Shibuya and Harajuku

We slept in with the nice blackout curtains in the hotel room, and decided it was a little too late to head to Tsukiji market since the stalls are primarily open for the fish mongers working extremely early hours. We made our way to Omotesando, which is close to Harajuku, grabbing a few donuts on the way. We arrived before most things opened (most opened at 11am), but had a nice stroll through some quiet streets until we made it to Takeshita Street in Harajuku. We got some freshly fried potato chips and the biggest cotton candy I have ever seen.

Spicy Potato Chips, fresh out of the fryer

I’m not holding this out, it’s as close to my body as possible. It’s really that big. 

The cotton candy was strawberry, plain, lemon, melon, ramune, and grape.

Afterwards we stopped into the local Daiso for some Japanese dollar store goodness. We bought several kitchen items and a whole bunch of chair socks (socks for the legs of chairs instead of leg pads). We walked back to Omotesando to catch all the shops that were closed when we originally walked through and to head toward Shibuya. There was a small gallery we found that had a bunch of paintings from a guy who was drawing his art since elementary school - they had examples of his work from each school period. The curator told us he really struggled with reading because he had dyslexia. We really wanted to buy some prints but they didn't have any.

Cute street parallel to Takeshita Street - it was eerily quiet for being so close to the crowds.

Random Italian Villa

Lunch was a meh conveyor sushi place where we had to custom order almost all the fish - they had a bunch of shrimp with toasted cheese, some uni, some salmon roe, and that was basically it on the conveyor. I was also struck by the fact that almost all the staff there were not Japanese.

There were two pieces here, but we forgot to take a picture

On the walk to Shibuya we stopped into Kiddyland, a big toy store and then headed past Shibuya crossing (the famous intersection with tons of parks crossing in all directions) on to a souffle pancake restaurant. I got the classic, which had a honey caramel sauce, and Meghan got the berry and cheese mouse which was not as weird as it sounds. They were fluffy and delicious!

Honey Caramel

Berry with Cheese Mousse

These take 20-30 minutes to make - we saw this guy using a laser thermometer to check the progress 

Books? 

Open?

Bathroom!

We walked through all 8 floors of Shibuya 109, a landmark tower with lots of little fashion stores throughout it.

Store that just had picture booths?

We checked out the Starbucks at the crossing (too packed), and then went into Tokyu department store. Their liquor store had the special release Otokoyama which I bought, after which we decided to head back to the hotel before dinner.

Yes, Penguins on the summer release bottle.

We got out of the station and started walking, not realizing until a while later we had gone the wrong way. We were almost to Coco Ichibanya, the curry restaurant we had wanted to eat dinner at anyway, so we went ahead and finished walking there. We had delicious curry, while surrounded by 5th graders on a trip from an international school in Seattle.

LOOK AT THAT DELICIOUS CURRY WITH CHEEEEEEEEESE

We made our way back to the hotel, got a little tart from the lobby bakery and went up to enjoy it with the view from our room.

Amazingly good for how pretty it looks - usually the looks make up for the taste

Later we went to check out the Don Quixote, a one-stop-shop that has a little of everything, mostly a little tacky and low rent.

We picked up a bottle of umeshu (plum wine) and spent the rest of the evening in the hotel room again.


Step count: 18914

Asakusa With Friends

This morning Chris and Yumi made us a delicious breakfast in a more traditional style: toasted salmon with a fried egg, rice, and miso soup:

We also had some umeboshi (preserved mountain plums) that Chris gets from an old lady he befriended at some point in the past. They were great on the rice, though in very small bits since they were very strongly flavored.

After breakfast we carted all of our luggage onto the trains to get out to our hotel for the rest of our trip. We walked into it and realized we had accidentally booked the fanciest hotel in Asakusa, but it really was incredibly affordable! They took our luggage to be stored until our room was ready (at which point they’d bring it up), and we went on our way to get some lunch. Chris had scoped out a good unagi (eel) restaurant, but by the time we were ready they were already finishing lunch service and closing until dinner. We decided to maybe get some yakitori instead, and ended up at a really great chicken restaurant, though they didn’t serve yakitori until dinner time.

We each ordered something different and they were all delicious.

Teriyaki Grilled Chicken

Karaage (Fried Thigh Pieces)

I forget what this was called - seasoned ground chicken on rice with a tasty egg.

Okyakodon - Chicken and egg mixed together on rice 

Some chicken gyoza in a broth

We walked from there to a gelato shop that Chris remembered from when he lived in the area, and we all got some different flavors.

Coffee, strawberry milk, the nut powder they put on mochi, almond, matcha, and yogurt flavor...

We walked around to a bunch of shops. Chris thought he knew some place we could maybe find a tanuki statue for our house, but many of the shops were already closing down at 4pm, and the rest at 5pm.

Kappabashi Dori (not named after kappa, the mythical creature depicted in statue form, but sounds similar so they have it as an unofficial mascot)

We’ll head back out later in the week to check them out, but we soon got tired of walking and went back to the hotel to check out our room. On the way we stopped in a couple sake shops to try and find the special Otokoyama we had the night before, and found a shop where the keeper showed us several similar sakes and even gave Chris and I a sample - it was good enough that we both bought a bottle from him.

My bottle, which we got a sample of 

We got a 20th floor room, with a view of Sky Tree, the big lit tower in Asakusa, and it’s a GREAT view.

The Skytree, Sansoji temple, the Asahi beer building... All visible from the room.

I took some fancy night time shots, but I haven’t gotten them off the camera yet. I’ll add them soon.

