Today we were heading to Nikko for 2 nights. I checked out of the hotel with the same nice lady and asked her to help us with takuhaibin to send our big luggage to Sheraton Tokyo Bay. She asked me for my hotel confirmation to double check how my name is spelled and called the hotel to confirm our stay. It was 1400 yen, which was a little cheaper than I expected. I love the takuhaibin delivery service in Japan – so convenient, inexpensive, and reliable! We used it for our first trip as well, sending the luggage from Tokyo to Kyoto and bypassing Hakone and Miyajima.
Our first stop was Tobu World Square, which is a theme park with miniature 1/25 scale models of famous sites around the world. We took the Tobu Skytree Line Section Rapid train from Asakusa (the station entrance is in the same building as Matsuya department store). I also looked into the Limited Express SPACIA trains (Kegon/Kinu), which are nicer and a little faster, but it was more expensive, there’s an extra step to get the reserved tickets (it’s all reserved seating), AND there would be an extra transfer for the time I wanted. The section rapid train was fine and had seats facing each other with a little pull out table in between. It was a Thursday and not crowded, so the unreserved seating wasn’t an issue either. We should have arrived directly at Kosagoe Station (the station nearest to Tobu World Square), but Tobu Nikko station was end of the line. I’m still not sure where I went wrong. When everyone got off and we saw the cleaning crew, I asked the conductor and he pointed me to another train. Eventually, we got to Kosagoe Station. We then had to walk maybe 10 minutes, but it felt longer with our backpacks and small luggage. There is a coupon on their website for 500 yen off adults and 200 yen off children, so admission ended up being 2000 yen for adults and 1000 yen for the kids. They define children as age 4 or above (I had to read the kanji on the Japanese page to figure that out). Strollers and wheelchairs are free to borrow. I asked DD if she wanted a stroller and warned her about a lot of walking, but she refused.
First stop was lunch! Cute pyramid rice:
I got this Japanese style pasta for the kids and I thought it was the stand out – yum!
Total came to 3400 yen, not bad at all. We then set off to tour the park. I got the kids a “play card” (I think it was 1000 yen), which they used to activate action at certain models. I didn’t realize this until later, but the card comes with 15 points, each action is 1 point except for the canal lock (the biggest and coolest one) which is 2 points. It’s enough to do each action exactly once. The smaller actions are things like a marching band or street performers. DS was more into it than DD, but they took turns putting the card in the machines.
The now obligatory photo of Tokyo Skytree, but no golden turd! I’m not sure if we missed it or they don’t have it at all.
Airport (Narita probably), the planes did not look to scale to me.
It was cool seeing them painstakingly paint the little details of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (very high on my wish list! Waiting for the kids to get a little older).
Miyajima, one of my favorite places in Japan:
Taipei 101, where we would go a couple weeks later:
Various other sites:
The kids were marginally interested in all this. DS just wanted to find the next action spot. DD complained about being tired of walking, but kept refusing a stroller. I was a little bummed about that since I have fond memories of visiting miniature worlds (in Holland and Taiwan) when I was a kid.
I will end this post on a somber note. Their miniature New York still has the World Trade Center Twin Towers with a plaque in Japanese and English about what happened. I had a moment of silence in remembrance….
Travels with 2 Kids 