Tokyo, March 26
Door: Yaru
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Yaru
26 Maart 2020 | Japan, Tokio
11:59PM JST - “Visiting Asakusa and buying a lot of souvenirs!”
Hi there! Writing from under the covers. Jo-anne won’t switch off the lights and it’s so bright here it’s annoying. Going to keep it short, I don’t feel like writing and I want these lights off asap.
Today, as the title says we visited Asakusa. It’s on the other side of Tokyo and had some really nice shopping streets. Our initial plan was to go to Yokohama but we woke up way too late to even attempt to go there as the travel time is a bit longer than the other districts in Tokyo as Yokohama is a city on itself XD
We first visited Nakamise-dori which is a street which leads up to Sensoji temple and has all sorts of souvenir shops at each side of the road and of course quite some street food shops as well. The weather was super nice as it was said it would be 18°C but it felt way hotter under the sun. At this street we bought quite a lot of souvenirs and presents for the people back home and of course bought stuff for ourselves as well. With some exclusive Olympic Games 2020 merchandise to top it off as we heard that the games have been postponed till next year! So now all 2020 merchandise are either useless or special, however you want to judge it XD
We visited Sensoji temple too of course as it was super close by. It was fun to see as we normally saw a lot of temples outside of the city center and in more or less ‘calmer’ places. It was quite fun to see such a pretty architecture in between all these high buildings and busy streets. We took some pretty polaroids and admired the inside hall and it’s decorations.
We bought some snacks here and there and ate them on the side of the road. I think I have said this before but it’s considered rude to eat and walk at the same time so you really have to take note to not do that. We walked around looking for a certain gift for Jo-Annes’ mother and in the end found a beautiful set of it. I’m not going to say what is it as it might spoil the surprise!
On the way searching for presents we walked through roofed-in shopping streets again!! I missed those since I haven’t seen them since Kyoto. Tokyo is much more open and we really haven’t seen any of those shopping streets until now! We saw what looked like an animal cafe and decided to visit that. It was a really exotic like atmosphere. It was actually a sort of zoo animal shelter, at least that’s what they called themselves but it mainly had owl’s in them. We had to go to the second floor and once we entered we were met with humid and warm air and a lot of plants. The animals they had there weren’t just owls, they had a whole variety of them! Otters, chinchilla’s, parrots, prairie dog, meerkats, snakes, mouse etc. It was so cool to see! For a really cheap price you could cuddle some of the animals and so Jo-Anne paid to hold a meerkat on her lap. It was so adorable!!! It really snuggled up in her arms and you could pet it without it being scared of you.
They had a lot of owls which each differed from size and species. At first I was kind of scared to touch them. You were instructed to pet them with the back of your hand on the back of their head. Some we’re quite intimidating and they have such big eyes XD I overcame my fear after a while and started to pet them. Owl feathers are super duper soft. I didn’t expect that, it felt really fluffy and soft :D
We could grab a free drink from a vending machine and I got Iced chocolate and Jo-Anne a vanilla drink. It was so cool there was a small camera inside the vending machine so you could see how your drink was made! Such a nice piece of technology and the drink actually tasted good unlike the drink at the Shiba Inu cafe in Osaka XD We stayed there for quite a while as there was no time restriction on your stay.
Around the counter there was an otter who was allowed to walk around freely and it was so adorable. I really like otters as they’re super cute! I bought some otter treats as I really wanted to get them to get a little bit closer to me. There was a sign that you should put a treat on your hand and hold it flat as the otter will pick it up with their paws and put it in their own mouth. Their paws felt really cute as small and a little bit moist XD The one who walked freely kept begging for treats and it was screaming at my feet. I decided to give him one but after I had gave him one and was distracted by another otter behind glass it jumped towards the treat bowl I had in my hand and made me drop it all :,) I could recover some luckily but the otter was happily snacking on the rest of the fallen treats. Well it was cute regardless and I had a good experience.
Jo-Anne and I both bought a souvenir. She bought an earring with an owl feather on it and I bought a small otter plushie keychain!
It had gotten a bit later when we came out of the zoo shelter and decided to look around for dinner. We didn’t have a proper meal today so we were quite hungry XD We had seen an Okonomiyaki place but it was quite expensive especially as we thought we wouldn’t get full of it. There was also a Conveyor belt sushi restaurant but we had already planned to go to one tomorrow so we didn’t want to do that either.
