Hard to believe today will be our last full day in Tokyo.

We headed over to Yoyogi Park again to catch some markets. It was tricky to find, we stumbled on some weird J-Pop single launch by accident, and nearly gave up. Thankfully we persevered and found the markets as they were full of Marthese’s People (vegetarians), and Tez got to eat a vegetarian Bento box while watching some kids sing and dance on stage. The markets were OK, but to be honest we do them much better Down Under. The absence of cool kids and cosplayers in Yoyogi Park was a bit of a letdown, musn’t be the season for them.

We popped into the insanely busy Harajuku shopping strip for a chocolate sundae, but left soon after, just too many people. Instead we headed back to Shibuya and spent the afternoon checking out Loft and Tokyu Hands department stores.

More friendly Japanese people today, including a cashier who laughed at our choice of mug (featuring a French Bulldog called Emma) and some friendly young women who let us share their table in a busy cafe. I will definitely miss the pleasantness and politeness of Japanese people.

What I won’t miss is the inconsistency of which credit cards work in which stores, and the scarcity of ATMs that accept international cards. A bad combination for tourists looking to spend all their money. Best to be organised and get cash out when you can.

Hoping for a quiet afternoon.

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The Edo-Tokyo Museum hit exactly the spot Marthese and I were most interested in – tracking the development of Edo from the 1600s under the Tokugawa Shogunate, becoming Tokyo in 1886, and its development into the city it is today. With artefacts, models, and recreated buildings and rooms, the museum is an excellent representation of a City and a culture’s evolution over 400 years, with a notable focus on day-to-day living.

The next mission of the day was to visit one of Tokyo’s infamous pet cafes. To our delight, there is a rabbit cafe in Shimokitazawa, our favourite suburb. Usagi no Ehon was one of the stranger cafes I’ve ever visited. Very pink, with children’s books lined up along the walls and gentle nursery-rhymes playing in the background. Oh, and of course there are rabbits. For a small hourly fee and a one drink minimum (non-alcoholic) you get to hang out with some pretty cute rabbits, feed them and try to pat them (they were often shy). Quite a pleasant afternoon really.

Up a long street we actually found a place that served vegan ramen using the “Happy Cow” app. Marthese had a curry dish and I had a surprisingly delicious Ramen. Full of warm goodness, we wandered back to the Petit Garden where we were drinking a few nights ago and spent some time relaxing there. I may have had too much sake. That may be why this blog post is coming in late.

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Marthese is much smarter than I am. When she’s tired, she has relaxing days to recuperate. I hit the streets like an over-excited dog and wear myself into the ground.

My attempt to book a last minute ticket to the Ghibli Museum was a failure, so instead I wandered around Shibuya with 2 missions – music and geekdom. I spent around an hour listening to different J-Pop artists in Tower Records, browsed several vinyl record stores (including HMV), and perused weird Anime books, toys and collectibles at Animate, Village Vanguard and Mandrake.

I somehow managed to spend no money in any of these stores. I would like to be publicly recognised and celebrated for my accomplishment.

Our pledge to not over-exert ourselves this holiday failed today. We return home exhausted, but happy. I’m quite sure I’ve pulled a muscle in my left leg but I’ll wait for our quiet time in Hakone before I let it take serious rest.

Ueno was our morning stop, where we checked out the fairly average markets (we were definitely spoilt by Shimokitazawa yesterday) then wandered around the Edo period shrine in Ueno Park. A short walk East took us to the Tokyo National Museum where we got our fill of Japanese art & culture, mostly from the Edo period, before deciding we weren’t in the mood for anymore museums, and we jumped on a train to Shinjuku.

Shinjuku-Gyoen (garden) was a beautiful respite as we strolled through the lovely park which is surrounded by bustle and skyscrapers. We followed this by a short walk through Shinjuku and a highly successful shop at “creative” department store Tokyu Hands.

Our accommodation comes with a portable wifi device, which has made navigating this complex city infinitely more manageable.  I highly recommend future visitors rent one. Despite this, we still struggled to locate our dinner venue, with Google Maps getting very confused as we moved from dense street to street. The final destination was worth it, a Turkish restaurant with lots of good vegetarian options.

Our last stop was the super nerdy 8-Bit Cafe, a small hidden venue up some dodgy stairs that we would have never known existed if not for some earlier Googling. The cafe is literally stuffed full of 80s and 90s nerd nostalgia – Famicons, Dreamcasts, Manga, Neo Geos, VHS tapes – and had a bunch of SNES and Gameboy Advance/Colour games you could play all night. Obviously, I was in some sort of heaven, and Marthese was the greatest for indulging my nerdy wonderment for as long as she did.

Marthese stuck with her Santory Whiskey and Ginger Beer that has served her well this trip, while I drank lots of Sake and a weird bourbon concoction. The poor quality of this blog post is due to this. Gnight, love you all.

