ok, let’s do this!
Tagged with "nihon"
rising sun, EWR
up in the air… over Wyoming
one of the first challenges of Tokyo was figuring out how to use this: the vending machine for Pasmo (aka Japan’s Metrocard)
Konnichiwa!
After nearly 20 hours of travel, we finally landed at Narita International Airport only to have to move on to the next challenge of figuring out where to pick up our pocket wifi, JR Rail Passes and how to get to the hotel.
It took a bit of running around (and an hour longer than I originally estimated) but we finally got things figured out and made it to our hotel in Shibuya, just in time to drop our bags and meet up with a new friend, Ryo.
Ryo took us to Shokkan, a washuko aka Japanese-style restaurant in conveniently located a 10-minute walk from our hotel, and proceeded to order a mix of typical Japanese dishes… and more importantly a serious of traditional Nihonshu – or Japanese sake. He proceeded to enlighten us about the wilder side of Tokyo (I learned that the Champagne Room is NOT always a good idea) before we were joined by a friend of his, the very funny and charming Ana.
The meal was good, the new friends and conversation was great, but we were pretty wiped out from our travels so after dinner we bid our goodbyes to our new friends and headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
Tomorrow we hit up Tsukiji Market!
breakfast at Tsukiji Market: Chukka Soba Inoue
an old-school ramen place dishing up shoyu ramen in a light chicken broth. this was a lot lighter than the typical tonkotsu broths we see in NYC. very delicious and an excellent way to start our first full day in Tokyo.
Here are just a few of the wonderful things we saw at Tsukiji Market. It really is a magical place… not only for the variety of seafood and the size of the market, but also for the variety of the variety of goods. I’ve never seen places where you can choose from 15 different types of kombu, 12 different versions of katsuobushi, 25 varieties of uni. If I lived in Tokyo I would go broke shopping here every week.
nbd, just a $100 box of matsutake mushrooms
after Tsukiji Market we swung by Hamarikyu Gardens - a former shogunate Japanese style garden. Among its many gorgeous sights is a black pine that was planted over 300 years ago. I also learned that the gardeners prune these massive pines by hand - which takes forever. It takes something like 5 days for 4 gardeners to complete the 300-year-old pine’s annual pruning.
Nakagin Capsule Tower was on the way from Hamarikyu Gardens to our lunch spot, so we had to swing by and snap a quick picture.