Day 65 - Shopping and crepes in Harajuku

Hey everyone!

Just a quick post today. I am still working on my second Kyoto blog post, it is almost done so it should be out in the next couple of days!

On November 15th Amy and I met up with Maisy and Rebekah again (friends from our original university) to spend an evening in Harajuku.

We met up by the station and walked up towards the shrine, it was unfortunately closed but the view of the train tracks from the bridge wasn't too shabby either.

We were pretty hungry as it was already getting kind of late so we decided to eat first.

We decided on something cheap and cheerful and that meant Gyuudon beef bowls at Yoshinoya. It isn't a restaurant where you would sit down and chat for a long time. Other than us, the clientele consisted of business men. It's definitely a place to grab a quick cheap and tasty meal. It was pretty small so we were going to have to split up into two groups but luckily someone left and we were able to all sit together.

I ordered beef without rice and a side salad set

The menu primarily consists of beef bowl sets but there are also a few other things such as curry available.

My salad

I have found myself really liking salads since I arrived in Japan. It could be due to the lack of vegetables in other restaurant dishes due to the cost of veg here. But I think the real reason is because they are just tastier! There are two salad dressings here that are pretty common and those are ごまsesame and 和風 Japanese style and they certainly make the greens delicious. Japanese salads don't often incorporate more bitter foliage such as rocket, which is not a favorite of mine. But perhaps one of the best things about Japanese salads is the potato salad! Japanese potato salad is so good! It is probably not the  healthiest component but it certainly is one of the tastiest parts. It's made with Japanese mayonnaise which is much creamier and less vinegary that English mayonnaise. 

Mmm look at those caramelised onions!

The salad came with a little snap pack of sesame dressing. I quite like these packs, as they are always easy to use without getting the dressing everywhere. The snap the pack and squeeze it so the little pockets are sandwiched in the middle and the dressing comes out from the center of the white cover.

After dinner we went for a spot of shopping. It being Harajuku, there was of course lots of good ol' Engrish and curious designs to enjoy.

On the bottom of the "yes" cap

Crepe time!

Of course no trip to Harajuku would be complete without a freshly prepared crepe! At the time there were serving winter special flavours. I went with the chestnut and pie pastry crepe, as usual it was pretty darn good (although not for the waistline of course!). Pretty sure whipped cream, ice cream, pie and an assortment of other sweet treats should not all be snuggled together under one blanket of crepe but who's to tell them it's wrong?! Not me, that's for sure!

It was only the middle of November so naturally the Christmas decorations were already out! Oh it feels like home!

We had a pretty good evening eating, chatting and shopping. I look forward to our next trip out!

The evening's bounty

Day 44 - Catching up in Ikebukuro

Happy new year everyone!

I hope you all rang in the New Year with some good grub, drink and some great people by your side!

Today I will be catching up on an older post!

On October 25^th Amy and I met up with Rebekah and Maisy - friends from our home University who are also studying in Tokyo - for Rebekah’s birthday!

We all met in Ikebukuro and headed straight to a kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi) restaurant for dinner!

The atmosphere of this Kaiten zushi restaurant was pretty good.
Similar to the kaiten zushi restaurant we visited before, the orders are placed using a mounted touch-pad device.  The layout of this restaurant and with it the eating experience was very different though. Unlike the first restaurant where you are seated in rows, the seating arrangement of this one had more of a diner feel where you had booths. Each booth held around 4 people. 

I would say the seating of this restaurant was much better for eating with friends as you could all sit together making for easier conversation! The only downside to this was that the touchpads were only on one side of the booth so while two people could order with ease the other two would be left to make requests or lean over to use the device. As we were all friends this was of course not a problem but it meant that those on the further end of the booth couldn’t see the pictures too well) and either had to lean over to grab their dishes or ask someone else to take it for them (the menus and conveyor belt were also on the same end of the booth under the touchpads.

This kaiten sushi restaurant had another difference. Instead of the sushi arriving directly in front of you on a little carriage where it waits for you to take the dish and the empty carriage back to the kitchen, this restaurant uses a conveyor belt system like the one you would find in Yo Sushi!

obligatory photo with the cake!

Before coming Amy and I bought Rebekah a cake from Cozy Corner (a nice Japanese cake shop chain) so we had our first experience of ordering a birthday cake at a Japanese cake shop! They had lots of different flavors but we went for the good old strawberries and cream option. After some short consideration over how Rebekah would be spelt in katakana  we got a little chocolate plaque made saying happy birthday in Japanese. One really nice thing about Cozy Corner is that not only do they give you give you your desired number of candles with the cake but they also ask you how long you need the cake to keep for so they can put the appropriate number of ice packs in the box to keep it cool.

After giving Rebekah her cake and a bit of catching up it was time to start ordering the food!

Hamburger sushi!

