So, after 3 sleepless nights, I finally decided to go ahead and book another room for the next 3 nights – so that I can sleep. Yes, I couldn’t sleep properly for 3 days due to Bruno’s snoring. Enough was enough – I’d rather spend the money so that I can get proper rest before I fall sick. It was fortunate that the hotel still had available rooms – and it wasn’t as expensive as I thought. Around S$300 for 3 nights – pretty decent price considering the hotel is in Tokyo.
It was difficult to explain to the reception why I booked an additional room in the middle of my stay though.. but he managed to understand in the end, so all’s good!
Today’s plan was a “surprise visit” (didn’t manage to hide the surprise till the very end though), together with a trip to Kyu-Furukawa Garden and Rikugien Garden. The “surprise” visit was actually Yanaka Ginza, or known more as the “cat street”. This name, however, seems to be slightly misplaced… we hardly see any cats while we were there. =(
While my breakfast was a melon pan bread bought from Asakusa (which I ate in the hotel), Bruno’s was a slice of apple pie from a pie shop named Mammies an Sourire at Yanaka Ginza which I found on Google Maps. The slice of apple pie was chockful of HUGE apple pieces. I didn’t try it, but it seemed like Bruno loved it! After devouring his apple pie, we went next door (literally) for coffee at Yanaka Coffee-ten. It’s like a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, but it even roasts its own coffee beans. The coffee was way too strong – their latte was literally just black coffee with some milk (which means it’s actually “white americano”, not latte). I’m not saying it’s not good… it’s just not the type of coffee that we enjoy drinking. I like the smell of coffee shops that roast their own beans though…
By the time we finished our coffee, the shops along the main Yanaka Ginza streets were slowly opening for business. We passed by a few shops that sell fried items, until I couldn’t resist and joined the queue to buy some fried squid and croquette. We just stood by the roadside and finished them all. The people manning the stall were all quite fierce though… they yelled at tourists who tried to take photos of their items or the shop itself. Shortly after chomping down the fried stuff, Bruno wanted to try the takoyaki shop which we stumbled upon in a small alley… so off we went. It was pretty interesting…. the takoyaki came bare, and we had to put the mayo and sauce and bonito flakes ourselves. There was a Japanese lady customer seated next to Bruno and she pushed the sauces to us and gestured for us to put the sauces ourselves. She even stood up and grabbed two empty cups from the counter and poured ice water for us. (We saw the ice water but we didn’t get it as we didn’t really want to drink icy water in such cold weather…) We felt slightly embarrassed but at the same time, we appreciated her help.
We then headed towards Kyu-Furukawa Garden, while trying to search for a lunch place. Unfortunately after we left Yanaka Ginza, there was really not much food places around or near Kyu-Furukawa Garden. We ended up going for the ONLY restaurant that we came across in a long while – and it was supposedly a tea restaurant. Or should I say – a restaurant that specialises in food using tea leaves…
Their lunch menu for the day was tea-infused pork stew with toast. Errrrrr it was interesting, to say the least. I’m not exactly a huge fan of the taste, but it wasn’t too bad… The price was decent since it comes with coffee – about S$12.50.
Finally fueled up, we went to Kyu-Furukawa Garden and wow, the changing of colours were certainly more obvious there. Roses too, were in full bloom within the rose bed in front of the mansion. Some photos here, but a lot more if you click on the Flickr album link at the end of this post!
After spending a couple of hours at Kyu-Furukawa Garden, we then walked all the way to Rikugien Garden, and stayed there till their Autumn illumination. There’s nothing much to write about – just an experience of camping at a spot and waiting for darkness to fall and the lights to come on.
Our legs were both dead tired by the time we left Rikugien Garden. Initially my plan was to head to Ginza for Hannosuke tendon, but I seriously doubt we would even make it there with our legs dying, so we simply just dragged ourselves to Ichiban Coco (which we remembered passing by while walking from Kyu-Furukawa Garden to Rikugien) for dinner and much needed rest, before heading back to the hotel.
And yay, I finally got a room for myself! With a Skytree view to boot! Finally, I got my much needed sleeeeeeeeeeep….
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 4 (18/11/2018)
To return to Japan Trip 2018 content page, please click here.
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