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Today I spared Marthese my pilgrimage to Akihabara, the nexus point of all Japanese nerd and tech culture, and ventured there on my own. The “Electric Town” district is full of 8 story buildings with unique technology, gaming and anime stores on each level. Obviously, I had a ball. Yotsuba & Danboard was a highlight, with toys and collectibles from many Japanese games I enjoyed (Danganrompa, Persona, Metal Gear Solid) as well as an entire level featuring Star Wars, Marvel and DC collectibles.

But the main attraction, my Mecca, was Super Potato. Hidden away up some dodgy stairs is 3 levels of retro gaming paradise. Floor to roof games from every console era you reminder, not to mention stacks of old Famicons, Sega-CDs and Virtual Boys you can pickup for quite reasonable prices! I held myself back from maxing out my credit card and settled on a few trinkets for some folks back home. Walked out of that building with a huge, nostalgic grin on my face. Even though Super Potato is an active store, it inadvertently doubles as one of the best museums of gaming in the world.

In stark contrast, Shimokitazawa is a hipster’s paradise, littered with second hand clothes stores and funky bars. This is where Marthese and I spent our afternoon, and it was the respite from the city we never knew we needed. While the South side of the tracks is quite bustling, the North side is calm and cool, where Marthese actually enjoyed shopping (she’s not often a fan) and even I found some t-shirts to buy. A lovely dinner at “Rainbow” was followed by a few drinks at Petit Garden, a gorgeous little bar with an almost fairytale cabin theme. Marthese and I drank Santory Whiskey and Ginger Ale while imagining a potential future where we lived in Shimokitazawa. An incredible afternoon.

Tonight, we don’t want to ever leave Japan.

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Today’s feature attraction is Nikko, a World Heritage listed area of old shrines, temples and tall cedar trees around 2.5 hours out of Tokyo.

We found ourselves with some time to kill in Asakusa before our train transfer, so wandered around for a little while. We walked up to the rather ugly Asahi building (a huge structure with a larger golden poo sitting atop it) and checked out a charming row of stalls that led to the entrance of a significant Buddhist temple.

We got to Nikko at around lunch time and headed for Gyoshentei, another shozi ryori joint we found in the lonely planet. Neither of us had expected it to be the trip highlight that it was!

Gyoshentei was like stepping into a  romanticised version of Japan’s past – with a sparse dining room overlooking a striking garden with bonzai trees on show, and softly spoken hostesses in immaculate kimonos providing outstanding service. Marthese had yet another vegetarian feast, claiming it was even better than yesterday, and I had the most impressive “bento” I’ve ever had. We could’ve stayed there all day!

We eventually made our way up through the gorgeous tall trees to Tosho-Gu, a shrine and resting place for one of Japan’s earliest and most significant shoguns. After exploring a while, the sound of drums was met with the crack of thunder, and a downpour began. Clutching our umbrellas we headed back to the train station for the long ride home.

The station yielded yet another delicious treat – a scallop with tofu skin filled with red bean that is CRAZY DELICIOUS and a Nikko specialty.

A further exploration of Asakusa’s cute shops were in order before returning to Shibuya where Marthese joined me for Burger Quest at MOS Burger (her rice burger was pretty average) and we finished the day off with a quiet drink at an Irish pub.

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One of the first things Marthese booked on our trip was a cooking class in Tokyo. Shame she forgot all about it.

We decided against a day trip out of town this morning, and we were getting ready to head out to explore Tokyo when Marthese suddenly noticed a circle on her map – the cooking class! Thankfully we realised we had over an hour to get there (our calendar entry was on Sydney time, an hour earlier) so we grabbed our coffees, walked through Roppongi and made it to the Akasaka Teran just on time.

Just as well, the cooking course was a treat. Traditional “Shokin Ryori” style, which is a very very old vegetarian Buddhist cuisine. Our teacher, Masami, showed us how to make Asparagus and Snow Peas with Sesame Dressing (definitely the highlight) and Parched Tofu and Vegetables. We used some ingredients neither of us were familiar with, and I cooked up tofu for the first time.

We then took our meals, along with some edamame-style beans and miso soup Masami had prepared, and ate them in the small temple beside the kitchen. Masami’s husband owned the temple, and apparently it gets quite busy on weekends. The food was delicious, and while Masami’s English was quite broken, she made extensive efforts to stay engaged with us and was an absolutely outstanding host.

Following our veggie feast we walked around Roppongi, the white-touristy end of town, and headed up to the Roppongi Hills Mori Tower to catch an awesome view of the city and the Star Wars Visions exhibition. Lucky me 🙂 The exhibition featured lots of new artwork inspired by the Star Wars series done in dozens of different styles, lots of scale replicas of ships and locations from Star Wars,  and some amazing props and costumes from the films, including most of the original main cast costumes, lightsabers, and blasters. SO COOL. Sadly, pictures were not allowed in the exhibition.