 On Maisy and Rebekah's recommendation Amy and I tried the hamburger sushi. It was pretty good, the burger meat on top was more moist than you would expect so its not like sticking a bit of McDonald's hamburger on the top of some rice.
Actually, Japan distinguishes between two kinds of hamburger.

A ハンバーガー - prounounced hanbaagaa - is what would usually come to mind if you were to say the word hamburger.
However, ハンバーグ(hanbaaGU) is simply a thicker burger patty. This is usually eaten with a sauce drizzled on top alongside some vegetables.

Hanbagu picture taken from  http://www.skylark.co.jp/gusto/

Every so often a chance to play a game would come up on the touchpad. I was lucky enough to win one! If you win the waitress comes over and gives you a coin which you can use in the gatcha gacha machines (toy vending machine) near the exit.

Now I will tease you with some more photos of the sushi we ate.

Scallop nigiri

Salmon mayo nigiri

look at all that mayo! That's gotta be good for the heart!

After we had eaten our fill of sushi we paid a visit to Animate, a huge multi-story shop that sells anime and manga related products. It was my first time going into one of Japan's big anime stores so it was pretty interesting to finally see what they are like.
There were so many products, some were pretty unusual:

Shingeki no kyojin.... salami sticks?!?!?

 At the moment Shingeki no Kyojin is a pretty popular anime and so there were lots of related products. However, one really curious product was the huge shingeki no kyojin salami stick! I guess the idea is that you can feel like a giant eating an innocent human being as you munch on this oversized salami as shown in the coloured picture above?! Either that or you can use it as a weapon as the manga drawing suggests!
Come to Animates and you can get your very own edible human victim-come-bashing stick for only around £8!

According to Maisy and Rebekah this shop is aimed primarily at girls, so most of the customers there seemed to be women.

I suppose the swimming anime Free can attest to the fact that it is a female orientated anime store

They even had an omiyage section with character related sweets and noms

THIS CREEPY ANIME WAS BACK TO HAUNT ME!

For some unknown reason this hideously creepy anime seems to be popular in Japan at the moment. I can't quite fathom why though! I suppose some people are drawn to the vulgar feel of the characters but it just makes me cringe! The anime is called こびとづかん　kobito dukan for anyone who is interested in feeling awkward!

More disturbing products!!!

Yes! Yes! Yeees! 

We found this advert particularly amusing so I couldn't help but take a snap!

As you can see, the store is pretty big...

...and by big I mean huge!

When everyone was done perusing Animate we went to Book Off.

I really love Book Off! Book Off is a chain of shops that sell a variety of second-hand goods. You can buy books, magazines, comics, CD's, DVD's, games, game consoles, game accessories and even trading cards! That's not even everything!

a selection of magazines and comics

PS1 games!

Heaven for the retro gamer!

There are some Japanese PS1 games I have wanted since I can remember so no doubt I will be returning when I have more time to conduct a more thorough investigation in the PS1 aisle!

Milky Way Cafe

Although we had already eaten our fill at the sushi restaurant we couldn't resist trying the fare at the Milky Way Cafe. This Cafe sells Constellation Desserts which each correspond to a star-sign. We had passed the Cafe before and the display food was pretty enticing.

The atmosphere in the Cafe was really nice and you could get a good view of Ikebukuro at night through the windows.

The dessert menu

There was a dessert for each star-sign. I of course ordered my corresponding dessert, however the others just picked what drew their interest. To be honest they all looked so good, I don't think you could go wrong!

 Not only do they do impressive looking deserts but they had some really enticing drinks on offer and I am afraid I couldn't help myself from ordering a particularly fancy blue iced drink. I don't know what it is about blue liquids that look so enticing. You'd better not let me near your loo cleaner!

The place mats had horoscopes written on them! The only issue was that the dates for each star sign seemed to be a bit off! But I am sure you all know your star-signs anyway!

My glorious drink!

I certainly don't regret my drink purchase. It was a really refreshing flavoured slushie and presentation was so cute. It certainly put a smile on my face!

Maisy's dessert  

Rebekah's dessert

My dessert

 I can vouch that the desserts taste as good as they look. Mine came with fruit, cornflakes, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, shortbread cookies, ice cream, profiteroles, chocolate coated biscuit and a chocolate churros-like stick.

Afterwards we went to a game center to try our hand at some UFO catchers and a bit of DDR.

This guy was playing DDR blindfolded using the invisible arrow setting! I can only guess that he didn't want to see the panels underfoot light up?!? 

Maisy's reaction!

While we were standing around a business man walked past and gave Maisy his UFO catcher win. She got herself a Chopper plushie and perhaps also an admirer!

Maisy imparted some sage UFO catcher advice onto me an Amy. If you ask the workers nicely enough not only will they switch the winnable product to your preferred choice but they may also make it a lot more easier for you to win!
There are a lot more tips on how to UFO catcher GET but I plan to cover this in a separate post.

I had a really great time and I was really glad that we got a chance to meet up with Rebekah and Maisy.

I look forward to the next time we hang out together.

Well that's all for now~