I had decided yesterday that Scott must have one of those amazing wagyu skewers at Tsukiji Market. So this morning we retraced my steps via the train to Hongwanji. We went inside the temple, but unfortunately much of the interior was covered. A lovely greeter gave us two origami cranes. So sweet.
Like Hongwanji, Tsukiji Market was also less open today for some reason. Many of the storefronts were shuttered. We still managed to find several things to snack on including fresh and candied fruit, and melon-flavored soft serve ice cream. Scott’s face when he bit into the wagyu skewers was everything. I love seeing my man that happy. I loved it so much I failed to take a picture of it. But here’s the cutie smiling over nummy fruit.
I was also able to pick up a big bag of matcha tea for one of my mom’s best friends back home who is originally from Japan. She’s the cutest.
After the Market we headed to Shinjuku Station to buy train tickets for our big excursion planned for tomorrow. While there we had lunch at a tempura restaurant. It was all very good, but I have been finding that the food we are eating in Japan is comparable to a lot of Japanese food available in Seattle. Benefits of living on the Pacific Rim, I guess!
We wandered the big city streets in Shinjuku a bit to soak in the hustle and bustle and architecture. We found our way to the famous Godzilla Head. And we also walked thru Omoide Yokocho, albeit during the day so it wasn’t really a fair time to judge it. We’ll be back.
In some YouTube vlog I got the hot tip of going to the Metropolitan Government Building for 360-degree views over Tokyo for free. So we headed over there and were not disappointed. There was no line to get in, it was indeed free, and the observation area was the entire floor of the building with nearly floor to ceiling windows in every direction, a cafe with lots of seating, and a gift shop. It was a great experience and highly recommended!
It wasn’t very late in the day but as our time in the MGB was winding down we just looked at each other with the same feeling of fatigue and understanding that it was time to go back to the hotel and rest. The fatigue of the heat and humidity and megacity was starting to wear on us and we needed to enjoy some downtime.
Today Scott and I spent a day apart. We had the BIGGEST FIGHT EVER. Just kidding.
Typically we both love, love, love food tours. But when I was trying to find one in Japan I was hitting a lot of roadblocks due to Scott’s, um, limited palate. He won’t touch sushi, or most seafood. There are a lot of foods in Japan he likes, but finding a food tour limited to those options was impossible. I had resigned myself to missing out on a food tour this trip, then Scott discovered an amusement park that he wanted to check out and that’s not a taste that appeals to me. So, boom – a day apart to enjoy our separate interests. Fuck codependency.
Scott left very early in the morning forFuji-Q. He walked over to Tokyo Station and caught a pre-booked coach bus that provided a direct, 2-hour one-way service to the park (and then back home again). He wanted to maximize the opening hours so his bus left at 7:20 AM, and he didn’t get back to the hotel until really late. The r/t bus fare was about $30, and his park entry fee was $44. He spent around $15 on food/snacks that day. Later we would know that he would be the only one of us to see Mt. Fuji on this entire trip and it was on this day. Also, when have you ever had a full day at a big amusement park for less than $100?
My day also started early (but not that early) for my Tsukiji Market Food Tour with Japan Wonder Travel. The starting point was only a 22-minute walk from our hotel, but as it was once again north of 90 degrees and humid out I elected to take the train. I arrived a bit early so had the pleasure of exploring the Hongwanji Buddhist Temple. It’s a bit unique as it is built in the Indian style rather than the Japanese style.
I met up with the tour at 8:15 which was guided by this lovely woman, Yoshiko. The group was really small – only 4 travelers.
It was a Tuesday morning so the Market wasn’t crowded at all. Yoshiko led us around several of the streets, educated us on the foods and preparation processes, and fed us a lot of yummy snacks. Snacks included fresh muscat grapes (not covered in sugar), octopus fish cake, dried snacks (I don’t remember what they were exactly), tamago, and saki. OK, maybe saki isn’t a snack.
The absolute most tastiest snack was the wagyu skewer with a side of real wasabi (I now know the difference!). I knew I needed to bring Scott back to this place.
