Showing posts with label asakusa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asakusa. Show all posts

Monday, September 5, 2011

Japan Day 14

Day 14 which was unfortunately was our last full day in Tokyo! Wah!

Our plan was to meet up with Mami in the morning! Yay for seeing Mami again that was a surprise, after contemplating donuts for dinner we ended up with a more traditional Japanese option, fish and rice!


We then got to meet Benny for lunch! Another nice surprise
Walked past the Osamu Tezuka murals in Takadanobaba (try pronouncing that!)
I was reading on the internet that this suburb of Tokyo was apparently Astro boy's birth town. He was meant to be born in 2003 :) It's also cool when you go past Takadanobaba station cause the station's music is the astro boy theme song!





So we were meeting the Waseda gang back at Uni and whilst there was talk of eating cafeteria food again, Mami put her foot down and we ended up in the professor lounge. Benny being the amazingly funny guy that he is, walked in boldly and told them he was a professor of English and he had visiting foreign students with him and next thing you know I'm walking in feeling very under dressed! Safe to say Lunch was amazing!

You can sort of make out all the suits behind Benny, he he. Go Benny what a champ!

We hang around uni a bit longer before Mami was up for some shopping in Ginza

Ben and I are not the biggest fans of Ginza, but I'm a fan of mami :)

They close off the street for shoppers!

We ended up in Abercrombie and fitch which I only know about from American pop songs. It was an interesting experience for me, I walked in and next thing I'm being guided towards a shirtless boy and a polaroid pictures gets handed to me. There also seem to be shop attendants in the foyer paid just to dance!

I had a good giggle at the polaroid anyway :P

Mami did more shopping and then we stopped in at a grocery store, I asked Mami if she could point out okonomiyaki flour and the secret okonomiyaki sauce, so I could make okonomiyaki back home!!  YUM!


Took the obligatory expensive fruit photo, 50 bucks for a mango anyone?

100 bucks for a box of cherries?

In Japan's defense they have an awesome range of mushrooms and cheap :)

It was getting close to dinner and I told Mami the sad tale of being unable to find the Alice in wonderland cafe. Mami being amazing lead us right to the door!

We get to the counter and are greeted with a "We're fully booked"

ahh sad face, but hey there is also another themed restaurant down the road so we try our luck there and success!!




I think cause we didn't book, we didn't get the prime spot at Princess Heart and it's definitely no lock down, but it was still heaps cute and the food was princess themed which made me deliriously happy!  I read that when you arrive you get a tiara but alas no tiaras.  Apparently also boys are only allowed in if they are accompanying their girlfriend :P

First things first a cocktail which came in Cinderella's slipper!

pumpkin carriage!

Corn chip Cinderella

rose bud ham :P

It was a fun cafe and I'm glad after getting horribly lost in our first attempts to find them, Mami was a legend and rocked the iphone map like nobody's business

So unfortunately all good things must come to an end and it was time to say goodbye


oh my goodness how sad are goodbyes!

Miss you Mami!!

Ben and I went back to Asakusa and roamed the night streets with sad faces knowing it was our last night in Tokyo!





One more post to go!





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Saturday, August 20, 2011

Japan Day 12 - Part One

So today's itinerary said "free day".
I decided it would be the day we would ride the famous Asakusa Panda Bus and 
find the equally as famous Asakusa Seiko clock which on the hour promised, 
"mechanical dolls re-enacting scenes from Asakusa's most famous festivals"...
thanks internet! 

So with my scribbled down internet notes we began our search. Asakusa is not that big but we seemed to get horribly lost. I remember from one of our night strolls through the streets, seeing the Panda bus stop sign. Re-finding that proved rather difficult. But I'm not one to give up, especially with the promise of riding on a free shuttle bus that looks like a panda...eekk. During our wondering.


We got distracted by graff, actually Ben did!



Took some happy snaps of Asakusa stuff...




and continued to go round in circles until I noticed a building all fenced off due to construction.
I kind of half joked to Ben that, that was probably the clock building, hence why we had never seen it before...and yup it was the clock building. In sheer desperation we followed the sign pointing to the temporary building down the road. I walked in and asked if the clock was still in existence. The lady looked worried and told me an English speaking lady would be in at 10.

PFFT TO HELL WITH THE DAMN CLOCK!

The panda bus was still to be found.

Minutes passed, then hours, okay maybe just minutes. I was grumpy and decided to throw it all in. Ben stealing some movie line, I'm sure, told me we weren't going to give up, next thing we're asking some helpful Japanese man who just happens to point a few metres over and in broken English tells us they are no longer in operation

PANDA BUS. NOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!



Such a sad sight to see them fenced up!
I figured we must still be suffering the onsen/minakami/bear curse!

I picked myself up and embarked on the next part of the day which was to travel to another place in Tokyo, called Ginza, which I had never been. I think there was a reason I'd never been there before because apart from the lack of cultural diversity there was no other reason to distinguish it from any other high class city. I wanted to go to Ginza cause
1)awesome toy shop
2)Alice in Wonderland themed cafe!

We got horribly lost again

luckily this lovely guy helped us


Despite following his directions we were still lost until, the loveliness that is Japanese society manifested itself through a lady who not only helped us not be lost but walked with us to the toy shop, just in case, lol

The toy shop was good, but I think Ueno's one is better :P




Anyhoo off to find the Alice cafe! I think i'll stop right here and say we never found it *sigh* though we did find this cute statue


and this awesomely large fat cat


and cute buses

Actually they may of been from Asakusa...anyhoo, this really cute Rabbit was definitely a Ginza find


So we never found the Alice cafe. I was really cranky by this point, sorry Ben. I suggested we head to Ueno for some park action to try and savage the day





Ahh cute boats, pikatchu, ducks, turtles and carp...helped to relieve crankiness :P

Stay tuned for part 2!



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