tokyo.

For starters...I blame the length of this post on my dad. He told me to write, write, write and when I think I have written too much...keep writing. So here it goes...

Originally this blog post was written on at bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto with Mt. Fuji in the distance to my right. Since then, my post that I spent over 2 hours writing was deleted. Bahhhh  it was so painful but I promise to try to replicate as best as possible. 

                               

I left off last post boarding our plane to Tokyo. We flew Singapore airlines and I must say they must be stuck in the 50s or just have some old ass designers because the plane was very dated. The flight was long but great. We made it just in time to be greeted by pouring rain - apparently it is typhoon season. After over 20 hours of travel and being awake for 24 hours, we made it to our hostel. The very dry (personality wise and physically) hostess informed us we had to go back out in the torrential downpour to get cash to pay for our entire stay. We made our way a few blocks away to 7-eleven despite the fact that it was raining so hard our umbrellas lost a purpose and our paper map was no longer in one piece. I suppose it is only fitting to have a hiccup on your first day. We made it back and checked in to Tokyo Heritage Hostel. The place was so cute - very traditional Japanese but with a hipster twist. We grabbed our free drink at the bar and made our way to bed.

The following day we woke up early and went to yoga at Be Yoga. I found an article awhile back listing the best yoga studios in the world and Be Yoga was one of them. It also is a goal of ours to do yoga in every country that we visit. The class was dece good but I think more in general a good way to start off the trip. For all the planning we have done for this trip, we really were unprepared for what we wanted to do our first day. We remembered a ramen place recommended to us by our friend Whitney and decided to try it. We wondered over via google maps. On a side note, navigating through Tokyo is quite interesting. There are no street names - it is BEYOND me why one of the biggest cities in the world does not have street signs but they don't. We simply follow this dumb blinking blue dot until we reach our location on google maps.

Once your blinking blue dot arrives at the "destination," it is hardly ever there. You then must search around the block, examine all the floors in a building until 30 minutes later a hangry you discovers the place you have been looking is tucked away on another floor or in some alley. Well along with every other restaurant here - that is what happened with the ramen place. Ichiran was on the second floor of a rather business looking building. We walked up to find a vending machine. We ordered the standard bowl of ramen with a soft boiled egg, green onions and a vinegar sauce. We then walk in the restaurant to sit in a personal booth - the best way I can describe it is like a testing or voting booth. With walls on other side, a curtain in front of me and a tap of water (much to my disappointment - I originally thought it was beer). I see a form asking additional questions on how I would like my ramen made (flavor level, spicy level, noodle consistency). After filling it out, I click  the order button, a hand sticks out from the curtain and grabs my slip and returns with a hot, delicious bowl of ramen. The purpose of this place is to have all sensors focused on your bowl of ramen. I think it's kind of BS as the majority of people in there were sitting on the their phone but I played along. The play is filled with endless slurping and sniffles. They even have a box of tissues behind each station. 

That afternoon we wandered around Taito (the neighborhood where our hostel was located) and found a cemetery and temple. We came across the main local "errand street" - I'm giving it that name because they have everything from aprons to dishwater to fish to cook for dinner and I can't remember what it was called. We found a local stand with all kinds of fried up goodies and picked up a piece of octopus.

We ended up in Ueno Park - a large park filled with museums, temples, a zoo and a lake filled with row boats. On my last backpacking trip, on my very first day in Madrid, I rowed boats in a city lake. It's quite ironic to be doing the same thing on my first day in Tokyo. We decided to splurge and spend the extra dollar for the super duper cute swan boat. We peddled our way into the Tokyo sunset amongst the hundred other Japanese couples.

                                                                    

That evening we made our way to sushi in the Shibuya area. Shibuya is what you would expect of Tokyo. After wandering around quaint little neighborhood we had been asking what hustle and bustle everyone was complaining about. We then discovered the madness of Shibuya. The only way I can describe it is Vegas x 20 - the 10 different massive team screens playing different commercials with sound, so many people, the main intersection that stops probably 25 lanes of traffic for thousands of people that cross through. It's absolute sensory overload, craziness. Definitely not my favorite area but felt like an out of body experience being amongst it.

We managed to find an underground bar to grab a drink. The staff handed us menus that had a table of contents menu but I guess they couldn't seem to complete the translations for the drink names below the titles. We asked the bartender to whip up something with vodka. When a bright blue drink came out, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it was a deliciously fresh grapefruit drink. I love it when things blow away my expectations...

A friend of Christina's recommended we try Sushi Zanmai for dinner - a local chain that is known to have amazing quality for great prices. We had a bottle of sake, bowl of sushi and miso soft shell crab soup and spent $25 each - not too shabby. The fish was beyond amazing - except I really don't like raw squid - not. one. bit. 

During our walk through Taito, I noticed this wall painted in front of a coffee shop:

Hanging in a shopping neighborhood - Harajuku was on the agenda for Thursday. Harajuku is known for it's many restaurants and shops and the Harajuku girls - Japanese girls dressed in crazy clothes - the only way I can describe it is with a picture.