Yoshiko then took us nearby to the Namiyoke Shrine. I got a refresher course on shrine etiquette, and I also learned about omikuji, the fortunes you can buy. Yoshiko helped me translate it on the spot – it wasn’t a bad fortune so I took it home with me and later fully translated it into my journal using Google Translate. Kind of like fortune cookies, the omikuji was more advice than foretelling. “No matter what happens on the rainy day or the wind or whatever happens on the pathless road, don’t stop and just keep moving forward.” Sounds good, will do!
The tour ended with a live demonstration of preparing sashimi, with a nice tasting platter at the end to share with our group. Does the chef look like a California model, or what?
I definitely recommend this tour, and of course Yoshiko if you’re lucky enough to be able to make that request. I would also target a weekday to avoid the crowds. Unlike other food tours in other parts of the world, I felt full but not gross at the end of it. Like pleasantly full, I got my money’s worth, but I didn’t feel like I needed to slip into a coma afterwards. Oh, I forgot to mention it was only $83.
After I said goodbye to Yoshiko and our group, I made my way back to Shibuya to buy my favorite souvenir. Amimono Spin was closed on the day we had been in Shibuya, but was worth the extra effort to go back. The shop is only their own dyed yarn so it was small, but the products were so nice and the store was very cute and inviting. I walked away with 5x 50g skeins. Yep, I’m gonna need to buy an extra piece of luggage to get my Japan-inspired consumerism home.
I came home with these specific beauties. Three skeins of dyed DK to make something for a friend having a baby, and another two skeins of undyed to make something for me (gloves, maybe?).
I contemplated doing some eyeglass shopping but I was pretty exhausted. I headed back to the hotel for a lovely nap, to get some laundry done, and to organize the many things I had already purchased on this trip. I think the draw is that there isn’t much of that touristy made-in-China crap around – the shops are all full of lovely, quality items that look and feel great.
We had planned on this being a slow morning since we knew we would have a later evening, but Scott was restless so he took off for one of his signature “long walks”. He took the opportunity to scout where he would need to meet his transportation for tomorrow morning.
Around 11:00 am we headed to Shibuya to do some more neighborhood exploring and check an item off our planned to do list before meeting our tour. I had heard in a YouTube video that buying prescription glasses in Japan was affordable, quick, and easy so we had been planning all along for each of us to get a pair or two on this trip. I had picked the JINS location in Shibuya as our primary target as online reviews indicated people had shortest turnaround time at that store. On this day I found frames at JINS that I liked, but their wait time for an exam was a couple of hours and we had that tour later that would interfere with that timeline. We went into another eyeglass shop nearby called Zoff and Scott found a good pair of glasses that were a nice blend of modern and classic. He got in for an exam immediately and he said it was the most thorough exam he had ever had. His glasses were ready to pick up about an hour later. And only $50 for exam, frames, lenses, and their standard fast service!
For lunch we wandered a bit and came across Ojori, a tiny Korean restaurant up one of those narrow staircases. We both got bulgogi, got some traditional starters, and a couple of beverages. It was super yummy and we paid less than $20.
Early in our planning for this trip some friends of ours had told us about Street Kart and highly recommended it. Based on their verbal description alone we were decided, but researching it further online just got us more excited about the idea. I researched their locations and settled on the Shibuya tour because it included driving through one of the busiest intersections in the world. People consider walking across Shibuya Scramble a bucket list experience, but how about driving a Mario Kart type vehicle through it while wearing a costume??? Level up! When we would talk to people about our plans for Japan, this was easily in the top two things we were excited about.
The tour was originally planned for Saturday, but rains had made us reschedule for today. Weather was all good, no rain in sight. But it was just too hot to put on one of the costumes. Bummer. We joined the 6 other people from our tour to watch the short safety and how-to video and then it was time to get going. Scott and I both started to feel a little apprehensive after the video for some reason, but I just used my old mental trick: thousands of people have done this before me successfully – I’m not dumber than all of them – I’m not smarter than all of them, but I’m definitely not dumber than all of them – I can do this.
