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Snackventures With Paulina (Japan – Autumn 2018 Day 13)

The Boys wanted to have their own adventure today. Paulina wasn’t feeling great after yesterday and I did not want her to spend the day alone, so I stayed with her.

She expressed the desire to have Okonomiyaki so it was decided that we should go to Monja Street near Tsukiji  – I liked that place that Chris took me to so much the other night, so we went there… but it was closed! Turns out that it was only open during dinner hours, and we were there shortly after lunchtime.

We roamed the street to try and find a restaurant that looked good – about half of them were closed, I’m assuming because it was after lunch and mid-week. This still left a good selection of places to eat monja or okonomiyaki… however, we got distracted by two melon pan bakeries so we stopped to purchase some… one was from a place that I had previously visited with Kyle in 2015 that I knew I loved, and one was called Tokyo Melon Pan, which I had not tried before.

I tried this back in 2015 and had to have another!

 

Tokyo Melon Pan – many varieties of melon pan there.

We saved our melon pans for later, in favor of finding our late lunch. Finally we settled on a place with an enthusiastic dude who asked us to come in – we chose to share a curry monja!

Curry Monja!

It was DELICIOUS and I’d definitely come back for food again! Part of the fun is cooking your own food but it was made even better by the guy who asked us to come in – he was very friendly and ended up talking with us about where we are from respectively and music – turns out that he really likes a Swedish band called Mando Diao! He was so enthusiastic and full of personality that we had to have our photo taken with him.

He reminded me quite a bit of Natsuki, Chris Broad’s friend and a frequent personality that appears in Chris Broad’s YouTube videos… awesome dude!

The monja was just enough to make us more hungry… but we saved our melon pan and opted to eat some cheap yakitori instead – again some food that I enjoyed with Kyle back in 2015 and wanted to try again.

Awesome Yakitori!

My memory of how good this yakitori is was spot on – very happy that we went here! Paulina seemed to enjoy it too.

We continued on our way… the ultimate destination being a place fairly nearby that serves takoyaki for a cheap price. On our way, we saw:

empty streets:


I felt the need for a selfie because my hair was sort of behaving. This is probably because the humidity was the lowest it’s been so far this trip:


The photo is blurry, and I am only just now noticing this as I’m writing this blog entry. Oops.

Police station was adorable – I’ve been meaning to snap a photo of this for the past three trips here:

Police station on Monja Street

On our way to takoyaki, we saw Tsukiji Hongwanji, a temple founded during the early Edo period in 1617. The original building burnt in the Great Fire of 1657. The current building was built by architect Chūta Itō – he was asked to build it in the style of Indian temple architecture and the results are stunning!


The temple was about to close for the day, so we only got to peek inside as they were shutting the doors to the shrine – perhaps I can fully explore the building another day.

Just up the block was the takoyaki place – Tsukiji Gindako – Gindako is actually a chain. I was hesitant to try them because I am not a fan of octopus, but Paulina talked me into trying hers… it was delicious!


Topped with a teriyaki type sauce, bonito flakes and a little mayo, it was great – the octopus was fresh, and was not chewy or super fishy tasting – it was just right! I’d eat it again.

Tummies full, we went home… I edited photos and a few hours later Paulina, Zack and I went for a walk and got CoCo Curry to go, ate at home and now I’m getting ready for bed. Paulina dubbed the day a “snackventure” and it was indeed!


Know Your National Holidays… (Japan – Autumn 2018 Day 5)

Once again I woke before every one else in the house – around 6:30 am. I was not feeling well, and I noticed that my limbs had swollen even worse and my face was very puffy… I assumed it was due to some digestion issues of a rather uncomfortable nature  – things have… not been moving for a few days. Walking has been very uncomfortable due to all of this swelling and it has me quite concerned. 

Again I was ready to upload my blog to the website, but discovered that my photos were not uploading… finally I received a message that the server was taking too long to respond and it seems that the wifi included with our AirBnB has been throttled. I’m assuming that the 4 others have been using it as well because I’m certain that although I use my own fair amount of data it’s not enough to cause a throttle! 

