Day 4 - Ikebukuro, Akihabara and Yokohama Raumen Museum

Well, I buggered up. Today we were meant to be going to the fuji 5 lakes, specifically Kawaguchiko, but little old me thought that bus tickets needed to be reserved at the actual bus station and we weren't planning on activating our JR passes until day 5 (so no train). Mistake. Apparently it's all done online and the PAYMENT takes place at the bus station. By the time I had it all figured out all the seats were booked out until 2pm. So no time for a day trip.

So today we did a bit of a switcheroo. First things first was the opening of the new Evangelion store in Ikebukuro. Ikebukuro is the female otaku's version of Akihabara. Think lots of anime, manga, department stores just for merch from different shows. Of course it's a lot more civilized in that there are no "watch out for upskirting" signs around the place but of a weekend you still see hordes of high school girls flocking down the main street towards Mandarake.

We didn't have to go far to spot the P Parco where the Eva store was located. There were a couple of people waiting with their Nintendo DS out the front of the building where two employees were handing out ticket numbers. It had "soft opened" the day before but this was the first weekend they were going to have to deal with. It was 2 hours before the store was due to open and we still got number 96 and 97 and were told to come back at around 1:30pm.

With that we headed to the notorious Akihabara.

With a limited time frame we hit the two things we wanted to do for sure: 1) a maid cafe, 2) the flagship store of Mandarake. I'd heard about a maid cafe in the Don Quioxte building which was meant to have girls that spoke reasonable English (so at least we didn't spend the whole time staring blankly at them). We headed in that direction and low and behold was a girl dressed up as a French maid standing in front of the entrance. Thinking she was part of the aforementioned chain we approached her and she offered us an English flyer. She was not. After we'd agreed to follow her we found out she was from a rival chain called Maidreamin whose store was just down the road. We'd been poached. Not that we minded. Ruchia was the happiest cheekiest little thing. It was probably part of her job but even though she couldn't speak English very well she was making us laugh long before we took the elevator up to the store in a really genuine way.

Up on level 4 we were greeted by Rico, another maid who this time spoke English (albeit with a lot of "like" thrown in). She informed us that the table charge was more expensive for a couch over a counter seat and showed us the options for our stay. I picked a vanilla parfait with a cat face including a photo with Rico and a keyring. Anthony picked a cocktail drink, photo with Ruchia and a folder. No photos of the inside of the place were allowed except for photos of food. When it comes out the girls make you do a little chant over the top to make it taste better. The most popular one we heard was "moe, moe, cute" but we both agreed that "pichi pichi yummy" sounded better. The girls write on the photos they take with you and offer to do dances and sing (for a fee of course). It was fun but not something you'd really need to do twice.

We then headed to Mandarake, an 8 level store filled with collectible toys, manga and anime. Anthony instantly went to the transformers toys while I had a bit of a battle trying to get the clerks to understand who Gigantor was. After a hasty google we found out that he's called Manjuku in Japan. Following our very long browse of the kaiju section it was time for us to head back to Ikebukuro and the Evangelion store.

It was much smaller than the previous store in Harajuku and packed with people. We bought a couple of things but most disappointing was when I picked up a can that was hanging out in the clothing shirt believing it to be a shirt in a can. When I got back to the hotel I opened it up to check if it would fit. It was bread.

For dinner we headed to Shin-Yokohama station to head to the Raumen Museum. Ramen is a type of soup that originated in China that's been adopted by the Japanese. The museum is the recreation of a 1958 neighborhood with 8 ramen restaurants invited to serve their food in the recreation establishments. There's also a sweet store, a cafe and reproduction baths. It's a great way to find out which of the many styles of ramen you like the most. You buy tickets from vending machines and most of the restaurants offer "small portion" bowls so you can try a few. We only got through 2 each. The small portions were what we'd consider as large. The best that we tried was the thick tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen. It stank but tasted amazing. There was also a fantastic juggler to watch in the courtyard as kids played with old fashioned tops, cup and ball and hula hoops.

Soy sauce Ramen

Tonkotsu Ramen

Day 3 - Disneyland

Tokyo Disney resort is the only Disney theme park owned and run by a company that is not Disney. Confusing right? But the consensus between most Disney geeks is that the two parks (Land and Sea) are two of the best, if not the best, in the world. 