But not to worry, we found an all-you-can-eat shabushabu place! Shabu shabu here is not the restaurant as we know it in the west. Shabu shabu is actually a way ‘cooking’ your dish as you get a pan with boiling water and pieces of thinly cut meat strips and you’ll put the meat in the water together with vegetables you choose and you can even put in noodles or dumplings if you want to!
We chose the Sukiyaki hot pot as that was a more sweet kind of ‘soup’ to put stuff in. It was superrr delicious and an excellent choice if you’re hungry XD There is a self-service vegetable and drink place (something like wok restaurants have but a bit smaller and only vegetables) and there was free meat refills! We got 4 kinds of meat, 2 parts of pork and 2 of beef. I liked the beef the best but they were both good honestly.
In the beginning we weren’t sure if we did it right but we were helped by a staff member who patiently answered our questions as best as he could in english. He was really kind but we felt a bit embarrassed as we were seated near the part where the waiters stood when nobody needed them so they could see us all the time XD It made us feel watched as we did dumb stuff with the Sukiyaki. Nonetheless the dining experience was geeat! It was really calm too, there were a totaly of 4 customers in te facility and we were 2 of them XD Well made it less embarrassing for us and we could eat in peace. We had a 100 minute course and that was plenty of time to eat our fill. Dessert was included so we also got some soft serve ice cream as a nice closure of the dinner.
The price was about what you would pay for ShabuShabu in the west XD but then the standard price as we also got an all-in soft drink course so it was in all a bit less expensive than as if we would have dined at a ‘normal’ ShabuShabu restaurant~
We travelled back to the hotel again and we’re about to sleep now. For tomorrow’s schedule we have a reservation at the BT21 cafe so we decided to make the whole day a cafe day. So our plan is to visit a lot of animal cafes and such. We’ll see what tomorrow brings~
Goodnight!
- Yaru
P.S. We rebooked our flight! I talked about how our flight got cancelled yesterday but we managed to rebook another flight for the same day but just a few hours earlier. So we’ll come back home guys. Don’t worry XD until then! Byebye~
Hi there! Writing from under the covers. Jo-anne won’t switch off the lights and it’s so bright here it’s annoying. Going to keep it short, I don’t feel like writing and I want these lights off asap.
Today, as the title says we visited Asakusa. It’s on the other side of Tokyo and had some really nice shopping streets. Our initial plan was to go to Yokohama but we woke up way too late to even attempt to go there as the travel time is a bit longer than the other districts in Tokyo as Yokohama is a city on itself XD
We first visited Nakamise-dori which is a street which leads up to Sensoji temple and has all sorts of souvenir shops at each side of the road and of course quite some street food shops as well. The weather was super nice as it was said it would be 18°C but it felt way hotter under the sun. At this street we bought quite a lot of souvenirs and presents for the people back home and of course bought stuff for ourselves as well. With some exclusive Olympic Games 2020 merchandise to top it off as we heard that the games have been postponed till next year! So now all 2020 merchandise are either useless or special, however you want to judge it XD
We visited Sensoji temple too of course as it was super close by. It was fun to see as we normally saw a lot of temples outside of the city center and in more or less ‘calmer’ places. It was quite fun to see such a pretty architecture in between all these high buildings and busy streets. We took some pretty polaroids and admired the inside hall and it’s decorations.
We bought some snacks here and there and ate them on the side of the road. I think I have said this before but it’s considered rude to eat and walk at the same time so you really have to take note to not do that. We walked around looking for a certain gift for Jo-Annes’ mother and in the end found a beautiful set of it. I’m not going to say what is it as it might spoil the surprise!
On the way searching for presents we walked through roofed-in shopping streets again!! I missed those since I haven’t seen them since Kyoto. Tokyo is much more open and we really haven’t seen any of those shopping streets until now! We saw what looked like an animal cafe and decided to visit that. It was a really exotic like atmosphere. It was actually a sort of zoo animal shelter, at least that’s what they called themselves but it mainly had owl’s in them. We had to go to the second floor and once we entered we were met with humid and warm air and a lot of plants. The animals they had there weren’t just owls, they had a whole variety of them! Otters, chinchilla’s, parrots, prairie dog, meerkats, snakes, mouse etc. It was so cool to see! For a really cheap price you could cuddle some of the animals and so Jo-Anne paid to hold a meerkat on her lap. It was so adorable!!! It really snuggled up in her arms and you could pet it without it being scared of you.
