Flying back to Chicago we found no option but to have a 9 hour layover in Tokyo. Fortunately we arrived early in the morning and the departure was late in the afternoon. That gave us the middle of the day to find something to do. The two common options are to take the NEX (Narita Express) to downtown Tokyo or explore the much closer Narita Town. We opted for Tokyo.

We left almost all our carry-on bags in a couple lockers at the lower level of the airport and then took the approx 1 hour train ride to Tokyo. The train station dropped us off just a couple blocks from the Imperial Palace, but unfortunately it was closed to tours on Sundays.

We instead walked to the nearby Ginza neighborhood to walk around. We stopped for lunch at a Dim Sum place (yeah, I know) which turned out to be really good. We then found out there was a famous toy store nearby called Hakuhinkan so we went there and spent a couple hours exploring that amazing store.


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