JAPAN TRIP 2018 DAY 3 (17/11/18)

So, this was what I bought at Angelus the previous night – Banana Boat! This was such a nostalgic cake – my mom used to buy this for me when I was a kid. It’s a vanilla sponge cake wrapped around a real huge banana, surrounded with thick rich cream. I totally scoffed at Tokyo Banana (the famous snack) because I have eaten this real thing before. Not the fake, artificial banana essence that was so obvious in Tokyo Banana.

I unwrapped the cling wrap excitedly to take a bite, and I was immediately in heaven. It was exactly what I remembered! The sponge cake was soft, filled with rich cream and the banana within it was so fresh! Aaaaahhhh I’m salivating as I typed this…

We left the hotel after eating our breakfast (yes Bruno ate the banana boat cake too), and our itinerary today was just Sumida Aquarium and Tokyo Solamachi. We slowly strolled along the Sumida River, popping by Cafe WE for coffee to-go. We basked in the sun while drinking the coffee and watching the skyline on the opposite side of the river (a.k.a. the Skytree). Bruno then had this typical touristy idea to take a photo of the coffee and the Skytree…. We tried so many times but failed – this is one of the better shots already. Not easy to try and take pictures with the sun shining straight in your eyes, you know…

We cut through Sumida Park after we crossed the river – a small park with a small pond, nothing much to it. There was zero queue for the aquarium (which came as a huge surprise as it was a Saturday after all), so we simply got our tickets and proceeded into the aquarium. I shan’t bore you with the typical photos of the aquarium here (and also to save my bandwidth), so if you wish to see the maritime creatures, please click on the Flickr link at the end of this post.

Lunch was a simple affair at the “food court” of Tokyo Solamachi. Tokyo Solamachi on its own was a HUGE shopping mall, but unfortunately it’s so huge that we got lost many times while I was looking for appropriate gifts to get for my nephew and niece. We took a coffee break at Tokyo Sumida City Point cafe (a small, rather unknown cafe within a retail space). I ordered latte (as usual), while Bruno opted for a yuzu soda. I didn’t really like the coffee, but well, coffee is coffee. I think Bruno quite liked his soda though…

We went out of the building to take a look at the Tokyo Skytree towering above us – it was so difficult to get a full shot of the tower, especially when we were so near it. Oh well.

After attempting to take a few decent shots of the Skytree, we went back to Tokyo Solamachi to hunt for the gifts… and I ended up back at Pokemon centre. Decided on two pairs of chopsticks (Pikachu and Eevee) in the end… although the two kids still don’t know how to use chopsticks, hopefully they’ll have incentives to learn now and to use them in the future.

And just like that, the day was over. We had our dinner at Ichiran – which I still find it to be normal, and which Bruno still raved to no end…

For more photos for this day, as well as for the full sized photos in this post, please visit this Flickr album:  Tokyo 2018 Day 3 (17/11/2018)

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