Tokyo - Isetan and Omoide Yokocho
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The Monday morning we left for Tokyo, it rained in Kisarazu. M-san asked if we wanted to take umbrellas along, but being Seattleite newcomers as we were, of course we declined. What a mistake.
We left Kisarazu on the Sazanami express train at 8:16 am for Tokyo, then took the Chuō train to Shinjuku. It rained when we arrived at Shinjuku station around 11am. Now we realized that people here use umbrellas when it rains, which is the opposite of Seattleites here in the States. Umbrellas are cheap too, „100 - „300, and the next day when it's not raining any more you can find abandoned umbrellas hung on stair rails, left in subway benches or in eating places. For the fashion conscious Tokyoites, raincoat is a no-no. And it might be more practical to carry an umbrella than having to wear a cumbersome raincoat when the main transportation is train and subway. So we shelled out a couple bucks to get one. Lesson learned.
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Isetan Shinjuku department store, and unagi (鰻) for lunch
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Since we had 2 hours until checkin time, we left our luggage there and headed out to explore Shinjuku. It's almost lunch time so we decided to head out to Isetan.
Tokyo is a huge metropolis, with neighborhoods that are cities unto themselves, with their own set of sprawling department stores. Shinjuku is one such neighborhood, and the latest department store attractions are Takashimaya and Isetan.
The basement of Isetan (B1F) is chockful of food counters selling ready-made take home food, sweets, chocolateries, you name it. This is like London Harrods food court, but 10 times bigger! We got lost just wandering around drooling at stuffs.
Heading up to floor 7 for the Restaurant Gai (Restaurant Floor). We had lunch at the unagi restaurant Tsukiji Miyagawa (宮川本店). From their website they had their roots back in 1896. The interior was modern, and we sat at the bar. I had the ヒツマブシ (hitsumabushi) and my wife had the シュウサイゴゼン (shūsaigozen) for a total of „5880. My unagi is grilled oh so perfect over charcoal with the right flavor of smoke and sweetness.
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Shūsaigozen I guess means a main course (shusai) with 5 elements: an unagi rice bowl, a sashimi plate (刺身), a bowl of miso soup, some tsukemono (漬け物), and some cooked vegetables. This is a straight forward meal.
The Hitsumabushi, on the other hand, is more elaborate. We're told by the waitress that this entree was new on the menu since February this year. Hitsu = the big rice and unagi container. Mabushi = from mabusu, to put pieces of eel on the rice. The don came with a bowl of eel liver soup (kimo-sui, きも吸), a teapot of dashi soup, and a plate of yakumi (seasonings) containing chopped asatsuki (leeks), wasabi, and kizami-nori (dried laver). I don't know what the other red stuff was that looked like grated daikon. There was also some tsukemono (漬け物, pickles e.g. sliced cucumber and radish).
So how are you supposed to eat it? The attentive waitress, realizing that we are gaijins (foreigners), approached me and showed me how to eat it the proper way.
- Scoop a third of the rice and unagi into your bowl and eat it without any seasonings
- Repeat with the 2nd serving, this time mix with half of the seasonings
- Repeat with the 3rd serving, this time mix with the remaining seasonings and pour the dashi soup over the mixture.
Well some got lost in the translation so I didn't exactly follow that procedure, but I still got the total enjoyment out of it, just like a child being allowed to play with a new toy.
My wife couldn't finish her portion so I had to help. We walked out of there so full, but full of merry as well.
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Hotel Rose Garden Shinjuku
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Back at the hotel for checkin, we're pleasantly surprised to know that our luggage had been brought up to the room for us.
This hotel is located in the west side of Shinjuku in the skyscraper district. You could find restaurants and soba shops close by for a convenient eat if desired, and an am/pm type store for other necessities including 2-liter bottles of water.
The room also didn't disappoint, though it's not in a non-smoking section. Downplaying the smoking factor was our weak point and it would later come back and haunt us on a later day in our trip, so let us warn you, if you are a non-smoker, be VERY aware of this and insist on everything to be in a non-smoking section, be it a room or a seat on a train.
Our room was on the corner of the 3rd floor where you can see the activities on the front street below. I liked it this way so we could stay connected to what's happening outside. We would woke up early in the morning, looked out and learned who would be out and about early. At night we would peek out and watched who were still running about their business down there.
The room was small with its semi-double bed that had me worried for some time whether we both could sleep in it (we could), but had a suit pant iron machine, slippers, and yukatas.
In the desk drawer we found two books: a copy of the Teachings of Buddha as well as an English Bible. Interesting, I wonder if other Asian countries also do the same.
We were curious to check out the bathroom as everyone was saying bathrooms in Japan are small. Indeed they are small, only 1 person can fit in there at any one time unless you push the other guy into the tub. My head almost hit the ceiling, and when I sit on the toilet, my wife couldn't squeeze pass my knees to get to her stuff.
Having said that, we immediately became huge fans of the bathroom, for 3 reasons:
- It's well equipped for all of your needs
- It's super duper clean. Let me say it again, yes it's so clean
- It has the often-talked-about toilet with heated seat and bidet, and in some department stores you can even find those with "free odor" and "courtesy noise". Here are the instructions.
After a long trek the day before in Nihon-ji, and this morning trip from Chiba to Tokyo (1 hour) to Shinjuku (30 minutes) drizzled in the rain (15 minutes), it's like we were in heaven. A good soak in the tub and we're ready for a nap, which turned into a 4 hour snoring fest.
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Shinjuku Omoide Yokocho, or Memory Lane
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When we finally dragged ourselves out of the hotel, it's already dark. We wandered looking for the famed Omoide Yokocho narrow side streets next to Shinjuku station, found it, and ended up at Echigoya, enticed partly by the young cook who called out to us in good English. Squeezed elbow to elbow with Japanese salarymen quietly contemplating by their tall glasses of chu-hai (shōchū with soda and ice) in the hot October night, we were fascinated by the cook deftly grilling skewered prawns, whole scuttle fish, and large clams with butter and shoyu over the charcoal fire. We drank Asahi cold beer and ordered seafood. It's quite an atmospheric place reminding us of the quán nhậu in Saigon. My wife called it Làng Nướng, for the place consists of mostly tiny yakitori (grilled skewered meat and grilled seafood) stalls.
Now and then it showered in big raindrops, but quickly stopped when we got out of there. I was still hungry afterwards, so on the walk back we stopped by Excelsior Caffé around 21:30pm. It didn't feel that late, as the streets were still lively with people, and the cafe was full as well. I saw a teramisu coffee on the menu and tried ordering that but it was sold out, so we got a small latte and a small cappuccino, plus a hot panini sandwich for me. The panini was heated through and served on a plate in a pretty paper pouch. We sat facing the street watching people for a while. Satisfied, we walked home to finish off our interrupted slumber.
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