Tokyo Anniversary (2019)
We were trying to decide what we are going to do for our 2 Year Anniversary Celebration. We thought about dressing up really fancy and going to Canlis for dinner, but then Juan found an amazing flight deal to Tokyo for March 2019! Right before the sakura bloom season. We thought about it for a minute - literally a minute - because the next minute we purchased flight tickets! It was so exciting I started planning the same night. Planners gonna plan, y’all. 😂
Since I plan our travels 3-4 months out. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that we were talking about Anniversary planning in December while our anniversary is actually in February. heh. Well, since I plan way early, I was able to book hotels for cheaper than their usual rate and did enough research that our experience never overlap. Except for some of our favorite food spots. So here we are, in Tokyo again at last. Let’s GO!
Our Hotel’s View & (below) Our Dinner before we passed out due to jetlag / Juan has been craving this for a whole year+. He was so happy!
Official Day 1!
We decided to take Day 1 a bit slower and just meander a bit. We did want to get ourselves back to Shibuya because we loved it and didn’t get to explore more the last time we were there. But first, breakfast. I found this place within Tokyo Station that serves proper breakfast and I was so happy! During our walk to the Cat Cafe, I found a spot to take a picture of JuanPa. He looked so handsome! We then visited a Cat Cafe around Shibuya and got to pet and play with some cats before walking around to shop. It was such a lovely sunny day. We were super excited and extra happy to be back in our favorite city together. And of course, we had some dessert as well. 🍦
Shibuya is such a fun place for us to explore. It doesn’t matter how many times we go, there are always more things to explore. We walked into a random building and discovered a bunch of murals painted on the walls of each level stairwells! Here are a few shots of my favorite murals, also, it was good exercise that by the time we are done exploring that building, we got really hungry. The hunger was just in time for our reservation at Kobe Teppanyaki Hakushu. We both never had 神戸ビーフ Kobe Beef before and definitely not ones that was cooked by an old japanese lady in front of us. She was really specific about which sauce goes with what. It was really great!
Jetlag always affects me badly, so if you see the last picture, you will see how my eyes are just ready to close. Night night.
Teamlab Borderless was absolutely stunning.
I have a hard time describing the feeling of being surrounded by digital art that responds to our movements. Although, I do remember the moment my eyes filled with tears listening to the music accompanying room filled with strings of lights and mirrors called Crystal World. I love the creativity and hear they pour into this installation. I also read that they are doing a new outdoors installation at Kairakuen Garden which will start Feb 13-March 21 2021. If you are reading this and happen to be in Tokyo, please go check it out (but also be safe and take safety precautions against covid-19). It looked amazing from what I see on the website.
From there, we were a hop-skip over to check out Gundam Odaiba Installation and Takoyaki Museum. Which turned out to be so much more than just about Takoyaki. There are so many vintage video games, art pieces and shops. So glad we went per our dear friend Ayako’s suggestion. In one of the pictures, Juan was helping me ink my lettering piece. It was really nice having an inking assistant.
The next day we ran into a bit of a gray day that turned sunny as we go through the day.
In the morning we had made a reservation to go to a newly opened Pokémon Cafe inside the Pokémon Center Tokyo DX. We went as a part of research I’m doing for some of the elements in the US Pokémon office updates. I enjoyed going back and seeing some of these pictures. Since I no longer work for Pokémon Company International, I do miss seeing new inspirational items they shipped from Japan to the US office. I often wonder if I’d go back to Pokémon Center the next time we travel to Japan? That’s still to be determined. After PC, we decided we want to go on a stroll through Ueno Park. We were too early for Japan Cherry Blossom Festival, but we got glimpses of beautiful Cherry Blossom Trees さくら and this really confident raven walking around the park. It did not give a hoot (maybe because he wasn’t an owl, heh, heh, heh) that I got really close to take it’s picture.
We also got to try out proper Katsu lunch at Katsukura Ueno location. It was DE-LICIOUS! One favorite thing I learned about Katsu lunch we did was that we get to combine our own katsu sauce. They provided us with sesame seeds to grind to our taste and a selection katsu sauce to mix! ALSO, there’s free refill on rice and cabbage. I didn’t get any refills though because I ate the rest of Juan’s soup and cabbage. He is quite picky with his soup and veggies and my motto in life is: Waste not want not. We are a really good match. 😉
And of course, no meal is complete without soft serve for Juan. In this picture, he’s already looking for more soft serves in the horizon. We then walked our full bellies to the market area of Ueno called Ameya-Yokocho. There were so many street food stalls but, well, we were happily full that we jotted this place for next time. Juan told me before we gear up for travel that he really wanted a cool jacket from Japan. So, we decided to do a bit of hunting here in Ameya-Yokocho. Which was very fruitful!
