So, we have no plans for today. We sleep in until 7:15am. Head down...or up...to breakfast at the top of the hotel and prep for the day's activities. We plan to head down to Asakusa to do a little shopping. That will require us to figure out the subway system. At breakfast we are sat at window seats which give us a view of the Japanese gardens that are attached to the hotel. After seeing it from this height, we decide that we are going to stroll through the gardens before doing anything.
The gardens were initially landscaped in 1603 for a local samurai lord and have been kept up since then. We spend quite a bit of time wandering the gardens. They are pretty awesome. There's a fairly large waterfall here and many, many large koi. Heck, there's even a tepenyaki restaurant in the middle of the gardens. But, at $150 a person for dinner, we're going to pass.
After the gardens, we head out to brave the subway system. The ticket machines are easy to navigate (as they have an English button that switches languages). We get a pair of day passes and jump on the train. The train is pretty full, but, not nearly what you imagine. There are no 'pushers' shoving people onto the train. There's plenty of room to stand and I don't feel that my personal space is violated in any way. Several stops later we are at our destination and spend several hours going from shop to shop browsing and buying.
Imagine several paragraphs of all the shopping we did. Excellent. We're a touch hungry by this time (all that shopping takes a toll on the body) so we look around for something to dine on. Barbara's eyes light up when we spot a sushi-go-round. This was something that she REALLY wanted to find and try. You sit at the bar as plates of sushi pass by on a conveyor belt. You take what you want and you pay for what you eat by the color of the plate that you pick up. I have to say, that was pretty awesome. There's a constant stream of food passing by that you can just eat your fill with.
As we are heading to a department store at the end of the street (which we were told by our guide yesterday would have one of the items we are looking for), we stop to look at some goods at a shop. One of the ladies working there begins to show off the stores goods and we decide to buy a couple of them. Barbara starts talking up the lady behind the counter (who seems to be the owner) and we find out that her son went to Los Angeles many years ago to go to school at the San Diego University. I think she remembers that her son 'flew' to LAX in order to get to whichever of the schools he attended. At any rate, they go back and forth talking about various tid-bits that she remembered her son telling her about and then she tells us that we should take a couple more items free of charge...for us. She's extremely handy, that wife of mine.
The department store that we head into is much different than our department stores. Each 'department' is actually a different store. There's a book department, a craft department, several different apparel departments, even a fabric department. But, they all have their own employees and registers. Many times there are not even walls between the different departments.
We head back towards our hotel on the subway and stop off at a pub that we saw last night for a couple of drinks. We figure we could use a little break before dropping off our purchases and then heading out for dinner. We make the decision to head out for shabu-shabu. Barbara got the recommendation from someone who said we MUST try it. According to my very limited research, it's similar to fondue. We know the name of a place in the local neighborhood, so, we head out to find it. Well, we don't find it. This place apparently does not have its name on the sign in roman characters, only kanji. Hell, I didn't know all that many kanji symbols when I was actively learning the language. So, I sure wont be able to find it after 20 years.
We wander around looking for something that pulls us in. We find a different shabu-shabu place. They are booked for the evening. We wander on until we find a small ramen house. Perfect! That's on our list. We leave rather disappointed. Barbara's broth was overly salty while mine seemed to have a burnt flavor in it. I appreciated the experience there, but, did not really get the glorious ramen that I was looking for. While walking back to the hotel we just happened to walk by the same coffee and cake place from last night. Barbara had a chamomile tea (that smelled great) and I had the same coffee from last night. Still glorious!
Tomorrow...FUJI!
The gardens were initially landscaped in 1603 for a local samurai lord and have been kept up since then. We spend quite a bit of time wandering the gardens. They are pretty awesome. There's a fairly large waterfall here and many, many large koi. Heck, there's even a tepenyaki restaurant in the middle of the gardens. But, at $150 a person for dinner, we're going to pass.
After the gardens, we head out to brave the subway system. The ticket machines are easy to navigate (as they have an English button that switches languages). We get a pair of day passes and jump on the train. The train is pretty full, but, not nearly what you imagine. There are no 'pushers' shoving people onto the train. There's plenty of room to stand and I don't feel that my personal space is violated in any way. Several stops later we are at our destination and spend several hours going from shop to shop browsing and buying.
Imagine several paragraphs of all the shopping we did. Excellent. We're a touch hungry by this time (all that shopping takes a toll on the body) so we look around for something to dine on. Barbara's eyes light up when we spot a sushi-go-round. This was something that she REALLY wanted to find and try. You sit at the bar as plates of sushi pass by on a conveyor belt. You take what you want and you pay for what you eat by the color of the plate that you pick up. I have to say, that was pretty awesome. There's a constant stream of food passing by that you can just eat your fill with.
As we are heading to a department store at the end of the street (which we were told by our guide yesterday would have one of the items we are looking for), we stop to look at some goods at a shop. One of the ladies working there begins to show off the stores goods and we decide to buy a couple of them. Barbara starts talking up the lady behind the counter (who seems to be the owner) and we find out that her son went to Los Angeles many years ago to go to school at the San Diego University. I think she remembers that her son 'flew' to LAX in order to get to whichever of the schools he attended. At any rate, they go back and forth talking about various tid-bits that she remembered her son telling her about and then she tells us that we should take a couple more items free of charge...for us. She's extremely handy, that wife of mine.
The department store that we head into is much different than our department stores. Each 'department' is actually a different store. There's a book department, a craft department, several different apparel departments, even a fabric department. But, they all have their own employees and registers. Many times there are not even walls between the different departments.
We head back towards our hotel on the subway and stop off at a pub that we saw last night for a couple of drinks. We figure we could use a little break before dropping off our purchases and then heading out for dinner. We make the decision to head out for shabu-shabu. Barbara got the recommendation from someone who said we MUST try it. According to my very limited research, it's similar to fondue. We know the name of a place in the local neighborhood, so, we head out to find it. Well, we don't find it. This place apparently does not have its name on the sign in roman characters, only kanji. Hell, I didn't know all that many kanji symbols when I was actively learning the language. So, I sure wont be able to find it after 20 years.
We wander around looking for something that pulls us in. We find a different shabu-shabu place. They are booked for the evening. We wander on until we find a small ramen house. Perfect! That's on our list. We leave rather disappointed. Barbara's broth was overly salty while mine seemed to have a burnt flavor in it. I appreciated the experience there, but, did not really get the glorious ramen that I was looking for. While walking back to the hotel we just happened to walk by the same coffee and cake place from last night. Barbara had a chamomile tea (that smelled great) and I had the same coffee from last night. Still glorious!
Tomorrow...FUJI!
What types of sushi do you recall having? I have always wanted to try a sushi boat/sushi-go-round type of thing.
ReplyDeleteImagining those missing shopping paragraphs was fun. Did you actually shoplift? What did the manager think when you ninja leaped off the counter? I'm going to pretend that you did "not" do that in the electronics department.
Hey... have you gotten to try one of those amazing tech toilets? I need details!
Looking forward to the Fuji blog. Hello to Barb-san.
What kind of sushi? Nigiri...it's almost exclusively nigiri over here. I'm not exactly sure what fish I was grabbing. If it looked tasty, I grabbed the plate. I would highly recommend it when you get the chance.
ReplyDeleteAs for the epic sword battle that occurred during the shopping trip; I am honor bound to not speak of it. We did run across a Ninja store that had a couple of carnival like games of throwing ninja stars at targets with a guy dressed like a ninja greeting customers...true story.
Tech toilets...that gets covered in the next installment :).