Category: Japan

Our fifth day in Japan was one of the longest, and also by far one of my absolute favorite days there. You’ll see why in a moment… 😀

We got up early, and headed out to the Tsukiji Fish Market.

Um.

Sorta…

Wait a minute…

So we, being the silly confused tourists that we were… got lost. Well, not entirely. We were in the right general area, but we ended up going to the “Shops and Restaurants” section of the market… not to the actual fish market itself.

I actually think we were there too late to see anything very interesting at the fish market, and the tuna auctions were closed to the public anyways. *sigh* Next time, maybe?

So instead, we went to get sushi for lunch.

I was a very, very bad girl.

Very.

Very.

Bad.

But… to be fair, I almost never, ever eat tuna. Ever. And I figure this is the kind of thing that I should try once, since I was at the fish market in Japan!, but obviously won’t be doing on a regular basis. Even if I go back to Japan.

You forgive me, right?

After lunch, we explored the shops a little more.

We bought lots of nori and a few rolling mats (that I’m giving away to you!), some itsy bitsy fried crab cracker things, and…

… apple buns. Yum. This, more than anything, shows the value of giving out free samples. We wouldn’t have bought any, if not for the samples the vendor gave us. 😉

After the fish market, the guys insisted on going to the Pokemon Center, which they had seen a poster for at the train station. It turned out to be just a store, I think, but… boys will be boys, right? 😉

We still had a bit of time to burn, and Son wanted to see the ocean, so we walked over to the nearby Hamarikyu Gardens.

And promptly lost the rest of our group. Again.

Failing to locate anyone else we had arrived with, Son and I went to the nearest train station (which ended up being a different one than the one we had arrived at), and headed back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, our group reunited, and then… we got to meet up with Keizo!

Who is Keizo, you ask? Only the ramen man… he started writing about ramen on his blog, Go Ramen, when he lived here in Los Angeles, and then last year, he uprooted his entire life to go live in Japan and work at a ramen shop. The man took the leap and is living his dream… which I think is beyond awesome.

Plus, he’s just as cool in person (if not cooler!) as he is online (I first met him on twitter, when he started following me. 😀 )

Of course, if you’re meeting the ramen man, obviously you have to go eat ramen, right? Luckily for us, Keizo knows all about the ramen scene in Tokyo (and most of Japan!), so he took us somewhere we would have never discovered on our own – the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum!

A ramen museum? Well, what’s so special about that? If you’re not much of a museum person, like me, it doesn’t sound all that exciting.

But this isn’t your average museum.

Nope… they have ramen you can eat. And not just one place… there are 8? 10? different mini ramen shops inside of the museum! Excited yet? You bet I was.

Of course, first we had to decide which ones we wanted to try…

Even better, each little ramen place has mini bowls of ramen – so you can try several different bowls in one visit.

It just gets better and better.

First one we tried was a shoyu ramen. The restaurants switch out from time to time, and since this shoyu ramen place was fairly new to the museum, Keizo wanted to check it out. So Son and I decided to tag along… yum!

We met back up with the rest of our little group, and went to a tonkotsu ramen shop in the back right corner of the bottom floor (the restaurant section of the ramen museum is two stories high in the basement of the building, and then on the main floor there is an actual museum and a gift shop).

*waves* Hi, Keizo! ^_^

There were two main types of tonkotsu ramen, so Son and I got a bowl of each type.

The last shop we went to was a spicy miso ramen. Too spicy for me, but that’s okay – by then I was stuffed, and only had a bite of Son’s ramen. This was Keizo’s favorite – he was telling us how he finds himself craving this ramen.

Afterwards, Keizo took us to a nearby mall, where we hung out for a little while in the basement – where all the food shops are! And of course, we did a little shopping… yes, we took full advantage of the fact that Keizo can read and speak Japanese fluently. 😉 Remember what I said about him being awesome? Yep! He was SO helpful, and more than happy to help us all out. Domo arigato gozaimasu, Keizo! 🙂

Don’t forget… just a few more Japan posts left! If you leave a comment on any of my posts about my Japan trip, you’ll be automatically entered to win a rolling mat and nori from Japan! Hey, I might even thrown in a Sushi Day shirt, just for the fun of it! 😀

On our fourth day in Japan, we started the day by walking to the other side of Shinagawa station to try Yoshinoya for breakfast.

The beef bowl itself was exactly the same as what you’d get at any Yoshinoya here in the USA.

But the service… very different. Very Japanese. 😀

Then we went on our way, back through Shinagawa station to catch the train to our first destination of the day…

… and nearly got trampled in the process. Holy cow. The morning rush hour stampede is ridiculous… and almost dangerous!

The guys decided they wanted to go to Ginza… because they wanted to visit an Apple store. *sigh* A waste of time, if you ask me… it wasn’t much different than any Apple store you’d find here.

So those of us who weren’t shopping decided to leave, and see what there was to see in the area. We were supposed to go to the Tokyo Imperial Palace later that day, so we found a nearby park to hang out at for a little while.

On the way there, suddenly traffic was stopped, there were cops all over the place… and a fancy horse-drawn procession came down the boulevard. It seemed to be some sort of foreign dignitary, perhaps?

We found the park, which had a beautiful (manmade?) cliff overlooking a little lake, complete with cranes, turtles, and several cats who appeared to live there (not strays, though… they appeared to be well-fed, happy, taken-care-of cats, that belonged to the park.)

We had a couple of meat buns for lunch in the park, then, thanks to some misunderstandings and confusion, ended up sprinting the mile or so to the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

Which was… meh… a waste of time, especially if you’re like me and really not much of a history buff. Not much to see there, and it was a very short tour.