They had a lot of owls which each differed from size and species. At first I was kind of scared to touch them. You were instructed to pet them with the back of your hand on the back of their head. Some we’re quite intimidating and they have such big eyes XD I overcame my fear after a while and started to pet them. Owl feathers are super duper soft. I didn’t expect that, it felt really fluffy and soft :D
We could grab a free drink from a vending machine and I got Iced chocolate and Jo-Anne a vanilla drink. It was so cool there was a small camera inside the vending machine so you could see how your drink was made! Such a nice piece of technology and the drink actually tasted good unlike the drink at the Shiba Inu cafe in Osaka XD We stayed there for quite a while as there was no time restriction on your stay.
Around the counter there was an otter who was allowed to walk around freely and it was so adorable. I really like otters as they’re super cute! I bought some otter treats as I really wanted to get them to get a little bit closer to me. There was a sign that you should put a treat on your hand and hold it flat as the otter will pick it up with their paws and put it in their own mouth. Their paws felt really cute as small and a little bit moist XD The one who walked freely kept begging for treats and it was screaming at my feet. I decided to give him one but after I had gave him one and was distracted by another otter behind glass it jumped towards the treat bowl I had in my hand and made me drop it all :,) I could recover some luckily but the otter was happily snacking on the rest of the fallen treats. Well it was cute regardless and I had a good experience.
Jo-Anne and I both bought a souvenir. She bought an earring with an owl feather on it and I bought a small otter plushie keychain!
It had gotten a bit later when we came out of the zoo shelter and decided to look around for dinner. We didn’t have a proper meal today so we were quite hungry XD We had seen an Okonomiyaki place but it was quite expensive especially as we thought we wouldn’t get full of it. There was also a Conveyor belt sushi restaurant but we had already planned to go to one tomorrow so we didn’t want to do that either.
But not to worry, we found an all-you-can-eat shabushabu place! Shabu shabu here is not the restaurant as we know it in the west. Shabu shabu is actually a way ‘cooking’ your dish as you get a pan with boiling water and pieces of thinly cut meat strips and you’ll put the meat in the water together with vegetables you choose and you can even put in noodles or dumplings if you want to!
We chose the Sukiyaki hot pot as that was a more sweet kind of ‘soup’ to put stuff in. It was superrr delicious and an excellent choice if you’re hungry XD There is a self-service vegetable and drink place (something like wok restaurants have but a bit smaller and only vegetables) and there was free meat refills! We got 4 kinds of meat, 2 parts of pork and 2 of beef. I liked the beef the best but they were both good honestly.
In the beginning we weren’t sure if we did it right but we were helped by a staff member who patiently answered our questions as best as he could in english. He was really kind but we felt a bit embarrassed as we were seated near the part where the waiters stood when nobody needed them so they could see us all the time XD It made us feel watched as we did dumb stuff with the Sukiyaki. Nonetheless the dining experience was geeat! It was really calm too, there were a totaly of 4 customers in te facility and we were 2 of them XD Well made it less embarrassing for us and we could eat in peace. We had a 100 minute course and that was plenty of time to eat our fill. Dessert was included so we also got some soft serve ice cream as a nice closure of the dinner.
The price was about what you would pay for ShabuShabu in the west XD but then the standard price as we also got an all-in soft drink course so it was in all a bit less expensive than as if we would have dined at a ‘normal’ ShabuShabu restaurant~
We travelled back to the hotel again and we’re about to sleep now. For tomorrow’s schedule we have a reservation at the BT21 cafe so we decided to make the whole day a cafe day. So our plan is to visit a lot of animal cafes and such. We’ll see what tomorrow brings~
Goodnight!
- Yaru
P.S. We rebooked our flight! I talked about how our flight got cancelled yesterday but we managed to rebook another flight for the same day but just a few hours earlier. So we’ll come back home guys. Don’t worry XD until then! Byebye~
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