Sarahboo
100% geek
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
Oh man, you're going to have an awesome trip!
Chris is a musician (plays bass, writes the music, and is the lead vocals in a nerd rock duo) so we find that we end up building relationships over music a lot.
I don't even remember what I said in the beginning of the report, but we actually have 4 kids (aged 11-19), so this was a big dealt go for 2 weeks without them and travel like we were young again. :lol: We took them to Mexico for Christmas, and here are a few pictures from that trip:
Anyway, back to Japan...
We didn't get a super early start on Thursday, because we only had three things planned:
Tsukiji Outer Market
Pokemon Center DX to get a present for my son
Dinner at Tapas Molecular
Coffee became the bane of our existence in Tokyo. We generally got moving before most places opened, so we spent a lot of mornings on our way to the train station at the Starbucks overlooking Shibuya Scramble Crossing. It was much busier at night than during the day - but it was kind of a fun ritual over our stay to grab a cuppa joe and watch the pedestrians. This Starbucks is across the street from Shibuya station:
Oregon is known for its recycling. When we have friends visit from the midwest or east coast they ALWAYS comment on how many different recycling receptacles there are, but it was nothing like Japan. This is what you see when you're ready to discard any remaining coffee or the cups:
Because we got a bit of a late start, the train was BUSY.
The tuna auction moved in 2019, but we didn't ind because we weren't planning on getting to the market early enough for the tuna auction anyway. We were there for the street food. We had a GREAT time here. It was busy, and huge, and I'm sure we only saw a fraction of it, I mean look at this map of all of the vendors:
We had so much food here. So. Much. Food.
Tuna steak cooked with a blowtorch (delicious!):
THOSE SCALLOPS. HOLY MACKERAL:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL:
I want to eat Strawberry Daifuku every day. EVERY DAY.
We met this super cool vendor who had us try a bunch of his stuff, and we purchased some glasses of this alcoholic HORNET WASP ginseng:
The hornets in that thing were HUGE. We also had some beer and some black sesame ice cream:
No eating while walking - and keep an eye out for those ding-dang birds:
The bird looks so pleased with himself:
When we had beyond full stomachs, we took a trek to the Pokemon Center on our way to The Mandarin Oriental. My son wanted a stuffed bulbasaur. It turns out that Pokemon Sword and Shield were coming out THE NEXT DAY. If we pre-ordered both games they came in an exclusive set like this with figures of the new characters and an art book.
So we ordered that knowing we'd have to get back there before we left Tokyo - but we thought we'd be able to manage the next day without too much hassle. We didn't eat at the Pokemon Cafe, but we definitely would have if we had the kids with us.
We poked around the area a little and then we had time to kill before our reservation at Tapas Molecular. We headed up near the Mandarin Oriental (where the restaurant is), and then we explored a brewpub, a shrine, and some other stores:
There was a museum in the same building as the hotel/restaurant, so we went in search of that.
Chris is a musician (plays bass, writes the music, and is the lead vocals in a nerd rock duo) so we find that we end up building relationships over music a lot.
I don't even remember what I said in the beginning of the report, but we actually have 4 kids (aged 11-19), so this was a big dealt go for 2 weeks without them and travel like we were young again. :lol: We took them to Mexico for Christmas, and here are a few pictures from that trip:
Anyway, back to Japan...
We didn't get a super early start on Thursday, because we only had three things planned:
Tsukiji Outer Market
Pokemon Center DX to get a present for my son
Dinner at Tapas Molecular
Coffee became the bane of our existence in Tokyo. We generally got moving before most places opened, so we spent a lot of mornings on our way to the train station at the Starbucks overlooking Shibuya Scramble Crossing. It was much busier at night than during the day - but it was kind of a fun ritual over our stay to grab a cuppa joe and watch the pedestrians. This Starbucks is across the street from Shibuya station:
Oregon is known for its recycling. When we have friends visit from the midwest or east coast they ALWAYS comment on how many different recycling receptacles there are, but it was nothing like Japan. This is what you see when you're ready to discard any remaining coffee or the cups:
Because we got a bit of a late start, the train was BUSY.
The tuna auction moved in 2019, but we didn't ind because we weren't planning on getting to the market early enough for the tuna auction anyway. We were there for the street food. We had a GREAT time here. It was busy, and huge, and I'm sure we only saw a fraction of it, I mean look at this map of all of the vendors:
We had so much food here. So. Much. Food.
Tuna steak cooked with a blowtorch (delicious!):
THOSE SCALLOPS. HOLY MACKERAL:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL:
I want to eat Strawberry Daifuku every day. EVERY DAY.
We met this super cool vendor who had us try a bunch of his stuff, and we purchased some glasses of this alcoholic HORNET WASP ginseng:
The hornets in that thing were HUGE. We also had some beer and some black sesame ice cream:
No eating while walking - and keep an eye out for those ding-dang birds:
The bird looks so pleased with himself:
When we had beyond full stomachs, we took a trek to the Pokemon Center on our way to The Mandarin Oriental. My son wanted a stuffed bulbasaur. It turns out that Pokemon Sword and Shield were coming out THE NEXT DAY. If we pre-ordered both games they came in an exclusive set like this with figures of the new characters and an art book.
So we ordered that knowing we'd have to get back there before we left Tokyo - but we thought we'd be able to manage the next day without too much hassle. We didn't eat at the Pokemon Cafe, but we definitely would have if we had the kids with us.
We poked around the area a little and then we had time to kill before our reservation at Tapas Molecular. We headed up near the Mandarin Oriental (where the restaurant is), and then we explored a brewpub, a shrine, and some other stores:
There was a museum in the same building as the hotel/restaurant, so we went in search of that.