We closed out the day by going to a Burlesque Show in Roppongi area called Burlesque Tokyo. I’m gonna be honest, I was quite hesitant. The ladies were really pretty and friendly - but generally I just don’t enjoy being touched by strangers or touching strangers. They gave us fake money to tip the ladies and one lady fed me chicken strips and won’t let me grab some myself. 😳😳😳 I was so hungry but didn’t want to ask to be fed some more. I gotta give it to the main show MC and the dancing these ladies did, it wasn’t easy!
Oh, that reminds me, they asked where we are from and wanted to see if Juan want to get on stage. To that, I signaled with my eyes “NO.” lol. To be fair, Juan would have said no himself because he is quite shy. I’ve got a few pictures I snapped. (They allow you to take pictures, some of the dancers even took pictures with us on their phones!) We were also glad that Juan didn’t say yes, because the guy who ended up saying yes went on stage and the MC swapped place with one of the ladies and pretend to be one of the ladies and danced on him! It was definitely very funny for people who were watching!
If you ask me, we won’t do any more Burlesque shows, I am shy around people when they have little clothings on and I just generally don’t like being touched by strangers. We had a fun “once in a lifetime” experience so that part was good. Note: We also didn’t like Roppongi at night time - it felt seedy and unlike Japan we enjoy. We ended up doing a bit of googling about Roppongi and found out that our feelings were not wholly unfounded. If you are curious, you could google what people say about it.
Tokyo Disney Sea!
I think I mentioned we love Theme Parks. So, of course we would sneak in Disney Sea into one of the days. We thought we were being sneaky by getting our tickets for a Tuesday making the assumption that we won’t be running into a big crowd. We were… wrong. Apparently it was the week where japanese school kids are on their break. We saw so many middle and high-schoolers. Thank goodness they were polite and courteous for the most part. *phew.
We saw this cute phenomenon(?)-not sure what to call it- where they would wear their school uniform to go to Disney Sea. At first I thought, wow, this is a whole lot of kids skipping school - what is going on? Well, apparently, they get discounts if they wear their school uniforms to theme parks. ALSO, when they aren’t wearing their uniform, they seem to dress to match each other. We saw many pairs of two and three girls wearing twin like clothing and accessories. We did a little fun game waiting in line trying to spot ones that are in pairs. But honestly, might be easier to spot ones that aren’t. 😂 On top of that, couples were also wearing matching clothing. It was totally cute overload. (Can you spot the pairs in some of the pics? hehe) We also got Juan his soft serve fix. The soft-serve at Disney Sea was really wonderful though, so I also got one.
To reward ourselves after a whole day of walking inside theme parks, we decided to go to our favorite Ramen Spot again, when in Tokyo, amirite? Also sharing a cute picture of Juan i took in front of a building nearby… I want to say Tokyo Station, but don’t quote me on that! He is wearing a jacket we got from Ameya-Yokocho Ueno the day before. It was the perfect jacket because the weather was super pleasant and sunny. And he looks super handsome in them. A++
Museum Days are my favorite days!
Juan did a bit of research and found a really great museum for us to check out. The museum is called Mori Museum they are located in Roppongi Hills. I must note that Roppongi is actually quite pleasant during the day, but unfortunately the food around the area was Shake Shack and various other western inspired fast-food. Which I am not really about. We were so glad we had a quick japanese bakery run before going into the museum. Note: I am not very pleasant when I’m hungry. (oops)
This installation was one of my favorites in Mori Museum. It was set in a separate room you have to walk into, and the minute I walked in, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. I sat inside this room for a little bit, absorbing the feeling. Juan and I are polar opposites when it comes to the way we experience museums. I personally don’t like reading the description before looking at the piece of art. I like getting my emotional response before reading. Juan would read first before looking at any art pieces. Throughout the museum walk through though, it was really nice to have Juan tells me the gist of what the artist meant to set across in the art piece.
After the museum, we went a few floors up to check out Tokyo City View. It offers 360° view of Tokyo which was so amazing. Coincidentally, it is a great day to snap some pictures as the sky is blue and bright. Afterwards we decided to take a long walk to find this bakery I found while trolling for Japanese food experiences on Instagram. Along the way we happened upon these large murals we had to take pictures infront of.
Back to the bakery talk, we went to this spot called Shirohige’s Cream Puff Factory and oh.my.goodness aren’t they so cute? We decided to take a seat and savor this experience. They also have a sort of Japanese Italian Food being served in the cafe as well, but I can’t seem to find that information online. I think this spot is worth the visit. Our Totoro Cream Puffs were too cute to eat, but heartless and hungry we were, we ate them!
