Yaesu

Before you go

• Midtown Yaesu's loaner strollers are free for newborns to children under 4 (up to 17 kg), but they stay inside the building, cannot be reserved and are lent for about 4 hours, so ask at the first-floor information desk from 11:00 (return by 18:30) with a phone number and ID (a passport works).
• The paperwork took about 10 minutes for one visitor, and about four strollers went out at once when lending began at 11:00, so go right when it starts.
• Ordinary men's and women's restrooms in Midtown Yaesu have no diaper-changing space, so use the B1 baby room (three bed-type tables and one for a standing child) or a multipurpose restroom on the other floors.
• Nursing rooms are on B1 only, and only the largest private room fits a stroller; the private rooms do not lock and are women-only, while the shared area of the baby room has a sink and hot water for formula.
• Yaechika's floor map marks elevators only for B2F and B3F, and the way up to the street is mostly numbered stairs, so with a stroller take an elevator from outside the Yaesu-side station gates down to B1 (Yaechika, Gransta Yaesu, the Daimaru basement): one by the taxi stand at the Yaesu South Exit, and one on 1F Character Street near the Yaesu North side, which was relatively empty at some hours. The one that comes out in front of the 2F Starbucks does not go down to B1, and the elevators near the gates get crowded at some hours.
• Midtown Yaesu's 1F to 3F shops and restaurants open at 11:00 (B1 at 10:00; some shops differ), and the 3F restaurants filled quickly after 12:00 on a Golden Week day, so eat early. For a kids' meal or a kids' chair, one parent recommends the 3F restaurant floor, but it varies by shop: FLOWS GRILL BAR on 3F has no kids' chair or menu. The 2F Yaespublic has kids' chairs but nothing a child can eat and bars outside food from 11:00 to 13:30. The rice gallery at Yanmar Tokyo next door is open 10:00 to 17:00 and closed on Mondays.
• Yaechika is busy in the morning commute (an unofficial tip: strollers move easier after 9:30). If you arrive or leave by Shinkansen, one traveler found that the gate near Daimaru on the Yaesu North side has only escalators, which is hard with a stroller. If you transfer from other JR lines, of the Tokaido Shinkansen transfer gates only the south one has an elevator inside (the central one has none).