Realising we may never make it to America and the real Disneyland, we decided to try out the Japanese one. I'd been before but had only been able to spend a few hours and felt that I wanted to explore more. For Anthony, it was his first time and I would help him navigate to get fast pass tickets for the good rides. 

Since it was October, the park was themed for Halloween. Lots of orange and Ant and I had fun spotting all the different kinds of faces on the pumpkins. 

Anthony is a keen Nightmare before Christmas fan so we went straight to the Haunted Mansion ride. This had been specially themed around Jack Skellington staging a Christmas party for the ghosts that normally reside in the mansion. From what I could gather anyway. All the dialogue was in Japanese but it didn't stop it from being fun. As a result of the re-theme the standby line was 45 minutes long. Not the worst wait for Disneyland Japan (the Monster's Inc ride line was over 3 hours each time we checked so we gave up on it entirely), but in the sun at 29 degree heat it was long enough. We also snagged fast passes to ride it straight after we did the first run. 

While we were waiting we got to see some of the Happy Halloween Harvest Parade from the line. The music was excellent and I have to admit I turned into a little girl again seeing all the wonderful floats and characters dance their way by.

The ride itself was pretty good. Some of the effects had Anthony and I debating over how they were achieved but from my previous experience I had to say that some of them weren't as good as the original ride. Our second ride through was fraught with stops. As we were unable to understand the language, these waits were particularly confusing. 

We then headed off to grab ourselves some more fast passes for either Pooh's Hunny Hut (a TDR only ride) or Space Mountain. Cast members were stopping people from getting into Pooh and from what we could gather the ride had malfunctioned. It was on again later in the day with a wait time of 120 minutes as we went to get our space mountain time slot but by the time we came back the ride had shut again. No Pooh for us. 

With Space Mountain fast passes in hand we then went to fulfill my mother's request for a photo on the teacups. We didn't get a photo, we got a video which I won't post here. In the line, Anthony kept making friends with chubby little toddlers fascinated by the tall blonde people. On the ride, he was a madman. Thank god the wheels lock up if you spin it too fast. 

We grabbed some Mickey Mouse shaped ice-cream sandwiches, a pair of Minnie ears for myself, a pumpkin dancer plush for Anthony and shared a basket of pepper chicken tenders, chips and corn coleslaw. It was just fun watching the paddle steamer and canoes cruise around Tom Sawyer Island (and the toddler running back and forth from her parents screaming and giggling "tadaima!!!(I'm home)" over and over again.

Big Thunder Mountain was closed and due to the sweltering heat there was no point even trying to get into Splash mountain. The decision was made to do Pirates of the Caribbean, our Space mountain fast pass and Star tours and then call it a day. The surprise of the day was Star Tours. The ride had been revamped since I last went and we both liked the preshow line almost better than the actual ride itself.

Day 2 - Ueno and Asakusa

Yesterday I had planned to visit Hanazono shrine in Shinjuku. This is a fairly new Shinto shrine located in the middle of a bunch of multi-storey office buildings and it always seems like such a surprise to find such a green and tranquil place there. (Out of interest breakfast was pastries bought from the Lawson's konbini under our hotel.) It's very popular with people in entertainment industries, who come to pray for success in their ventures.

Hanazono Shrine-Shinjuku

Ema (wish) boards

Side view of shrine

Foxes are usually seen as the bringers of wealth and good fortune although they are also tricksters.

 From researching about Japan I'd heard about something called a Goshuincho. For about 1000 yen you recieve a book specifically used to collect calligraphy and seals from temples and shrines around the country (each additional seal being usually 300 yen). The deal is that Buddists collect these goshuin to show how devout they are. When they're cremated, the books are cremated too to show both the Shinto gods and Buddhas how good you were in that life as a sort of "good karma record". Realistically, they make a really pretty looking souvenir and one I wanted to get my hands on. Hanazono shrine was the closest to our first stop on this long trip and therefore my first seal.

