Tokyo, March 23

00:26AM JST - “The first cherry blossom viewing and exploring different parts of Tokyo”

Good evening there~ Today the story won’t be as interesting as yesterday’s XD but I’ll do my best to make it as entertaining as possible

We woke up a bit earlier than yesterday at least but still not very early XD Call it a waste of time but considering this is also our vacation we’re allowed to do as we please. We actually wanted to go to the Starbucks Roastary reserve which is the biggest Starbucks in the world. Sadly though we discovered it is closed till the 29th of March :,) So we had to change the plans for today. After searching a bit we decided to visit Ueno which is like half an hour away from our hotel!

We hadn’t had breakfast yet so we decided to grab breakfast in Ueno. Once arrived we walked into the city and immediately noticed that it was a lot less busy than in Shibuya or Akihabara at this time of the day. You could almost say that the streets we’re practically empty. That was a nice change for once hahah but still weird to see that that is also a possible scenario in such a big city. Well we walked around for a little bit and found really nice place where they served Tendon! Tendon is some fried stuff on top of rice. The bowl we both chose was filled with fried green beans, 2 big shrimps, a slice of lotus root and a slice of pumpkin all fried of course. Underneath it we got rice and on the side a small cup of miso soup. It was so tasty. It was very different from the pancakes we had yesterday but it was so delicious. Truly a gem we found considering it was a random restaurant we entered.
I honestly believe you could enter any decent looking restaurant here and still be served the most delicious stuff you’ve ever eaten. You can never go really wrong here, maybe except if you really choose a shady place hahaha but if you just choose nice looking and even decent looking is fine, you’re guaranteed to get some good food!

After breakfast we wandered around in Ueno and visited some souvenir shops. There were a lot of small eateries in this part of town and a lot of it was located just like outside of their shops. It’s hard to explain but I’ll try. Like they had their tables half out on the street and then they just had transparant plastic veils as ‘walls’ to keep the wind out. It was quite fun to see and I think it has something charming too just to eat in such an informal but cozy place.

Well anyway the part of Ueno’s street wasn’t that interesting and Jo-Anne knew there was a pretty park nearby where they supposedly had many cherry blossom trees. We joked around if it maybe was a bad idea to visit a park again since yesterday’s incident XD
We had to walk for like 15 minutes but once arrived it was well worth it. They had cherry blossom trees on each side of the road and they were already pretty much in bloom! That was beautiful to see~
We took a lot of pictures there and also took some polaroids! I’m really happy I took my Polaroid camera with me, makes for some nice captured memories :)
We walked around in the park for a bit and when we walked out of the park we saw there was small market street with all sorts of street food and at the end a shrine. Naturally we decided to walk through there. It smelled really nice and it was kind of ironic though because there were signs with ‘please refrain from drinking and eating here’ but literally every stand there sold food XD We had already bought some snacks before we arrived at the park and we were quite full from them so we didn’t buy any streetfood.

Behind the shrine there was this big lake in the middle of the city. I think it was called the Shinobazuno Pond. It was really big and there was a path leading through it with again a lot of cherry blossom trees on each side. You could also rent some boats so you could admire the view of the cherry blossoms from the water. We are planning to do that but not there. There is a famous place for that and it’s really pretty when it gets dark since there will be specially installed lights who will light up the Sakura. So we didn’t rent a boat today.
We did however walk through the pathway with cherry blossoms. Although the temperature was a lot less high today than previous days, around 11°C, the sun shone brightly which made it a bit more pleasant to stroll around. It also gave us a beautiful view of the Pond and it’s surrounding landscape. You could see the shrine we visited and since it was located in the middle of the city you also saw big buildings on the horizon. Normally Shinobazuno Pond contains many Lotus flowers, but they’re not in season right now so instead we got to see a lot of yellow remains of the lotus plant haha. Still pretty in contrast with the water~

There were also a lot of seagulls everywhere and at one point there was as girl with a bit of bread in her hand feeding a lot of sparrows. Actually crazy how many there were but they came really close. We were watching her and suddenly an old lady came up to us and also gave us some bread. She was so kind!!! Because now we could feed the sparrows as well!~ We lured them in by throwing some bread and if you were lucky and held a piece of bread in between your fingertips some bold and daring sparrows would actually eat our of your hand :DD The old lady was so sweet because once our bread was completely eaten she gave us another piece~ That was actually so sweet and made for a really cute and funny experience.
Thank you old lady!! May you be healthy and happy for a long time~

We walked around the pond for quite some time because it was just so pretty to see, plus the pond was really big and had some nice places to watch the view from! Anyway once we had enough of it we decided to go to Shinjuku to do some shopping and grab some dinner. My sister actually made some request for things to buy before I left for Japan XD and so I went on my way to fulfill them :) She wanted a lot of paint stuff from this big art store called ‘Sekaido’ so we went there and videocalled her! Thanks to the pocketwifi we rented for our trip this was possible. It’s so handy, we won’t get lost since we can use Google Maps and the wifi we get from it is really fast and stable so I was able to videocall my sister! Hahaha it was quite some work to find every paint color she wanted as there were a LOT of colors and they all had specific names and numbers to match XD In the end we got everything she wanted (which was quite a lot) and I paid for it~
You’ll get the bill from me Li ;)

So now it was time for dinner. It was already around 6:30PM by then and we started to get a little hungry. Since we were close to Shin-Okubo we decided to grab some Korean food this time. We stopped at this restaurant where they served plates of melted cheese with strips of chicken with it. Of course we ordered that. It was quite difficult to eat it normally XD but it was super delicious! You’d dip the chicken in the cheese or wrapped the cheese around it and then just ate it. We also got Gimbap on the side which is like a Korean version of sushi rolls. They tasted actually quite different from sushi despite their similar appearance ~ We ate well today and I’m glad to say it, finally something else than Ramen hahahhaha. I’m really happy we got to eat this!

After dinner we strolled around for a bit more. Entering some K-pop stores and Jo-Anne bought some more merchandise and then we went back to the hotel.

It a nice day and we got to see some pretty sights again. I kind of missed seeing these sights as we really got spoiled with these in Kyoto. It’s not like Tokyo isn’t beautiful in its own way but I’m just a sucker for temples in combination with nature. Especially sights from another country and culture~ I loved seeing it again!

For tomorrow we want to go to Odaiba. Which is a bit further away from us. It’s a sort of ‘Island’ but not really XD

I’ll go to sleep now and see you all tomorrow!
Goodnight~

- Yaru