Part 2 started with the Ghibli museum but it was so much a world unto itself I felt it deserved it’s own section. So go read that and then pick up from here.
After Ghibli we were pretty hungry so we grabbed some bubble tea at the Pearl Lady (we got milk tea, purple yam tea and chocolate mint. All were delicious) and headed back towards the train in search of food. What we found was shabu shabu in what I can only describe as a Japanese pub. Shabu Shabu is a hotpot style meal where they bring a plate of meat and vegetables and you cook them in broth at your table. It was very good. We got the basic beef which came with greens, mushrooms and ponzu sauce to go with the thin beef strips and was a ridiculously good price. Mr Magpie also inadvertently tried a Tokyo specialty when he attempted to order a beer. What he got was a bottle of “hoppy” which tastes like a good beer and isn’t, and doesn’t contain alcohol and a glass of shochu. You mix the two together and voila summery drink. It was actually pretty good.
This gave us the energy to get to Harajuku where we discovered the rumors are true. The good and the bad. It is pretty pricey and very touristy but also full of neat shops and people. I bought a second hand yukata that needs a little TLC but was very marked down because of it and a shop that was entirely glitter and sequin costumes and dance wear. (Did not make any purchases there) Mr Duck found a store that sold only rainbow desserts and looked like a fun house. Also a store called yellow that only sold black things. Miss Crow found a back alley that looked like some small Parisian street and Mr Magpie found the Moooshy store which was entirely too pink and had a foam toast pit. Yeah I dunno what to make of it either.
It was fun to look around but as soon as it got dark we packed up and headed to Shinjuku to check out the night life. We may not be particularly night life people. We did see godzilla though! The neon was pretty and the buildings were tall but it was crowded and a little overwhelming after such a busy day. We did eventually stumble into a German beer hall on the 5th floor of a skyscraper where we got some absolutely delicious sausage, sauerkraut, potato and pretzel. It was a bit pricey for what we got and the import beer was just out of the question expensive but it did taste REALLY good and Mr Magpie (whose actually been to Germany) said it had a very accurate ambience. I think it was a fun detour from Japan.
Then we headed back to our hostel, little Japan. Mr Magpie and I went down to the cafe part for a bit to socialize and get some drinks. I had ginger ale again and Mr Magpie had his new favorite drink plum wine, or Umeshu, and soda. It is a very tasty combo. I wonder if we can get plum wine in Canada.
When morning came around again we got up and headed out for breakfast, after not finding it for awhile we hopped a train to Shibuya for some different prospects. This may have been mistake since when we arrived everyone was starving, so we divided and conquered and all found food someplace before dividing again.
Miss Crow and I were meeting a friend of our Dads for lunch. He’s the Rabbi over at the Tokyo Synagogue/Jewish community center. Must be a pretty prestigious job since there’s only one Jewish center in Japan (as far as I could find). After emailing back and forth we agreed to meet at the Hachiko memorial statue in Shibuya. This may have been a mistake since the statue (which commemorates a sad dog story, Google it yourself I don’t tell sad dog stories here) was literally 10 steps from the biggest crosswalk in the world. There must have been 60,000 people in that immediate area. We did eventually find him and his wife though and they treated us to a lovely lunch at a conveyer belt sushi place. Turns out lightly charred flounder with sea salt is pretty great. (Thanks again for Lunch!) Then we headed back to the train, with a quick stop to find a bathroom. Or what I thought would be a quick stop. We ended up very lost for almost an hour in the maze of underground malls and grocery shops. I think I passed the same chicken shaped bun place 4 times…or there were 4 of them. Who knows. That’s the problem I have in Tokyo. It’s built in layers so even if you Google where you’re going you don’t know if it’s above ground below ground or waaaaaay above ground.
Speaking of way above ground I should mention what the boys got up to while we pigged out on raw fish.
Mr Magpie really wanted to check out Ikebukuro, which I thought would be neat but wasn’t super high on my priority list. They checked out the Pokemon store which was really neat if you really like Pokemon. They had an entire shelf of Eeveeloution plushies. They also considered buying a giant Moltres for our cat sitter but it wouldn’t fit in our luggage.
Then they found an aquarium on the 9th floor of a building and a restaurant on the 59th. It was a Hawaiian themed restaurant called Queen’s Bath. Who knew you could get good loco Moco and a sky level veiw of Tokyo in the same place? Also the elevator in that building went 600m/m and had a speedometer. It went so fast everyones ears popped on the way up.
Then we met back up at Tokyo station to go see the Chiyoda area and imperial gardens. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard so they were closed but we got some nice pictures of the outside and the moat. Also the moat smelled like a slough. It made me chuckle because it had just that soggy plant/still water smell that is so international. Then we headed inside and found ourselves in what I can only describe as the fanciest mall in Tokyo. I legitimately felt bad wandering around it in my soggy pants. Everything was dark wood and stone and fancy light fixtures. Dunno why I noticed that but they were very fancy. We also found a restaurant where for just 16000¥ (around 200$ CAD) two people can get an A5 beef tasting dinner of 7 courses. We pretty quickly decided it was a bit too rich for us and headed back to little Japan.
There we discovered the melon bread place down the street was finally open! We saw it every morning and evening and it was always closed! We immediately bought caramel, cinnamon and tea flavoured melon bread. Just an FYI melon bread doesn’t have anything to do with melons really, it’s just round and has a slightly crackly top like a cantelope. Then tragedy struck! The hostel had sold out of tea! So we had to skip out tea time. We all took a quick nap to wait out the rain.
After an hour Miss Crow, Mr Magpie and Mr Duck were all quite hungry. I was still very full and sleepy so they went to find some BBQ and let me sleep a little more.
Apparently they place they found was like the Big Ts BBQ (the restaurant I currently work at) of Japan. The waiters all had black T shirts with slogans like “no yakiniku no life”. The tables had the BBQs in them though and they bought the beef raw. It’s called yakiniku. But apparently it was very fun and casual and tasty. Even if they consider onion a side-dish vegetable.
In the morning I was very hungry. Probably from sleeping through dinner and I demanded a trip to Denny’s Japan. They Denny’s here are quite a bit nicer than the ones back home. They give you umbrella covers and the waitresses have matching brown dresses. Also everything is clean and the laminated menus aren’t sticky or peeling. I finally got my omurice! It’s a Japanese comfort food I’ve been meaning to try since I got here. It’s a pile of chicken and tomato rice with a French omelette on top and covered in gravy. This one also had cheese. I’m definitely going to make omurice at home now. Miss Crow got a soy milk and rice soup with many vegetables (turns out they have an app and you can select your allergies and it’ll display what you can eat). Mr Magpie had some deliciously golden French toast and Mr Duck got the yogurt set which had Acai yogurt and tiny pancakes. They also had unlimited help-yourself tea and coffee which seems to be pretty common in Japan and I appreciate it.
We quickly checked out to head to Kyoto only to find out we got on the wrong train! Our passes only cover JR trains and we had accidentally hopped on a Nozomi super express leaving from the same station. We hopped off at the next station once we realized our mistake and caught the correct train half an hour later…
Except it wasn’t. In a rush to get us moving again, Mr. Magpie got us on the express train to Nagoya, four stops short of Kyoto. Fortunately, the train for Kyoto arrived on the other side of the platform from our incorrect train in Nagoya, so a quick hop got us going to the right place on the right train. Whoops.
Now we’re on our way to Kyoto for the last stop on our whirlwind Japan tour. I think everyone will be happy to get home.
Migratory Magpies 