Goshuincho

Hanazono Shrine Goshuin

The priest who served me was surprisingly patient with letting me pick the colour I wanted for the book and explained in Japanese with lots of hand gestures how to properly fill out the book. Meanwhile Anthony was busy wandering the grounds taking photos and watching the people praying. The fruits of his efforts:

We then took the Yamanote line from Shinjuku station to Ueno station. Ueno is most famous for its park which was previously the grounds of a temple until the Meiji restoration in 1868. We debated whether to go to the zoo which was advertising baby capybaras, pandas and a baby gorilla. We gave it a miss though because I'd read somewhere that the caging conditions there were not amazing and likely to be a bit depressing. Instead we had a wander through the grounds. I tried a matcha (green tea) flavoured soft serve that was true to its name in that it was very very soft. Anthony didn't like it though but he's not much of a matcha fan.

We also visited Toshugo shrine, an offshoot of the original kaneji temple. Crickets were still chirping in the trees as we walked down the lantern lined avenue up to the ornate gilded gate. I got a goshuin from the Miko manning the charms stall and we paid for entry into the inner area(500 yen/pp).

Inside was a sacred ginko tree whose massive trunk was wreathed in Shide (sacred pieces of paper shaped like lightning bolts. There was also a tiny little shrine for Japanese raccoon dogs.

This tree was at least 600 years old and had apparently been there before the shrine was built. The wall around the inner sanctum was covered with painted carvings of water and land birds of which I only took photos of my favourites. Unfortunately we couldn't get into the actual temple as the staff were trying to preserve the gold leaf.

Another thing that Ueno park is famous for is its street performers who have to go through auditions in order to be able to set themselves up. We stumbled upon a magician. Some of it went over our heads with the lack of Japanese knowledge but Anthony loved watching the routines he did to music. We couldn't figure out how he was doing any of the tricks but it was fun that there was a bit of mystery to it.

We then walked to the lake section of the park. Yakitori stands lined the pathway to the temple in the middle of the lake. I got my goshuin while Anthony bought a yakitori stick. We contemplated one of the swan paddleboats but couldn't make ourselves motivated enough to pedal around the lake for 30 minutes. It was nice watching the families floating around in them though while the carp hung around the edges hoping that someone would feed them.

Asakusa was our next stop and first thing on our mind was lunch. We ended up being ushered into a chain sushi store called Sushizanmai. Cheap it might have been but the food tasted amazing and we ended up trying lots of things we might not have gotten if we'd had to spend more. We both ordered one of the monthly specials as 5 pieces for 680 yen to start with.

L to R: Salmon, (missing) salmon roe, sardine?, flounder fin, horse mackerel

The salmon roe has a slight taste of grapefruit to it, and the flounder's fin (while the texture wasn't what we were used to) tasted lovely and buttery. The rest of the pieces were nice but not particularly memorable (apart from Anthony and the unexpected wasabi in the salmon nigiri.). Anthony then wanted to try the snow crab nigiri and something aburi or blowtorched. The sushi chef in front of us recommended the fatty tuna and thank god he did. It was juicy and fatty and worked so well with the vinegared rice. We loved it so much that we ate them too fast to take a picture of any of it. The snow crab was average but very spicy as it had some sort of horseradish on top.

Nakamise-dori and the Kaminarimon gate which lead up to Senso-ji temple (built in 628AD) are one of the most touristy areas in tokyo. Rickshaw runners try to pass you pamphlets and offer you their services. The stalls in Nakamise street are filled with fans, cheap polysester kimono, postcards and foods. Most of the food stalls will give you samples of their treats. Below is a picture of the agemanju we were given hot off the machine. These are the representative sweets of Tokyo and consist of a soft pastry case filled with red beans. They were actually really delicious but something about their sweetness made you need a drink of water.

Kaminarimon Gate

agemanju

Making our way up to Senso-ji we saw a bunch of mothers coming to pick up their children from the nearby kindergarten. All the children wear matching hats. First things first, we went and drew our fortunes. Anthony got the best fortune. I got a small fortune (last trip I got bad so this is significantly better). After taking photos we tied them to strings of wire so the wind would carry them and make them true. We also lit candles for health of our families. I got my goshuin and Anthony bought a bunch of incense to burn in the big cauldron out the front.