We sat around and chatted for a while and had a few drinks of sake until we decided to go out to dinner. We had had our fill of Japanese food for a little while, so we decided to go get pizza. A place a few blocks down had great reviews and looked pretty legit from the photos online, so Chris
called to see how busy it was - it wasn’t but they gave him a reservation anyway. We walked on over and sat down at a table with a street view even.

The pizzas were napolitan style, and we selected several to all share. They turned out to be really amazing, and the dough was a nice sourdough crust, like Verasano’s in Atlanta.

This was sausage and canola flower 

Artichokes, olives, capers and tomatoes 

Prosciutto

We ordered one other but we forgot to take a picture.

It was dessert time, so we walked back over to the taiyaki (fish-shaped filled pastries) shop we had seen earlier and that Yumi was recommending and sat outside watching them make them while wea ate.

This girl was making a ton of taiyaki

Sweet bean paste

Special edition apple

After dessert, we parted ways with Chris and Yumi. It was such a nice weekend we had with them - I’m so glad we were able to spend it together!

Thanks, friends!!!

Flying and Friends

On Friday, we got the hang drying clothes all packed up, grabbed a quick breakfast at a bakery across the street, and headed out to the airport.

We were flying out of the other Seoul airport  Gimpo, this time, which was a little bit closer by train. We hit the tax free desk to get our refunds released, got our bags checked, and headed through security. There weren't many people coming through security so it went pretty fast. No taking off shoes or belts, though  which was nice.

The airport lounge was serviceable, with a buffet that had a range of lunch items and some breakfast as well as some instant noodles. I had some ramen that I put some bulgogi beef into, and Meghan had an assortment of items. We tried a couple Korean Minute Made flavors, Maesil (plum) and Mango - they were crazy good. Coca-Cola needs to bring those flavors to the states, for sure.

I made a typo in the Japanese... Whoops

After waiting for a while, it was time to board. We sat down and were surprised to see fairly large entertainment displays in each seat. We started a couple movies we had seen before to pass the hour and a half flight time. When a full lunch of katsudon (pork cutlet on rice), a soybean salad, and a little matcha pudding thing came out, Japan Airlines surprised us again - what airlines give you a full meal on an hour and a half flight?

Electronic Dimming Windows

We arrived in Tokyo in what felt like no time, and headed through immigration to pick up our checked bags. They had a cute little service beagle walking around the baggage claim area sniffing for prohibited items. Customs was equally easy. We made our way to the bus ticket counter, picked up our bus tickets, and walked out to our stop. We were a little confused about the bus that was already at our stop - the attendant tried to tell us we were on the next one, but I thought he meant the people waiting were next - we figured it out the second time he said it.

The bus ride out to Yokohama was about an hour, and had free wifi. We enjoyed the scenery a bit and played a little on our phones until we arrived at our stop. Yumi, Chris's wife, found us as we were getting off the bus. We all grabbed a cab and drove out to their house. It's a super cute unit with all the amazing Japanese features we wish we had, like a fish oven, a water temperature control panel for the Japanese style bath and shower, and a in-ground cooler for storing things that need to be cool but not necessarily refrigerated.

We had a lovely time just sitting and chatting until Chris arrived home from work, when we sat and chatted some more until dinner. Yumi made us a bunch of side dishes and appetizers while Chris picked up some chicken wings. We ate and talked, and then walked down to the local store that had groceries and some pharmacy-like stuff to pick up some fancy re-mineralizing toothpaste we wanted before heading to bed.

On Saturday, we woke up to a nice little breakfast, took our showers, and headed out to Yokohama downtown for a day of strolling and shopping. It was a little rainy, but no downpour.

We walked through a little shopping area that felt very European with narrow roads with shops lining them.

We grabbed some lunch at a place that had coffee and sandwiches, and ate a ton of food. Meghan and I both ordered the Miso Katsu Sandwich, which was amazing - somehow, despite having sauce, the cutlet breading with panko bread crumbs stayed crispy the whole way through. Yumi ordered a mixed sandwich that had egg salad, ham, and cucumbers, and Chris ordered both a fish sandwich and a breakfast toast that was insanely thick and came with a bunch of butter and super sweet bean paste. The waitress offered to cut all our items up into fourths for us when we ordered  so it was easy to share it all.

Special orange juice

Iced coffee with soft serve

We walked more through Yokohama, making our way through a beautiful garden in the park next to the bay, through some warehouses that had been turned into shopping stalls, and in some mall-like buildings.

Pokemon Center

We ate dinner at Landmark Tower, which is the tallest building in Japan (though we didn't go up to the higher floors - the food was all on the bottom floors). We ate at a ramen shop that had lots of interesting appetizers. I got a glass of a special summer-release sake from Otokoyama, which makes my favorite sake I've had in the states - it was SUPER good. Yumi ordered some small fish to share and some potato - based mochi cakes. I got some shoyu (soy sauce based) ramen which was really good, Meghan got the uni (sea urchin) soba (also really good), Chris got a miso ramen Hokkaido style with butter and corn, and poor Yumi ordered some soba but it never came out. By the time we realized it wasn't coming (all the dishes came out one by one) it was too late and we were too annoyed by that and a few other small things that she didn't want to wait for them to make it.

We walked back to the train, picked up some stuff at the bakery for Yumi and for breakfast since it was late enough that they were selling everything at 40% off for the day, and made it back home.

Chris and I tried to find that Otokoyama sake at the store on the way back too, but couldn't, so we just opened some he had on hand at the house. After a little while of talking and drinking a bit, we headed off to bed.