Seeing Old Friends and Exploring Asakusa (11-19-2023)
Our second day finally saw us meeting up with our friends! We left our hotel in Kabukicho and took a train over to Asakusa. Stacy and Nando were kind enough to allow us to leave our bags in their room until our own check-in time in Asakusa at 3 PM. But we were finally together! Kristen and Aaron had been feeling a little more ill and stayed in their own room for the day to recover. Hoping they feel better before long and all six of us can finally be together again!
We talked about how everyone's trip had already been going while we made our way over to Senso-ji temple. It's a place I've been to every trip, but it's still pretty crazy to see. It seems like most times I've visited, either the famous large red paper lantern has been covered for repairs, or the whole temple itself was covered up for renovations. Finally, for the first time in a long while, I was able to see it all uncovered all at once.
It's just as busy as ever. Not just with tourists, but with locals as well. It's a famous hot spot for everybody, and it was Sunday, so everyone could enjoy their day off at the same time. The street leading up to the temple itself is always crowded and hard to walk through. It's a real tourist trap, but something about it is kinda still fun to see. For the most part, the shops are a bunch of random cheap things that tourists often get suckered in by, but sometimes there were some nice-looking food stalls. Stacy has been collecting stamps at temples and shrines and went to collect the Senso-ji stamp. Josh and I bathed ourselves in the smoking incense and went up the stairs to experience the prayer at the temple.
Lunchtime was fast approaching, and we went to find someplace to eat. Because of Stacy's dietary restrictions for health reasons, she has already done good research on places that serve gluten-free food that she can eat safely. One such place was Umaimon Azuma, also in Asakusa. I wrote my name down for us on the short waiting list, and when we were called in we were directed upstairs, where we removed our shoes and sat at tables with lowered floors. An experience I wasn't expecting, but I'm glad we did it!
Both Josh and I ordered chashu ramen, and when we did we thought we understood chashu well enough to know what we were getting, but in the end we were very pleasantly surprised! When our food came out, the bowl of ramen sat on one side of the serving plate, while on the other side was a sizzling dish with the cuts of pork in it. The pork had been marinated, and it came out cooked and sizzling like a plate of fajitas! I'd never even heard of something like this being done for ramen! I had to try one piece of the pork before putting it in the ramen. Wow, even all by itself, that marinated sizzling pork was incredible! Both Josh and I added the pork to our ramen bowl, and even scooped up some of the marinade to pour into the broth. Wow, what a rich flavor it all became together! A great food experience, and one I never would have thought to consider on my own.
I may have pushed myself to finish even when I was full, so I was feeling just mildly uncomfortable after eating, but it was fine since we were going to walk it off. We spend a little time walking through some nearby shopping arcades, then finding actual game center arcades. The two we found nearby were ones that I believe I've been to at some point before. They're cool, but they aren't the most full and complete arcade experiences that I'm looking to have, but there's plenty of time to do that later.
We found a food cart serving candied strawberries. Four strawberries were stuck on a stick and had been dipped in a thin, sweet, crunchy, sugary candy coating. Japan just has really, really good strawberries.
We finally hit the Asakusa Don Quijote. Every Don Quijote is just a little bit different. I think the Asakusa one is more pleasant to walk through than the Kabukicho one. Less crowded, slightly more walking space. And we got to actually hear the Don Quijote theme playing inside this one! "Don, Don, Don, Donki, Don Quijote!" They were playing my jam.
Stacy and Nando were on their own mission to buy snacks, gifts, and other goodies to bring back. Orange Kit Kats, an impressive kitchen knife, among other things. Josh and I didn't have anything specific in mind, although we got curious about the taste of the Japnese-packaged Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper cans and each bought one of those. I'd also found a box of Nestle chocolate milk I'd never seen before called Chuckie. I figured it very likely was another country's packaging of Nesquik (it definitely was an import, even for Japan, and wasn't Japanese at all). But the box and the cartoon character on the front kinda cracked me up, so I had to try it. Well, certainly, all those things tasted exactly as expected. Mountain Dew is Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper is Dr. Pepper, and this weird Nestle chocolate drink was definitely just Nesquik.
We went back to the hotel room to pick up our bags one last time and took them to our own hotel for check-in. We aren't staying in the same hotel. We'd found a slightly cheaper one that better suited our budget, extremely close to everybody else, just a single train stop away. But even then, walking to our own hotel from theirs was only 13 minutes and pretty hassle-free. We got set up in our own room, rested for a bit, then got ourselves ready to go back out again for dinner with the others.
Dinner was another one meant to meet Stacy's dietary needs, at a restaurant in the underground mall area of Tokyo Station called Soranoiro Nippon. This one seemed like a pretty popular spot for people. Orders were made at a ticket machine, and then we stood in line behind others who'd already purchased their own tickets. We waited a little while, but it was bearable! When we were finally seated, it wasn't long before our ticketed orders came out. Josh and I both got the same ramen as each other once again. It may sound like were already doing quite a lot of ramen, but if we don't go this hard on ramen now, we're not gonna get the chance to do it again for a long time! Once again, the bowl surprised us. Not only was there pork in the bowl, but also turkey!? I had no idea there would be a second meat, let alone turkey. Super good! Definitely not expected! Again, although our meals are dictated by dietary restrictions, the selections we find there have ended up being quite good and surprising. Really glad we made the trip out!
There were plenty of other things to see in the underground shopping mall. Stacy found a store selling tasty banana treats that she could also safely eat. Meanwhile, Josh realized he was extremely close to the relatively recently-established Kamen Rider Store, but they were going to close in ten minutes! He ran to the other end of the shopping strip, where the store was waiting at the end. I'm so glad he found something he could really get excited over. There was exclusive merch at that store that was really hard to find anywhere else. He cam out with a small bag of goodies just a few minutes before they closed up. What a great find!
Stacy had been curious to see if there was anything interesting to see about the Imperial Palace in the dark. We walked kind of a long ways to get there, but of course it was shrouded in darkness. Which is fine. We'll be going back on a later day to see it when it's open anyway, and the walk was nice and pleasant.
Our route back was also pretty smooth. Since our two hotels were only a single train station apart, we got to take the same train lines together almost all the way back.
Super tired after all our adventuring, but I think we're pretty well-rested after everything, and are ready to do another day of adventuring. Time to get moving yet again!