Friendly carp at Senso-ji

Anthony's fortune

Chase's fortune

Hopefully luckier, we set out to walk to Tokyo Skytree. We went to the second highest platform at 350 meters. The elevator goes all the way up in 50 seconds at a top speed of 600km/hr. You can't even feel it though apart from your ears popping every hundred meters or so. It was a smoggy day so we didn't stay up there for long despite the amazing views. On a clear day you're able to see Mt Fuji.

For dinner we went to a Nagomi visit where a local family lets you visit their houses and cooks you homestyle Japanese food for dinner. Our family cooked us Oden which is a type of vegetable and fish stew. I highly recommend doing this if you come to Japan. I won't write too much about the visit here but only that it was a unique and worthwhile experience.

Day 1 - Shinjuku

Today was a bit of a short one. We didn't arrive in Narita until 2:45pm and by the time we got through customs it was close to 3:45. To get into Tokyo we'd decided to take the Narita express. It was much quieter and much more comfortable than the airport limo I'd taken on my last trip. It's also much more scenic. Where the bus travels on highways that mostly have sound barriers to obscure the view, the NEX allowed us to watch the "countryside" on the hour long ride to Shinjuku. There's some lovely little tori gates that are only just visible in the forested areas. A also had his first taste of Japanese food. We bought and shared a Pork Katsu sandwich from the trolley lady who bowed between each carriage.

After some confusion about transitioning to the Metro line from the JR station we reached E Hotel Higashi Shinjuku. It's on the outskirts of the Shinjuku area but it only takes a couple of minutes to walk to Kabukicho. Kabukicho used to be swampland and was originally meant to have lots of Kabuki theatres hence the name. WW2 changed all that and it was redeveloped into an entertainment and red light district. It's more entertainment than red light though with hordes of business men coming from work out to have a beer and let off steam with karaoke.

Our goal for that night's dinner was a tempura restaurant named Funibashiya Honten. Walking through the door we were greeted by a friendly old man waiter who gave us seats at the counter where we could watch the chefs working. We were presented with an English menu and a tray with green tea, pickles and grated radish. Both of us decided to start with the set menu. Mine was smaller with 7 pieces of seafood and vegetables of the chef's selection and A decided on the more expensive 8 pieve set (this also had higher priced ingredients). Sets came with rice and a beautifully salty red miso soup with tiny, weeny little clams that A was determined to eat.

Drinks were a bit of an ordeal. Both of us wanted a bottle of Kirin beer but the waiter was doubtful we'd be able to drink two. He was determined to explain to us that they were big bottles and "maybe we'd want one with two glasses?" I think he underestimated us as Australians because we happily sipped our beers until the end of the service while the man next to us downed shot after shot of sake.

Both sets had extremely tender prawns, whiting, calamari and a prawn kakiage. The vegetables differed between the two of us and A got additional types of fish. As each piece was cooked fresh and placed on a piece of white paper in front of you we couldn't take pictures of the whole set without it going cold. The mark of good tempura is how little oil is left on the paper. Let me say that there was hardly any oil on that paper even when a piece had been sitting there for a while.

While we were watching the chefs, he had gotten a sieve and was fishing around in an esky with it. Out of it he had scooped a handful of squirming, live little fish or eels that he set to the side. They kept trying to escape over the side and he'd have to stop whatever he was doing and pick up these little things off his chopping board every few minutes. Eventually he was fed up and battered them and fried while they were still moving. A was determined to try it. Thinking they were little eels we pointed at the eel option on the menu to the friendly waiter who translated to the chef and waited.

It was not little fish/eels. Instead the chef fished out a live 30cm long river eel. He then killed, gutted and filleted the creature in front of us and passed on the meat and the spine to the frying chef. The whole time the waiter was standing behind us snickering his little old head off at the sight of our stunned faces. Seconds later the eel was placed on our white paper and the chef watched us we took the first bites. The flesh was amazingly soft and melt in your mouth. A and I were never eel fans back in Australia but I think this made me a convert. There was the slight aftertaste that I can only describe as pond pond but surprisingly this was not bad but merely made the eel seem more fresh. A ate the spine because it was only big enough for one and described it as tasting surprisingly similar to pork crackling.

That was pretty much it for the night. We wandered around and people watched before heading back to the hotel for our first night in Tokyo.