a boat pond for pedal boats (non-motorized), and a cormorant pond serving as a protected natural habitat for cormorants and various wild waterbirds. The quaint streets of Yanaka featured traditional wooden architecture and, of course, Stephanie made an animal friend along the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tonight we are staying in a capsule hotel for our last night in Tokyo. We wanted to get the quintessential Tokyo experience through the upscale hostel it has made famous and bring us back to how we met 12 years ago in a Florentine hostel (the rooms here are much nicer!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We ended our evening by returning to Sens\u014d-ji to see the temple and pagoda under the lights. It was well worth the second visit as the reduced crowds and well placed up lights made for a serene viewing experience. Tomorrow we will embark on the first “bullet train” of the trip while we ride the Tokaido Shinkansen on our way to the start of our 3-day hike on the Nakasendo Trail. We are not sure of the internet availability along the trail, so our posts may be a bit delayed, but given everything we have experienced in Japan, it will exceed our expectations! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our final full day in Tokyo started with preparing for the next phase of our journey by forwarding our rolling suitcases onto our apartment in Kyoto. We certainly didn’t want to carry all of our luggage on the Nakasendo Trail! Thankfully there is a nationwide luggage transportation system that makes it very easy to send […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","iawp_total_views":19,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1919,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions\/1919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyond-the-maps.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}