OK – this experience was DOPE.
We drove around Shibuya for a very full hour. We drove through the Crossing twice. We were zooming around right in the middle of big traffic. Lovely people – locals and tourists alike – gave us big smiles and waved to us as we drove around.
This outfit is either Aussie owned or just Aussie managed or maybe just staffed by a lot of Aussies. Makes sense though, doesn’t it? Our guide was Clinton and he did an absolutely awesome job of taking care of us. He kept us all together, communicated really well throughout the whole excursion. And he took a million photos that he airdropped to us afterward.
After our ATV Tour in Iceland last year we realized the value of a GoPro for capturing adventures. When we booked this experience for this trip we knew this would be the prime opportunity to use one so we purchased a Hero 12. And look at me, I managed to edit together a video of all of the GoPro clips Scott filmed! I’m like a video-logger.
Afterwards we headed to Shinjuku to check out a new neighborhood. It was starting to get dark and we enjoyed the Times Square (but cleaner) vibe. There was cool architecture and bright lights and a million people enjoying their evenings.
And we spent some time gawking at that famous 3D billboard. Honestly it was so crazy in person.
Finally we headed off to the neighborhood of Ikebukuro for our last planned adventure of the day – The Muscle Girls Bar. This was the invite we got yesterday from our new friends. I hadn’t planned any themed cafes/bars for the trip because honestly the ones I knew about made me a bit uncomfortable. The Maid Cafes feel super misogynistic to me – sorry, not sorry. And the animal themed ones – come pet a capybara or a river otter or whatever while you drink a coffee – feel not right from an animal rights perspective. Our new friends felt the same way but had found this bar themed around jacked women and it seemed empowering for females, verdad? Sure, I’m game. Plus – NEW TRAVEL FRIENDS.
OK, so… this place was weird. I felt weird being in there. It kind of felt empowering for the women that worked in there and they seemed happy, but it also felt like a venue for men with… fetishes.
The ticket ($32) bought all you can drink for 80 minutes, plus a kind of show. You sit around a long, oblong bar with the women in the middle. Our group of 4 was assigned a “Muscle Girl”/bartender. At one point during the 80 minutes music came on and the women took off their shirts and did flexing poses in their sports bras. At one point one of the women pole danced wearing her sports bra and spandex shorts. At another point all of the Muscle Girls demonstrated their strength by squeezing citrus into pitchers for drinks. The women were definitely in better shape than me (low bar) but not in any shape that would be considered particularly jacked in America. So the flexing felt… weird.
The part that felt the weirdest was that there was a menu of experiences you could purchase. There were some that were super innocuous and innocent, especially since only women could purchase them. I tried to buy a hug for Scott and that’s when I learned that he’s not a lady that some items could only be purchased for women. But their loss – Scott is a REALLY good hugger. #iykyk But then there were the ones where men could pay to be slapped across the face or get kicked in the ass by one or all of the Muscle Girls. OK anyone could pay for that but let’s be honest only men with red flags are going to pay for that. A guy paid for all of the women to smack him while we were there. I found it… uncomfortable. Our Muscle Girl seemed proud of her ability to hit hard and pulled out a couple of pics on her phone of past injuries she had inflicted.
Loads of people have raved about this experience online. I don’t mean to hate. I’m just being honest about my reaction to it. I am ultimately glad we went since it seemed pretty uniquely Japanese – meaning that even though it felt weird, it wasn’t scary or overtly sketchy in any way. If that makes any sense. It was just in that category of “unhinged Japanese shit” that I kept a little inventory of in my head throughout our time there. You know, those sightings, experiences, etc. that remind you that despite the outward appearance of conformity and control and success there’s a big strong undercurrent of… I don’t know… rebelliousness? sass? perversity? Honestly, I dig it and respect it – it’s just the particular application of it at this Bar wasn’t my jam.
OK that was long. ass. day. We took trains back to the hotel and crashed hard. We both had early mornings planned for tomorrow.
Kjar-ied Away 