Tokyo - Part 2

DAY 3: Our second full day in Tokyo started with a truly Western breakfast: McDonald's! We needed those fluffy Egg McMuffins to get us through the busy day we had semi-planned.

Since it was Sunday, I figured the best place for us to visit would be Harajuku Station and the Meiji Shrine (both locations are busy on Sundays).

When we got to the Harajuku area, I was expecting some outlandish costumes, but all I got was regular folks walking around! Gwen Stefani lied!

Meiji Shrine

The Meiji Shrine is right next to Harajuku Station so it's easy to see both of these areas in a few hours. If you decide to visit Meiji, wear comfortable shoes! The walkway to the shrine is long and made up of gravel; I did see a lot of ladies wearing heels though - why?? As we made our way to the shrine, we saw several ladies in traditional kimonos (and tourists taking pics with them).


On Sundays, the Meiji Shrine is usually the backdrop for several traditional Japanese weddings. While we were there, there were at least two weddings going on amongst all the tourists.

{Notes written on wood by visitors}

{People washing their hands before praying}

Yebisu Beer Museum

After the Meiji Shrine, we got back on the train and went a few stops south to the Ebisu area to check out the Yebisu Beer Museum. The museum is located in a new area called Yebisu Garden Place, which features restaurants and shops.

The museum gives you some insight into the Yebisu beer (now owned by Sapporo) and how it has developed over the years. After you go through the museum, you get to the good part - beer tasting! We tried all the beers they had on tap and determined that Yebisu was the best beer we've had in Tokyo. Although the museum is free, each beer was 400Yen, which is still cheaper than the bars.

{vending machine where you get coins to buy beer} {Yebisu Beer artwork}

{delicious light and dark beers!}

Shibuya

On our way back, we stopped in Shibuya to walk around one of the "hippest" areas of Tokyo. The biggest shock when you step out of the train station is the massive crowd of pedestrians crossing Shibuya Crossing! I mean, it's kind of ridiculous! All of the vehicular traffic stops and hundreds of people cross from all different directions!

{the pictures don't do justice to the ridiculous crowds}

After getting through the Crossing, we walked around and found lunch at a standing sushi restaurant. The restaurant only had room for about 15 people so we waited for a few minutes before a spot opened up. When you give your order to the sushi chef, he makes it then places it on the banana leaf in front of you. The food was great and affordable (less than $20). Micah did make the mistake of putting green tea powder into his soy sauce, thinking it was wasabi! HA!

{sushi counter dining}

After we snuck in a much-needed nap, we went shopping at the Times Square shopping area, less than a 5-minute walk from the hotel. This worked out perfectly since a friend's restaurant recommendation was inside this shopping mall.

In Tokyo, the top floors of a shopping mall usually house several eateries. The one we were going to, Katsukura, was on the 14th floor! The line was long when we got there, but we only had to wait about 20 minutes - and it was worth it! The place specializes in tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlets) but they did have non-meat options as well.

The funniest part of the dinner was trying to figure out how to fix our own dipping sauces. After ordering our respective dishes (pork for me, shrimp for Micah), the waitress gives you a bowl with roasted sesame seeds along with a pestle. This is where the interactive part comes in: you ground up the seasame seeds, add a smattering of soy and other delicious condiments, and voila! your dipping sauce is ready for consumption.

{pestle to ground up the sesame seeds}

{sesame seeds all ground up} {jars containing tons of different sauces}

The dishes came out crunchy and hot. After eating a lot of raw fish, it was nice to have some fatty goodness on my plate!

{fried goodies getting plated - my dish: tonkatsu with a spring fried roll - micah's dish: fried shrimp}

On our way back to our hotel, we stopped off and took a picture of the Tokyo "Delirium Cafe." We've been to the Delirium Cafe in Brussels so thought it would be fitting to take a picture with their Tokyo location. We opted to not drink there since the prices were astronomical.

DAY 4: Since we only had a half-day on our last day in Tokyo, we decided to keep the activity to a minimum.

Tsukiji Fish Market


{Ginormous fish being sold}

This was one of the only places that I had to go to in Tokyo! I wanted to check out this infamous fish market for myself! We opted against the whole "eating sushi at 5 a.m." and got to the market around 8 a.m. Although the main auction was already over, there were still plenty of people working in the market.

{left: giant octopus - middle: japanese fish mongerer - right: I wanted to buy one of these so bad!}

We walked around the market for an hour and took in the fishy sights and smells.

