Saturday, October 25, 2014
The breakfast at our hotel provides both Japanese and American style foods. The Japanese undercook their eggs so much that I can barely eat them -- runny scrambled eggs! We try a bit of many things and go back for more of what we like. Tabitha loves the noodles. I love the plates with all the divided sections. I eat a salad for breakfast. They have the best sesame dressings here. We notice gelatinous squares of aloe in the fruit section. I had no idea we can eat aloe. It's surprisingly delicious. Breakfast offers enough to fill our bellies and get us on our way.
The breakfast at our hotel provides both Japanese and American style foods. The Japanese undercook their eggs so much that I can barely eat them -- runny scrambled eggs! We try a bit of many things and go back for more of what we like. Tabitha loves the noodles. I love the plates with all the divided sections. I eat a salad for breakfast. They have the best sesame dressings here. We notice gelatinous squares of aloe in the fruit section. I had no idea we can eat aloe. It's surprisingly delicious. Breakfast offers enough to fill our bellies and get us on our way.
You hear about how helpful and friendly the Japanese can be,
but it’s still a surprise when someone overhears you asking for directions and
then volunteers to walk you to another subway station, helps you buy your
passes and sends you on your way. It
really is amazing and wonderful! Just so
nice for her to go a block out of her way and make sure we had subway cards and were headed in the right direction. We are eventually
on our way to the Tsukiji fish market.
Things are winding down a bit there, but we still get to see some
interesting looking fish and we see the lines of people at some of the sushi
booths. The lines go down the block and around the corner! No way would I wait in those
lines. Instead, we buy some kind of egg custard
thing on a stick. I thought it was very delicious and this is the only time we'll find warm eggs full cooked. And, as I had read, people don't walk around eating -- you stand there near the booth where you bought the food, eat it, and then give your trash back to the vendor.
Next we walk to the 100% Chocolate Cafe where we
drink a chocolate tea mixture and buy chocolates – we are too full to eat any
of them, but later I find the #48 Milk Tea chocolate is heavenly. Milk Tea will be a common theme. Google maps sends us walking down Ginza street, which is closed off
to cars because it's Saturday. Pretty cool. It makes a busy city feel very spacious. Ginza is the high end shopping area. We stop in one clothing store -- 9 stories tall. We observe a man walking a ferret on a
leash. Our desired destination is Hakahinkan Toy Park –
what a fun store. So much kawaii! Kawaii = cute and I can't help but buy stuff.
$85 later we are on
our way to Hama Rikyu Garden – we go to the Nakajima tea house, which is like a
mini tea ceremony for tourists on the go. We get to eat the “sweet” and drink the tea
and read about the ceremony without the long drawn out process. It's a powered green tea and kind of bitter. The sweet isn't very sweet, but we enjoy the rest for our feet and the overall experience and are quickly on our way.
It’s a very pretty park and we see a couple
of feral cats and little glimpses of the beauty of fall that is just around the
corner. Next we head to Odiaba, which is a man made island with shopping and entertainment. We ride the Yurikamome train across the Rainbow bridge to get there. It has great views but is very crowded -- standing room only. At Odiaba we
walk on the beach – the water is ice cold!
We buy our Disney tickets at the Disney store in "Aqua City" which is a huge shopping and restaurant complex. I know I shouldn't be surprised to see that weekend Disney tickets are sold out weeks in advance. We have planned carefully to go to Disney on the weekdays, but it's still shocking to think of a theme park being full weekend after weekend.
We enjoy a nice
dinner of pasta in a cheese cream sauce with another great sesame dressing salad. The meal cost about $12 and while not a huge portion is enough for us to share.
Next we head over to Pallet Town to ride the giant Ferris wheel – it’s
slow moving and gives great, knee-shaking views. I don't like heights and I can't help but wonder what happens to the Ferris wheel when Tokyo has one of its many earth quakes. Thankfully the ground is still as we finish our ride. We play a few of those claw games in the
arcade and I win a fake food key chain.
Next is what I’ve been looking forward to – an onsen! An onsen is a hot springs and since Japan is basically volcanoes there are onsen all over. Mostly they are small and used by the Japanese for bathing and relaxation (you bathe first in a shower type stall and then you get into the hot springs onsen water to soak). Take note -- if you have tattoos most onsen will not allow you in as tattoos are associated with Japanese organized crime! This onsen, called Onsen Monogatar is kind of like the Disneyland of Onsens. They give you a robe to wear so the two genders can mingle. You wear a bracelet to keep track of all your charges and there are booths of food and drink and ice cream and candy for the kids. It's a Saturday night so it's very busy with people of all ages. There's a great outdoor area where you can soak your feet and massage them by walking on the huge pebbles in the water. There's just enough of a chill in the air to make for a perfect soak in a hot springs.
The full body soaking is separated by gender because it's all nude. My child isn't sure she's up for this but I think the casual attitude of all the naked Japanese helps ease her mind. Plus they give you an over-sized hand towel to cover yourself as you head to the shower stalls and then into the soaking tubs. There are indoor and outdoor tubs and we really like the outdoor ones because it is so warm inside. I'm so thrilled that she embraced this very Japanese experience. It really was a fun night and we treated ourselves to green tea ice cream after our soak. I wish we had more time to visit another onsen. It was really a highlight of the trip for me.