To cross another burger off my list, and to counteract the health benefits of my long morning walk and nutritious vegetarian lunch, I smashed a Wendy’s burger while Marthese shopped at Zara. Neither are particularly Japanese things, but they seem to do it better here 🙂

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Our big rule for this trip is that Elias must curb his desire to see everything and fill every day with exhausting activities.

I’m doing ok. I couldn’t quite sleep in as much as Marthese this morning, and decided to pop out solo to Shibuya for a quick shop and a burger. Explored Tsutaya where I finally found a 3DS case that I won’t be embarrassed about pulling out on the bus, tried a “Freshness Burger”, the first of what I hope to be many Japanese burger chains, and popped into a Pachinko machine parlor. Pachinkos are basically this weird fusion of pinball and poker machines, and they’re huge in Japan. The sound inside the building was deafening, like a million metal balls crashing around your ears. Madness.

We did a little grocery shop (mostly to stock up on vegetarian options) and spent the day chillin’.

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Damn, that was something special!

For my birthday, Marthese organised an evening at one of the best Kobe Steak restaurants in Japan (we’re still not entirely sure what it’s called, we think it might be called simply “Kobe Steak”). Our chef cooked on the hotplate directly in front of us and chatted with us all night, while cooking absolutely divine meat and veggies for us. The steak was out of control delicious, basically melted in my mouth. Despite the chef being politely bemused by Marthese’s vegetarianism (“Do you drink alcohol?”) and at one point cutting up small pieces of the steak for her to try, he was entirely accommodating and ensured Marthese had a wonderful meal. A truly memorable meal, one that will be hard to beat! Thanks, Marthese, an incredible birthday treat.

The restaurant was in Ginza, the classier end of town, and we popped into the Sony Building before dinner and checked out the wonderfully presented showcase. It still feels like a missed opportunity that they haven’t got permanent historical exhibitions, opting instead to have their top floor exhibition space dedicated to Mariah Carey music videos in “HD”. A fun visit though, and I stopped myself from buying a super fancy new tablet to replace this dying one. Got Tez some much needed Noise Canceling headphones for surprisingly cheap, though!

After our feast we made our way back to Shibuya to take in the lights and some live music on the street. Heading back to our apartment, we popped into a small basement bar where I suspect we paid a little too much for the amount of Sake they gave us, but the peaceful atmosphere and charming hosts (one who spoke passable English and another who spoke none) made it worthwhile.

These hosts were also quite curious about Marthese’s vegetarianism. “Do you eat beef? Oh, no, OK. Um, do you eat fish? OOOHH, OK. Do you eat cheese? AH YES! Aaahhhhh, cheeeeesee!!! Very good!”

Below are some photos from Marthese’s mobile:

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The sun came out today, so we walked.

40 minutes from our door on foot and we arrived at Yoyogi, home of the Meiji Shrine where the titular Emperor is buried. A beautiful walk through tall shady trees to an active Shinto temple where we also got to see a rather unique wedding procession.

The Meiji Gardens were quite pretty, with the lilies in full bloom. At a Park Guard’s insistence, Marthese washed her hands at a natural well for good luck, while the guard asked me if I’d seen the Ninja Samurai. I looked around in panic (“Ninja, where?”) much to the amusement of the guard and the other visitors. He calmed me down, assured me they were only in movies. It’s only day two but so far Marthese and I are having a great time chatting with the friendly locals.

Next door is Yoyogi Park, home to much activity on Sundays, so we’ll probably come back. For now we just strolled around, met a bunch of dogs (and a rabbit), paid way too much money for fresh juice, chatted with some of the friendly locals, and watched numerous groups learning dance moves together while being yelled at.

All the hip kids shop on this one street in Harajuku, but somehow they let Marthese and I in. Lots of great clothes shops, and we picked up a few gifts for the folks back home. Finding vegetarian food was a bit of a task, but we’re slowly getting better at it. The concept of someone who doesn’t eat meat (especially fish) is not so common around here.

For the first time ever, I waited in a line to enter a store. Marthese describes Asoko as a store of “cheap, cheerful things for your house”. We popped in on the way home and grabbed a few more super-cute gifts and maybe a little something for ourselves. On the wall were the words “She’s like a rainbow.” I thought that was a nice hip sentiment, until I realised that it was also the name of the Rolling Stones song that was playing in the store. On loop. All day. As great as that song is, I suspect they’ll burn through quite a few staff members….

Tonight I get a lovely dinner surprise from Marthese. She has booked a super fancy place in Ginza. I might even wear a collar.

I’m gonna try to post a photo gallery. Hopefully this works:

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