After the tour, we headed back to our hotel… where I crashed. Meanwhile, the guys went out to get some dinner at CoCo Curry… and my wonderful boyfriend brought back a plate for me.

Wait… CoCo Curry… does that sound familiar?

It should. 😀

And yes, it was just as good (better, even?) than the first time we had it. Why is there not one of these in Los Angeles? I could eat it every day! 😉

Don’t forget, just a few more posts to enter the contest to win a package of nori and a sushi rolling mat from Japan! Just leave a comment on any of my posts about my Japan trip (I’ll count one comment per person per post), and I’ll pick two winners at the end.

Photo courtesy of David Calhoun

I’ve never been much of a traveler. (Though you wouldn’t know it from my itinerary for this year.) Up until a couple of years ago, I had only been to a few states aside from California, and never been off the mainland. And certainly never to another country.

However, I’ve always wanted to go to Japan. I just never thought I’d get the opportunity to – certainly not for a while, at least. But earlier this year the opportunity presented itself: some of Son’s friends decided they wanted to go on a photo tour of Japan. I didn’t think they were serious, but it wasn’t long before we had the trip booked for just a couple of months in the future.

Excited? You bet I was!

The next two months couldn’t pass quickly enough… the ten hour flight… yeah, I could have done without that. And then trying to figure out our JR Passes (a must-have if you’re visiting Japan – buy them outside of the country, because they can’t be bought in Japan), then the hour-long train ride to get to our hotel… we crashed that first night. But I was excited… so excited about the food! Of course. I’m food blogger, what else would you expect? So you must be wondering, what was our first meal?

McDonalds. *facepalm* Yeah… it wasn’t my idea.

After a quick breakfast, we caught a train to our first destination: Ueno Park.

Finally, some Japanese food! There was a takoyaki (octopus balls! no, not those kinds of balls… they’re little fried balls made of octopus bits) stand right at the entrance of the park… so of course we had to get some.

That’s some good stuff right there.

Street food? Oh yes. That’s where it’s at, people.

Then we finally got into the park, and were surrounded by cherry blossoms galore! ‘Twas glorious.

Inside Ueno park, there’s a little temple (and a zoo we didn’t go to, and a museum that we’ll talk about later).

Photo courtesy of David Calhoun

Photo courtesy of David Calhoun

After our little stroll through the temple, off to Tokyo National Museum (which was just across the plaza in the middle of the park) we went!

Lots of cool stuff there.

Especially the swords.

Ooooh, the swords.

Behind the museum was a pretty little garden, complete with a few gorgeous tea houses and a little lake (filled with gigantic crows!)

Photo courtesy of David Calhoun

And in the vending machines at the museum, we found my new favorite drink – Nectar. Like a peach in liquid form… so good. So refreshing.

Anyone know if Nectar is available in the US? I haven’t looked yet, but I’m hoping they’ll have it at some of our local Japanese supermarkets…

(And yes, if you’ve ever heard that vending machines are everywhere in Japan, it’s true!)

After the museum, we headed to Akihabara…

… land of electronics and cosplayers.

For lunch we went to a food truck (thought I was back in LA for a moment there) that was serving pita-type sandwiches filled with cabbage and a meat that was sliced off a big rotating spit. Delicious, but *sigh* not Japanese! And not my idea. *grumble*

Photo courtesy of Francis Castillo

A little while later we went to a multi-story restaurant that was serving curry and some other dishes… it was just alright. But it was our first encounter with using vending machines to order our food (you pay at the vending machine, then give the ticket you receive to the people inside the restaurant).

Heh, talk about confused American tourists. 😉

We stopped by a several-story arcade where there were all sorts of old-school arcade games…

… and took a break for a quick game of air hockey. 😀

And then… Mister Donut!!! I first heard of it on Todd and Diane’s blog, so we had to stop by and try it. We tried the chocolate-coated custard-filled donut, and the adzuki bean-filled donut rolled in sugar… both very, very good. There’s something about donuts (and pastries in general) in Japan… although they appear to be fried just like those here in the US, they are SO much lighter. Dangerous, really, because it tricks you into thinking you can eat that much more. 😉

On our way out of Akihabara, we saw a little shop that was serving onigiri, so we had to stop there. Son and I shared a chicken-filled one (which somehow we entirely failed to get any pictures of)… oh man, after a day of very little Japanese food, that really hit the spot.

What a day! After months of mostly sitting around (I’m a programmer, so almost all of my time is spent in front of the computer), a day full of walking was exhausting. We went back to the hotel and crashed for a couple of hours… then ventured out in search of dinner. We wanted something Japanese… which was harder to find than you’d have thought! We found McDonald’s, French places, Italian restaurants, even an Irish pub… after walking around for an hour, we finally found a little ramen shop just around the corner from our hotel.

Son and I shared a bowl of ramen and an order of gyoza.

It was perfect. Just perfect.

Okay, so I know you’re all wondering… what was all this I said about a contest? Well, as you’ll see in a future post, we stopped by the fish market on one of our days there, and found a cute little store selling cooking-ware, and a shop that was all about seaweed. So, this being a sushi blog, I decided to get a package of nori and a rolling mat – from Japan – to give away to you. (I got two of each, so there will be two winners).

So how do you enter? Just leave a comment on any of my daily posts about my Japan trip before Wednesday, May 12. Only one comment per person per post will be counted, so you can get up to 8 entries. I’ll announce the winners by the end of that week!