Tokyo2

So the flight to Tokyo was very cheap and very easy. I went during the infamously worst time to visit Japan. Golden Week. Basically it's a week with like 3 national holidays so most Japanese people are traveling and usually domestically. It's the worst time to get hop on the bullet trains and to see the tourist attractions. Luckily I wasn't planning to leave Tokyo city but unluckily I ended up hurting my previously sprained ankle in a brand new way near the end of this part of the trip.

I planned on doing a lot of shopping this time around and stayed at the same APA hotel that I liked. They were just handing out Zima at the lobby? This hotel was the one with the Yoshinoya around the corner so I definitely got some more beef bowls.

I went to Akihabara to try to find some Macross figures for my friend but couldn't find any good deals or a large variety. There were plenty of Gundams and military models though. I took photos of a bunch of Japan only video games. There was a whole section of fax machines!

One of the places I missed out on the first time I went was this Chicken Nanban spot. It's only open for a few hours during the day and there was a bit of a line. It's basically fried chicken marinated in sweet vinegar smothered with tartar sauce. Apparently it's a regional dish in Japan and not a lot of places serve this.

I guess since it was Golden Week and everyone was on holiday the area was so crowded. This is about five times more people than I'd seen in Akihabara the last time I was there. I very thorough checking out every store in the neighborhood searching for good deals.

Finally tried Coco Ichibanya at my friend's behest. It was really solid for a semi fast food chain. They're a Japanese curry chain and they sell boxes of their curry at the restaurant.

Between this trip and last time I learned about this Godiva Bakery. Apparently it's the first and only Godiva Bakery? It was very popular and I simply just started putting everything on my tray that looked interesting to me while on line. I didn't have time to translate all of them so the brioche looking thing surprised me; it had a curry filling! For being a Godiva branded bakery it didn't have an overwhelming amount of chocolate. I think this brownie was the only thing I really expected to find at this place. All the flavors were pretty muted so I imagine it'd be the opposite of what Americans would expect.

I set off to find Teamlab Borderless. It was inside this luxury mall. There were very private looking restaurants and bakeries inside. I had to wait for my timeslot so I got something from the 7-11 and ended up walking by a Japanese Youtube creator that I follow. She does traditional Japanese cooking and often wears a Kimono because she was traditionally trained to be a Maiko, an apprentice Geisha. So it was very surreal to see her in person and in a Kimono so I recognized her right away.

Teamlab Borderless