From the outside this neighborhood appears to be another hustle and bustle type site with main roads flooded with big name stores stretching a few stories high but once you get into the back streets it's a whole different world. Cute streets filled with shops, eateries and cafés. We even managed to find a place that served wine! 

We grabbed lunch at a popular dumpling spot - Gyoza Lou where you can choose between pan-fried or steamed and original or added garlic and leeks. There were a few other sides on the menu but dumplings is there bread and butter and boy do they know what they are doing. Most of the restaurant is a bar surrounding the steamer and fryer. We watched them whip up our meal and chowed down. 

Tokyo is known for their animal cafés - Christina claims it's because people don't have enough space for pets but I think it's just another weird quirk of this wild town. You can choose from cats, to owls to goats even! We found a place that offered bunnies. I paid $6 to play with bunnies for 30 minutes. At first I thought it would be kind of lame but I must say playing with those fluffy goose bears was so fun (minus the endless pooping).

We were referred to a conveyor belt sushi joint in Shinjuku that we tried that night. I wish I could say how incredibly amazing and cheap the meal was but we mostly were super grossed out and unsatisfied. The majority of things coming our way were mayonnaise based seafood concoctions. The one bonus was pineapple. We have not been able to find much fruit over here so it tasted like the nector of the gods. I will let the conveyor belt joint remain nameless as I can't remember and maybe one of you will think its way more fab than we did. 

Christina and I are pretty big Anthony Bourdain fans so have been trying to hit up most of the spots he went on his No Reservation episode of Tokyo. We heard from Anthony and other sources about a cool series of streets called Golden Gai filled with over 200 tiny bars stacked on top of each other fitting 4 - 8 guests at a time. This place a is a travelers heaven. Anywhere you go you are bound to talk to anyone sitting there. Our first stop was Bar Albatross (an Anthony Bourdain pick). The bar is 2 stories with a loft - each level fitting about 8 people. A very gothic atmosphere with old religious relics and low hanging chandeliers. The funky Japanese bartender welcomed us with open arms and recommended we order their specialty chili gin drink. Their gin is infused in house with fresh chilies. The minute it hit my mouth, everything went numb. I slowly chugged it down as the bartender laughed at me. We ordered a few more and asked for a rec of where to go next. Our new friend refereed us to his friend down the street at hip. - a bar on the second floor with a path of stairs so steep they might as well have been replaced with a ladder. From there we went to Asyl - discovered from a CNN article of the 5 best bars in Golden Gai. The atmosphere was music focused with Indy rock blasting through the walls. We recognized the bartender from the article even! Also sitting there was a bar regular, business man out definitely looking for a lady friend and a woman that worked for an entertainment company who was planning to stay out all night until she had to go to work the next day! Apparently this is standard for people in that industry. The bartender whipped up the most delicious drink with fresh orange juice and some kind of liquor (can't remember what) - it was one of the best drinks ever though. We went to one final bar that I unfortunately don't know the name. We were greeted by a crew of drunk Japanese friends- one of the guys there we have seen 2 more times on the streets of Tokyo since!!! What a small world! On a quick side note, I also saw a man that was on our flight in Tokyo. So weird how that happens. Anyways, we ended our night sitting in a loft overlooking our new Japanese friends (or at least that's what they thought) below that felt like we had been blasted into An episode of That 70's Show. 

The following day (Friday), we went to an udon noodle restaurant called Tokyo Mentsudan situated in Shinjuku. It was setup similar to a Chipotle. You order what type of noodles you want (we got original in a broth) - a guy picks up a handful of noodles freshly made in house with his hand, then cooks them for a few seconds in a basket dipping them into a massive pot of boiling water and serves them up. You then have the option to add sauces, kimchi, egg...them comes the tempura station with soft boiled egg to seafood to unknown fried things to me. Add some green onions, fresh ginger and broth and your done. It was so amazing.

We wondered around the hipster neighborhood that day called Shimokitazawa. It reminded me of the Mission filled with cool shops and restaurants but still a little rough on the edges. 

For dinner (do you notice I'm only talking about food? Maybe I should change the title of this to a foodie traveling around the world) we went to a local place that served Okonomiyaki called Sometaro. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese style pancake that usually includes cabbage, egg, and some sort of meat. Sometaro was a very traditional setting where we took off our shoes before entering and sat Indian style on the floor. To add to the ambience - the largest sumo wrestler looking man was sitting behind us wearing a kimono. We ordered our 2 pancakes - one with shrimp, cabbage, egg and some other goodies and the other with pork, green onion, leeks, cabbage and egg. We mix up the raw ingredients our selves and then cooked them on a grill in front of us. You then cover them in a sweet almost teriyaki like sauce and top it was mayo and dried seaweed. 