I tidied my closet, straightened some things in the living room and caught up on messages…. at noon I was still waiting for the gang to get going and out of here and it was, quite frankly, making me very tense and upset. 

We decided to meet Chris in the afternoon but the group decided to first stop for Yakiniku for lunch – we went to a place called Kuidon, which I believe is a chain. We had a private booth with our Korean style bbq table and for just over 1,200 yen I had a feast!

 

Grillin’ dat meat!

We had a private room at Kuidon Yakiniku – a very nice experience and a very nice value.

Bellies satisfied, we moved on to our train and headed to Shinjuku, with the intent to go the the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden… we enjoyed walking the streets and found some beautiful street murals and funny signs.

 

Part of a mural in Shinjuku – I need to go back and get a panorama of this because it was awesome.

 

We even found a pop up cafe for FIKA! (Fika is a large part of Swedish life… basically it means to have a coffee and a pastry, often a cinnamon bun… but it’s much more than that as it’s a relaxing social time to reconnect with people and relaxation) We wanted to stop for fika but the shop was closed. 

We soon arrived at one of the gates to the garden – only to find that it was CLOSED! As it turns out if there is a national holiday that falls on a monday, then the next day the park is closed. Needless to say we were all quite disappointed… I messaged Chris to let him know that our next plan was to visit the Artnia store at the Square Enix headquarters.

There are SO MANY THINGS that I would have loved to purchase from that store… so much temptation. It’s a special place… sadly, all of the special figures in the museum portion of the building were all empty as the figures were on loan to another exhibit elsewhere in the city.

 

Artnia building at the Square Enix headquarters – a must visit for me each time I visit Tokyo.


After Artnia, we went to downtown Shinjuku and the Monster Hunter Cafe! They charged a 500 yen cover charge per person… despite the cute theming of the cafe I still feel like it was overpriced and we could have enjoyed a peek and a few photos from the doorway just as well without spending that plus the cost of drinks. Gotta say though, Capcom is being smart with all of this promotion and cashing in on the popularity of this game series – well done, Capcom… well done.

 

This Palico was big – a little over a third of my height. Monster Hunter Cafe.

 

After Monster Hunter Cafe, Paulina split off to go home and rest, Joy went back to Akiba for DDR. Chris, Zach, Fredrik and I wanted honey toast, but the restaurant was closed for the night… we did find out that a Tex-Mex bar upstairs also served the honey toast (apparently the building was one large hotel resort thing so the menu was universal to all eating spaces)

Honey Toast is a big loaf of bread, hollowed out, toasted and drizzled with honey… then filled with ice cream and fruit and other sweet toppings. These absolutely cannot be consumed by your self, or even two people… two honey toasts for 4 people was even too much – I think that in retrospect I could have been satisfied with just one shared amongst 4 of us as it was so sweet and filling. It was delicious but I think that now that I’ve tried it, I probably will never have it again. Also of note: It’s tasty, but nothing worthy of your palette… simply novel and interesting.

 

Honey Toast – I’ve got this out of my system now. Never again. (too sweet)

 

Chris was very tired so he said goodnight… Zach and Fredrik and I roamed around Shinjuku a bit longer to see all of the beautiful lights and then we headed home. There were good moments in the day but overall I was rather unhappy and decided that when I want to be active I will just split off on my own and not worry about the group – we can always join up again later. I discussed this with a few of them and they weren’t upset at all and in fact encouraged me to do so.

 

Shinjuku is beautiful at night – I was definitely feeling the Lost in Translation feelings today.

 

I love the detail on the street gates? posts?

 

I am a very active person, and I do believe that my style of enjoying a vacation most likely differs from the average person… I don’t sit still much so taking the day in such a slow manner drives me a bit crazy. 

Many personal things also bubbled to the surface of my mind as well, and I was finding difficulty to keep a happy attitude, all things considered. I think that tomorrow I will get some “me time” and visit a shrine to cleanse my restless spirit.