There were some interesting specimens in the market, but nothing I've never seen before.

For breakfast, I bought a rice cake from a vendor near the market. Yummy!

SAYONORA!

Our last lunch in the city was at the same kaiten sushi we went to before, we had to fit in another sushi meal!

That was the perfect way to end our Tokyo trip!

{I had to get some green tea ice cream before we left the Narita airport!}

Notes on Tokyo: while I really enjoyed Tokyo and the Japanese people, I am not sure this place is on my Top 10 list to return. When it comes down to it, the city is like any other large city (albeit a lot cleaner and safer), it's expensive, and it's kind of sterile. If I were to go back to Japan, I would explore the smaller cities instead. The food is AWESOME though. :-)

Konichiwa Bitches! Tokyo - Part 1

Because I am a smart girlfriend, I knew I had to lure Micah into my Vietnam adventure with some type of proposal that he couldn't refuse. Most flights from San Antonio to Vietnam have a layover at Narita Airport in Japan - BAM! There was my answer... we will include a side-trip to Tokyo before meeting my mom and sister in Vietnam. Micah said "yes" to the idea and off we went booking our tickets and waiting anxiously to stuff our faces with sushi!

Day 1: We got to Narita airport at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 28. After getting out some Yen from the ATM, we purchased our Narita Express tickets (+SUICA package) and hopped on the train to go to our hotel in Shinjuku. We had a slight delay to our hotel because we exited at the Shibuya station instead of the Shinjuku station. I had a 20-minute semi-conversation with the ticket operators explaining our mistake and how I shouldn't have to pay to get back onto the same train! Ai-ya! They finally figured it out and let us back on.

I found a good deal on a hotel right-smack-dab in the Shinjuku district: Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku

We knew going in that the rooms were going to be tiny AND they were! I'm thankful we had a mini-fridge in that place! Although the rooms are small, the hotel was perfect for us and in a great location.

Not only was the room small, so were the robes that they let you use:

Japan is BIG on vending machines and the hotel wasn't lacking in them either!

By the time we checked-in, etc. it was already 6 p.m. but we still wanted to walk around the area and take it the Tokyo air! We walked around the Shinjuku area looking for something to eat when we just decided on a place that looked fast and easy. We wasted a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how the "pay to order" automated machine worked - but we finally did and we got some fried noodles and a noodle soup dish. Not too shabby!

After getting some food into our gullet, we took a stroll through the Kabuki-Cho area (red light district), with open beer cans in hand!

One thing we weren't expecting were all the men partying at midnight with their business suits still on! I guess the Japanese know how to work hard and play hard!

Day 2: While a little jet-lagged, we did manage to wake up at the non-obscene time of 8 a.m. to kick-off our first full day in Tokyo! We got breakfast at a nearby coffee shop then headed to Akihabara (electronics district).

Akihabara
We actually didn't buy anything but we did check out several department stores. One dept. store had 7+ floors ranging from porn to model guns!



Asakusa
I wanted to visit the shrine, much to Micah's dismay! The walkway leading up to the shrine was packed with visitors and vendors trying to hawk their wares!







After getting in some praying, we wanted a snack, and sho nuff there were plenty of food stalls right next to the shrine. We got some grilled tentacles and some takoyaki (fried octopus balls). The tentacles were great and the balls were ooey gooey rich!


While we were walking around the Asakusa area, we also stopped by a grocery store and of course, Micah had to take tons of pics of the beer on the shelves!

For dinner, we wanted to try the kaiten sushi (conveyor belt)! There were a few around the hotel, we ended up at a place called Himawarizushi. Funny enough, our waitress was actually Vietnamese! Go figure! She helped us get our sushi on and I'm thankful she was there! The kaiten sushi is great for non-Japanese speakers; you can see everything going by and the menu is easy to read. "Real" sushi isn't about the rolls, but more about the nigri and sashimi. We had some great fatty tuna and other delicious fish! The miso soup was also devine! The whole meal was around 2000Yen (about $22USD). We found eating sushi was the only thing cheaper in Japan than the US!

Of course, our night wouldn't be complete unless we got some beer into our jet-lagged system. I did some research beforehand and found that Popeye's Beer Bar in Ryogoku has the biggest beer selection in Tokyo. We tried their Sampler of different microbrews from Japan and only a handful were good! Pretty disappointed actually! They did have a lot of US beers on their list though. It was also super-expensive!

After a full day in Tokyo, we needed a good night's rest!