Our days in Japan have basically consisted of eating, napping, getting up, getting on some public transportation and starting all over again. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to M this morning, who is getting to Phuket early. T, K and I got up at the late hour of 9am so we could go to the Shinjuku Gyoen, which was right around the corner from our hotel. Even though the walk was short, we of course had some strange encounters. The first of which was at a fancy Japanese bakery where you could purchase gift items like tea cakes. However, we couldn't understand the staff. They kept pointing to the date on the package, which was a couple of days or weeks into the future. Then for some reason, we interpreted that the Japanese salespeople were telling us that you could only eat the cakes on those dates, when we really wanted something to eat now. Maybe it was some sort of ritual? No. It was just the expiration date, which we realized at Isetan, which is a department store downtown because the salesperson could understand us better. Oops. We also spotted an interesting Curry & Naan restaurant, which sold plates of curry with rice and sometimes a fried egg. However, as we were looking at the menu, the owner came out and shut the door on us because they weren't open for another hour. It wasn't the the typical hospitality we had been seeing everywhere else!
Anyway, skipping breakfast for once, we got to Shinjuku Gyoen and it was such a relaxing experience. We planned to get there so we could enjoy some tea in the morning. We got to the first tea house and it was closed (sad face). But the second one was open and the old lady at the counter was so sweet! T asked for a hot tea and K & I opted for coffee. The lady took out an aluminum bottle from what looked like a fridge and T kept repeating "hot, hot." I just said, "you just have to take what you can get." To our surprise, it was hot green tea! Those Japanese even know how to innovate beverage packaging! We picked up some mung bean cakes and sat and watched the people in the sun. The school children were the most interesting. They wore crazy clothes (like the "hot biscuit" pink tshirt, shorts in the winter and crazy sock patterns) like their parents probably. Oh yeah, Japanese girls love wearing tights with shorts in the winter. The kids were so cute and well-behaved, too. T&I spotted a boy who looked half-black, half-Japanese. He was the first stranger in the country who actually made eye contact with us. He was also a head taller than all the other children in his class.
After our relaxing stroll through a Japanese Garden in the middle of the city, we got on the train to Harajuku, so that we could observe the crazy fashion at Takeshita Dori and do some shopping. M had mentioned the dollar store (Daiso) was an experience and they had a pretty large store in Harajuku. We also wanted to visit Kiddy Land, a toy store, and do some souvenir shopping. When we got there, we were greeted by a World AIDS Day sign that said "'AIDS' goes on." It was hard to tell if that was a good or bad thing. We had a fruit smoothie, which was good but unlike our own Jamba Juice in the good old USA, the smoothie shops in Japan don't seem to use ice in their smoothies. No big deal, just different. Anyway, since the curry encounter in the morning, we were kind of craving curry. Japan loves curry so we ended up at a place called "curry up." It was very cute and pretty good. T got the shrimp curry, K got the spicy beef curry and I had a combo of veggie and chicken keema curry. I was so happy to have vegetables on my plate. K's curry was so hot and spicy that he started sweating! The waiter warned him, but it was delicious anyway.
After several hours wandering the streets and shops, we got back to the hotel and decided we wanted sushi for dinner. The front desk recommended a place nearby so we decided to try it later. We had to mentally prepare that it was not going to be as good as Daiwa, which of course it wasn't. I accidentally ended up taking a power nap before we went out. It was the first day that I wasn't planning on napping during the day, after all. Anyway, after sushi we went to a local bar called Red bar. We were the only customers but they had nihonshu on the menu. The staff was watching Japanese tv, which was cool but when we sat down, they turned on a live Beyonce DVD! This was kind of weird at first but we enjoyed the performances, even the notoriously terrible songs (ring the alarm!!!). The bartender let us try a bunch of different sakes that night and they were just great to us, probably because we were the only ones there. After eating some fried chicken and several rounds of nihonshu, we decided to go back so we could get a good nights sleep before we board the 7:06am Narita Express. By the next blog, we will be in the tropics of Phuket! See you there :)
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