We are doing food stuff in reverse today, we ate dessert first before we went to Shin Udon for ACTUAL lunch. It was about 3.30pm then. We ordered a couple different items to try out and they were so so so delicious. My favorite Udon Shop in the entire world. (p/s: if you have other suggestions, drop me an email. I have zero allegiance when it comes to food, ha.ha.) Juan was playing Monster Hunter Game around this time of our travel so he was super stoked to find out that they opened a Monster Hunter themed cafe in Shinjuku. The last time we came to this area, there was actually a Capcom Cafe in the same spot. What we figured is that they most likely cycle these cafes based on popular game(s) at the time! Which is quite clever and most probably cost-efficient?
Juan was saying that he wished there’s a market in the US for themed video game cafes. Who knows, but I secretly want it to be a Japan only thing. Just so we can visit more often. ha.
Kamatama Tokachi Parmesan cheese with Butter pepper and bacon heaven. Yum!
We weren’t ready to close out the day yet as it was still quite early. So we spent a couple of hours walking around Shinjuku area. We didn’t realize it was 8PM when our stomach started growling - by our I mean mine. I didn’t have anything solid planned for dinner because we got our lunch/breakfast/dessert plan turned around this day. Juan was on it though, he looked through reddit and actually found an obscure spot we can walk over. Boy, did he do a good job because the ramen was a bit more like Dan Dan Noodles in flavor. It was so delicious.
This place was so obscure that we actually couldn’t figure out what to order on the vending machine. The man working in the shop didn’t speak much english and we are very ashamed to say we didn’t know how to communicate in Japanese well enough. So we… mimed. It worked out eventually and we got our delicious ramen!
At the end of the meal, we watched them offer steamed rice to soak the remainder meat sauce from the bowl to other customers. So, we mimed again and asked for rice! ahhhh, it was so good. The place is called Menya Hanabi. It looks like it is permanently closed in Shinjuku (why!) but they have a location in Arcadia, California. If you live close by, you might be able to get some to-go.
Yokohama!
We spent our last day in Tokyo visiting Yokohama in the morning. Bright and early. I’ve been seeing tons of online raves about how Japanese pancakes are so so so delicious, so I found this place in Yokohama that is said to have great pancakes: West Bay Cafe Yokohama. See below picture for the proof of large and really really soft fluffy pancakes.
Right before heading to Chinatown, we did went through Department Store Basement/Underground Food Court. It is a very common thing in Japan to have these Depachika* where they sell desserts, prepared food, lunch boxes, popular treats and gourmet delicacies! I’m sharing all these pictures I took of all the food because… oh my gosh. They look so good.
*A depachika is the basement floor of department stores where usually food and groceries are sold. Its name came from the combination of "depa" which is the abbreviation of "department" (store) and "chika" which means "basement" in Japanese.
We wanted to go to Yokohama during our honeymoon but it was something we just couldn’t swing. I am so happy we got to go this time around. There are a few things we would AND have eventually done differently in Yokohama the following November 2019 (We made a pit stop in Tokyo before heading over to Jakarta, but that’s another travel journal). This time around though, we made a mistake of eating a full blown lunch at a -really great- restaurant that caused us to walk around so full and weren’t able to sample the street food. I was crying inside because I didn’t have two stomachs to eat all the food. 😢 The key takeaway from this restaurant (I forgot the name, ごめんね) is that we found out Juan likes 麻婆豆腐 Mapo-Tofu and he did have some dumplings that is, quoting him, “The best pan fried dumplings I’ve ever had.”
Travel tip: When in Yokohama, snacking is key! Walk around and sample all the street food because they are awesome at Yokohama Chinatown!
After lunch we went for a stroll along Yokohama Bay and went to check out Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. I thoroughly enjoyed this type of shopping malls in Japan because they have all kinds of merch and they are mostly small indie artists owned. They are my faves! There are cafes and food court and we get to also enjoy the sun shining in our faces when we rested our feet from walking a long way. It was such a lovely way to spend the day.
I gush about Juan all the time, and I’m gonna gush again now. He is one of the most patient people I’ve ever met. He humor me with all my little quirks and he is always so pleasant and positive. We laugh a lot together walking hand in hand sightseeing during this trip. There are times during this trip that I felt overwhelmed and he’s not only always understanding, he find ways to lighten my spirit. I love this picture of us in the courtyard. Two lovebirds squinting in the sun.
For our last night in Tokyo, Juan found us a 4 years in a row Michelin rated Ramen 🍜 . They were reasonably priced with a very long line, but at this point, we are used to standing in line for our meals as many shops in Tokyo are quite small. This ramen shop is called Nakiryu, their ramen and chashu bowl were worth the wait and worth every penny we spent. It was the loveliest way to end our Anniversary trip.
