JAPAN TRIP 2018 DAY 5, 6 & 7 (19-21/11/18

Combined all remaining three days into one post – as each day is probably a little too short to have a post of its own.

Day 5 (19/11/2018)

Finally had a good sleep!

There was a major change in our planned itinerary. Initially this day should be a day where we would spend our morning at Kaminarimon / Nakamise, but we had already visited these places at night, and we honestly didn’t feel that they are worth another trip. Hence we decided to head instead to Koishikawa Korakuen instead! It was meant to be for tomorrow, but then that just freed up our itinerary the next day to head somewhere else.

We have visited a tad too many gardens in this trip, and I honestly didn’t feel much enthusiasm anymore stepping into another one. Well, I mean, they are all meticulously curated… but they are still just… gardens. The stone paths are still nice and all… but I guess I somehow developed a “garden fatigue” by the 5th day. I had a melon bread as breakfast (bought from Family Mart the night before) and instant mushroom soup. However it clearly wasn’t enough, as I was really hungry by the time we walked half of Koishikawa Korakuen. Good thing they had a couple of food vans set up in the middle of the garden and we managed to get some hotdogs. I’ve never eaten such delicious hotdogs, really! But then it could be because I was hungry…..

Some photos of Koishikawa Korakuen here, but there are a whole lot more in my Flickr album.

After strolling the ENTIRE Koishikawa Korakuen, we then went for fluffy pancakes! The one I listed on my itinerary was A Happy Pancake at Ikebukuro, and when we reached, there was a short queue in front of us. Shortly after we joined the queue, the number of people in the queue suddenly increased significantly. Good thing we arrived slightly earlier… but even so, it was a super long wait – I think it was at least 45 minutes before we had a table! Bruno was so tired that he had to sit on the stairs while waiting.

We both ordered their standard souffle pancakes – one set each. It was good! Soft and fluffy… Bruno loved it so much that before he finished his, he ordered yet another one – tiramisu flavour this time. I was shocked – wouldn’t he be too full from all these?! Unfortunately he already ordered and in the end, as expected, he couldn’t finish them all. But uh… at least he liked them! I was half worried that he wouldn’t like this kind of pancake as he usually preferred the traditional ones anyway.

I initially wanted to go Mutekiya for ramen, but we were both too full from the souffle pancakes and we had them too late. Sigh. We had to give Mutekiya a miss…. we tried to let the souffle pancakes digest faster by walking around Ikebukuro despite being already extremely tired, but we still weren’t hungry by the time we left Ikebukuro. Feeling disappointed, we went back to Asakusa – and duh, we started to feel hungry when we reached Asakusa. I guess I’m just not fated to eat Mutekiya…

On our way back, we had to change metro lines and we passed by this onigiri shop. Bruno couldn’t resist and we went in to take a look. I forgot what he bought, but I myself bought a “tamago onigiri”… it was supposed to have a whole egg inside! I had it for breakfast the next day, haha.

It was starting to drizzle again (it was drizzling while we were in Ikebukuro), and we decided to pop by this small ramen restaurant called 三豊麺 (Sanpoumenzan) after looking at their menu. All their ramen comes with a small plate of fried rice, and we expected all servings to be rather small. Instead, their ramen serving was huge, and the fried rice serving was huge too! …And I actually managed to finish both of them. I was surprised by my own appetite…

Day 6 (20/11/2018)

Ate my tamago onigiri! It was good!

For our morning caffeine fix, we walked to February cafe to get our latte. It was already full of patrons early in the morning, so we ordered and sat on the waiting bench to drink instead, until one group of family who was sitting outside left. We went out of the shop and sat in the cold, drinking the hot latte – quite a nice experience really. Nothing much planned for this day – as we have already visited the places that we initially wanted to go on this day. So we ended up heading to Ueno Park, which we put aside as we did not expect to have enough time to visit this place.

There were a few gingko trees which were turning yellow at the entrance of Ueno park, but otherwise there’s not much koyo around. We went to an “imitation kiyomizudera” temple where I bought a health amulet for my Dad (which he only had for 2 days…). After walking around the park for a bit (and spotted an early sakura bloomer), we decided to enter the Ueno Zoo to spend the rest of the day. Well, zoos being zoos… nothing much to write about. You can see more photos in my Flickr album anyway.

We had lunch in one of the many cafeterias within the zoo. The price was reasonable, and the food was decent too. Ueno zoo had a panda enclosure, and it was the panda’s birthday or something. The queue to see the pandas were horrendously long. It’s not like we haven’t seen pandas before, so we decided to give that a miss. It was about 2pm when we left Ueno zoo, and we wandered around Ueno park again. Bruno spotted the Natural Museum of Nature and Science, and we decided to visit it at his insistence. I’m not a huge fan, and I was really tired (allergies from the animals) so I spent most of the time trying to find seats to sit and rest while waiting for him. The museum consists of two wings, and both closed at 5pm. 3 hours are certainly not enough to go through exhibit by exhibit. I had to rush him so that he can complete what he wanted to see. He regretted not stumbling upon this museum earlier, so I promised to let him have a day there the next time we visit Tokyo.

I wonder when that’ll be though…

Dinner was a simple affair back at Asakusa, at a small humble family restaurant called Kamiya. I ordered their tendon, and it was full of fresh ingredients. Again I finished all of it (I hardly leave food untouched when I was in Japan… they were all too good to waste!).

Day 7 (21/11/2018)

Woke up at 5am in the morning – to have breakfast and to check out. It’s not the most enjoyable overseas trip I’ve had – but I did enjoy my “alone” time when I have the whole room to myself for the last 3 nights of the trip. I hope one day I’ll be able to solo travel…

Watching the Skytree with sunrise in the backdrop while eating my breakfast was a pretty nice experience.

After we got to the airport, we checked in and started to look for our proper breakfast. We both ordered Tsukemen, and it was pretty good. As usual, the serving was huge and I took a long time before I can finish every bit of the noodles. Bruno on the other hand, couldn’t even finish his. We spent some time getting more omiyage before we went to the boarding area to wait for our flight.

The food onboard this time was prepared by Japanese celebrity chefs. I got hashed beef with butter rice, but uh… I find the food to be pretty normal…. *cough*

Well that’s it for this Tokyo 2018 trip. I don’t know when will I visit Japan again though… sigh.

For more photos, as well as for the full sized photos in this post, please visit these Flickr albums:  Tokyo 2018 Day 5 (19/11/2018) , Tokyo 2018 Day 6 (20/11/2018) , Tokyo 2018 Day 7 (21/11/2018)

To return to Japan Trip 2018 content page, please click here.