We spent our Day 2 in Shinjuku and Harajuku. It'd be nice if we could spend a day in each place, but we have limited days and we did what we could. Anyways, we woke up at around 7:30am each day to brush up, drink water (we were constantly dehydrated), read up where we'd be visiting, and off we go to our hotel lounge for the complimentary breakfast buffet. When I was planning our trip, I was planning to eat breakfast out but soon realized after reading a few travel blogs that finding Japanese style breakfast on a weekday at 9am is practically nonexistent (unless you opt for McD's and Wendy's.... or Starbucks). Our hotel breakfast turned out to be a great idea as it gave us enough fuel to start off our day. And oh hey, it's free so why not!
The congee and "ja choy" (picked veggies) was so yummy. I don't know why I got myself a hardboiled egg and scrambled eggs... I was probably craving eggs or something that day. And they served fries for breakfast, haha! Yes, that's kimchi on the plate... I don't know why I got that either but it was delicious. They also had a whole variety of grilled fish, pickled veggies, steamed rice - a typical Japanese breakfast. And natto. OMG it was ewwwwwww. A dude beside us was eating it with his rice and I had to try not to squint my eyes or make a disgusted face. Sorry, it smelled like pinch :(
Mr.C likes his fries!
After breakfast we walked to Ikebukuro Subway station and took the Tokyo Subway train for the first time. The underground station was so big that it was rather intimidating at first. Did you know this station is the 2nd busiest in Japan, serving over a million passengers each day? :O I was glad I took my friend Zandra's advice and figured out the route system before going to Tokyo. It turned out pretty easy to navigate around, but you could easily get confused and jumped on the wrong train or the wrong platform. I think my Chinese skills helped abit... especially when we couldn't find English in some signages.
Our first stop was Shinjuku- known as a major commercial and administrative centre housing the busiest train station in the world. Surrounding Shinjuku station are department stores, specialty electronic and camera stores, restaurants and shopping centres. We got there at around 10am and stores were just starting to open. We managed to get into a 6-storey bookstore as I wanted to find a Kotaro Oshio guitar book for my brother. Man, was I lost in there but I did eventually find it. Again, I applaud myself for my kanji/Chinese skills :P
We spend the first half our our day in Shinjuku. There were alot of department stores and smaller specialty stores that caught our attention.
We got hungry when we got to the basement of a huge department store, Isetan. My gosh, they have a huge supermarket, food market filled with freshly made goodies from appetizers, breads, main entrees, desserts, wine, cheeses, noodles, pickled goods... pretty much anything you can think of. We bought chicken skewers (Mr.C's fav) and desserts. Heh.
Ricecake with strawberry, apparently called Ichigo daifuku - Freshly made mochi with a sweetened strawberry inside. Who could resist? Oh, and a box of 12 strawberries in Japan costs about $15 Canadian, btw.
We left Shinjuku mid-afternoon and jumped on another JR train to Harajuku - home to the weirdest dressers! We saw a couple of Alices in Alice in Wonderland, amongst other things. o_O Harajuku has 2 main shopping areas; OmotesandÅ with expensive brand name stores such as Prada, LV, etc. (and they have a KiddyLand!), and Takeshita Street with lolita/rocker/gothic/punk/hip hop/latest Japanese street fashion...
Harajuku station. When we got out of the train, there were groups of teenage girls in their school uniforms getting excited and giddy about something. It was funny to see them in their school uniforms with crazy punk hair/jewelery/shoe accessories....
Takeshita street - it's nuts in there. It was almost like Mongkok in HK, but 10x crazier. It was funny when a group of black men (I was told they are Nigerians) were trying to lure us into a store on the 2nd floor and sell us fake jeans and runners. And, there's a Daiso on Takeshita street, which we didn't go into :P
We took this photo for Ken C.... hahaha.
Of course, we had to pull over on Takeshita street and try the famous Harajuku Crepes! We picked the busiest crepe booth and lined up for 15 mins for our choice of Harajuku Crepe to get a taste of the Japanese pop culture. If you're in Harajuku, you have to try it!
Angels Heart Crepes.... hahahah.
This is for Kelly and Hilda, who are crazy about crepes of all sorts.
My crepe - chocolate strawberry banana crepe: fresh strawberries and banana chunks, tons of chocolate drizzles, whipped cream, and puff pastry chunks. This thing must be like 30,000 calories. :(
Mr.C had the Strawberry banana chocolate cheesecake crepe - real cheesecake chunks. Yikes!
p.s. We ended up snacking our way in Harajuku, and went back to Mutekiya in Ikebukuro late at night for some quality ramen. mmmm ramen.
3 comments:
i love natto... and fyi, it smells like feet in wet shoes, not pinch, okay? =)
i almost grabbed it once during breakfast thinking it was pickled veggies or something... no wonder they sealed it in a container!
it was funny seeing someone eat natto... sticky threads all over one's mouth and all over the rice bowl/chopsticks. it's worse than melted cheese!
i dunno what natto really smells like, but i know for sure it's not fragrant like flowers >_<
i have some natto in my freezer (no lie) you're more than welcome to come over anytime to have some yummy natto over steamed rice.
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