Impromptu Trip to Tokyo

Woke up and decided to head to Tokyo for the night to see some friends from Niseko, Alex and Ella.
I started out by driving to Yura no Sato Onsen on the coast, which is one of the nicer ones I’ve been to. The outdoor baths had a sea view and the sun was shining, allowing me to get a bit of a tan. The wind was still pretty strong though, so I couldn’t stay outside for too long.
After stopping at a kombini for some lunch, I headed to Mito Station to catch the express train into Tokyo and check into my pod hotel for a couple of nights. I’d managed to find somewhere in Hamamatsuchō for about £20 a night, which is pretty reasonable for Tokyo, to be honest. The train only took a couple of hours, and by around 6 p.m. I was dropping my bag off before heading up to Ginza to meet the others at their hotel.
We left the hotel around 7:30 to get to Jazz Bar Intro for about 8 p.m. – our venue for the night, offering live jazz and ¥500 drinks, a little north of Shinjuku. The bar is in the basement of a very typical Tokyo-looking building with about nine floors, each hosting a different bar. There was a confusing sign on the outside showing the logo of each venue and which floor to find it on. We were squeezed into the bar by the elderly Japanese man who runs the place. It was a mix of locals and tourists, all sat on short stools waiting for the next set to begin. The jazz and atmosphere were great – we ended up staying for a couple of hours before jumping on the train to Shinjuku.
Once in Shinjuku, we headed to Golden Gai, as it turned out Alex and Ella hadn’t been before. Golden Gai is a cluster of over 100 tiny bars packed into four or five narrow streets. Each bar offers a different vibe or theme, and the owner is almost always behind the counter, ready to chat or offer you another drink.
After a few cocktails at Bar Albatross (a spot made famous by Bourdain when he visited), we headed to a club in Kabukichō I’d been to before – but it was pretty empty. The others called it a night, but I was still hungry, so I went off to grab a ramen before calling an Uber to get back, having missed the last train.