That evening our plan was to continue our mission to follow Anthony Bourdain's footsteps and went to the Robot Restaurant. Set up in the middle of the tourist trap of Shinjuku, you can't miss the entrance to this place with blaring music and tvs. Beforehand we checked out a famous area known as Piss Alley named after the many drunken men that used to use the  bathroom on the streets due to a lack of available toilets. I must say I felt there pain arriving there having to search for a bathroom for about 30 minutes when it had been under my nose the whole time. The proper name (it is def not approp to call it Piss Alley according to our local friend) is Omoide Yokocho. Set up in a similar style to Golden Gai - there are tons of little eateries fitting 10 people or less serving up crazy things like whale, horse, etc. Since we are traveling for 7 months and we don't want to be stuck getting sick the first week we opted out trying the whale. Although Bar Albatross (from Golden Gai) also had a location there and an illegal rooftop bar. We were seated on the second floor where you have to order drinks through a hole in the floor yelling at the bartender down below. Then on to Robot Restaurant - we are guided in and sent up a few floors into the waiting bar area that was definitely my favorite part of the whole night. I really only think a picture can do this place justice - it looked like a bar pulled out of Austin Powers. After drinks, we were guided down to a basement were the show would start. The venue was so small - only 3 rows of seats on either side with the stage in between. Seeing that the whole video game scene really isn't my thing should have been the first sign that I wouldn't enjoy this show. The whole thing seemed like a live video game. They clearly needed to do some amaintenance as all the robots were literally falling apart. And not to sound too pinned up but the whole thing seemed a bit offensive and inappropriate - there was kind of a consistent theme of mocking the Japanese traditions we all stereotype with their culture. Anyways I'll end my rant - I just can't believe Anthony Bourdain of all people went there. 

Saturday, we rolled out of bed at 6 am and dragged ourselves to the Tsujiki Sushi Market. Some arrive there as early as 4 am to watch the daily auctions to pick their tuna for the day. Apparently many people just go straight from being out at the bars. I finally felt I like I was starting to get my jet lag in check and decided the 3 am wake up call wouldn't be worth it. We heard if you get there before 7 am, you can still eat at all the best sushi stalls. So we opted for more sleep. There are a few top places we read about - the best is supposed to be Sushi Dai where people wait over 3 hours to get there 8 am sushi fix. We also read that Daiwa Sushi was great so we grabbed some beers at a nearby stall and waited in line for about 45 minutes. Once it was our turn, we were seated at a small bar that fit about 10 people. Sushi chefs all seem to be so happy - I suppose I should read about this bc they are always yelling and laughing. We ordered the chefs rec set menu. I had read that as he hands you a new piece of fish you are supposed to eat it right away for optimal freshness. As he handed us piece by piece I couldn't really keep up but it was so amazingly fresh. Highlights included fatty tuna, barbecued eel, grilled shrimp head and uni. We polished off our second beer and were ready to go right back to bed. 

The Sanja Festival is going on in Asakusa (neighborhood very close to where our hostel was and also the location of the largest temple in Tokyo - Sensoji Temple). It is a religious festival/crazy party held by the Shintos where different townships/temples prepare their own shrine to honor the 3 men that founded the Sensoji temple. Our neighborhood was working on their shrine right outside of our hostel and having there own ceremony were kids played the drums and flute and did a special dance. They were the cutest little nuggets. 

We walked to the Sensoji temple where there were thousands of people dressed in what appeared to be their local kimonos (each township was matching). Everyone was drinking beers in the street or the local restaurants getting rowdy. Once in the temple, you could see from above, each town carrying their shrine into the temple. 

Sunday was our last day in Tokyo. We had one last neighborhood that we wanted to check out - Daikanyama. It's a shopping district known to have a more western influence. It felt like LA to me. There is a really popular bookstore - Tsutaya Books - made up of 3 buildings, each 2 stories high there was every section you could imagine in all different languages. I could get lost in that store for days. The decor was very mad men, retro modern. We went to the cafe and enjoyed a cappuccino in a plush set of chairs and discussed the rest of our plan for Southeast Asia. 

We decided to splurge and check out the New York Bar Sunday night at the Park Hyatt. It is located on the 52nd floor overlooking all of Tokyo. We had a seat right at the window, drank a martini and watched a jazz band play right next to us. Almost too much of a tease to have a taste of luxury but well worth it.

That leaves me to here - on a train to Kyoto. I LOVE Japan. I honestly could live in Tokyo. Usually when I travel to a foreign country I have that feeling of oh shit I have no idea what's going on or what these people are saying but strangely that didn't happen in Tokyo. It was a rather easy transition. 

It's definitely a city with its quirks. You can tell how much everyone works here by the fact that the basic dress code for leaving your house is business casual. I would say 75% of the men are always wearing suits - any day of the week including Sat and Sun. Needless to say we started getting a little self conscious about our backpacker attire. At 10 PM, the metro was still packed with people commuting home from work. The face masks are also everywhere. We asked if they were for something specific or just to protect against general germs on our Golden Gai bar crawl. The bartender informed us that they protect them from the Hay Fever caused from a pollen in the air. Seems a little intense if you ask me.  

I am now ending this blog on Wednesday. We are headed off on an overnight bus back to Tokyo tonight and the fly to Bangkok in the morn! You will hear from me then. Ciao ciao!

Xo

CB