tokyo- monday

on our list on things to do: a new zealand restaurant for lunch, walk around and do some shopping in shibuya, then head to roppongi for massages.

ebisu was another great area, and for some reason it seemed peppered with hawaiian stores and eateries. saw some really cute but expensive hawaiian skirts.

somewhere in the midst of ebisu is a new zealand eatery. we found it. . . and sadly, it was closed on mondays. a complete bummer. i know camille was looking forward to some new zealand beer, and i was interested in trying some tradition maori food. we lingered outside the door for a bit but it was lunch time and there were plenty of choices around. we ended up at a decently priced mexican place with an awesome interior and exterior for a buffet brunch. . . and i treated myself to a delicious margarita with patron silver tequila. . . mmmmmm.

we had thought it would be nice to walk towards to the direction of shibuya. maybe save a few bucks in trains, but a number of blocks into it, we realized we didn’t have a decent understanding of our maps. . . and it was too damn hot to spend time figuring it out. back into the train system.

good thing we did. after watching blocks and blocks pass by i was really glad to have not attempted the walk as everyone around me, and myself mopped sweat from our heads and necks.

shibuya, as it turns out, is the area we think of when we think of tokyo. we thought maybe we found it earlier in ginza, but once we stepped out of the train station we realized. . . right, this is the place that you see in books, movies, magazines and such when people mention tokyo.

we made a quick stop at the hachiko statue. i took a picture of another tourist for him in the area . . . then we were off to find tokyu hands. we passed by a don quijote as well, but we found a few others along the way.

tokyu hands is everything it’s touted up to be. and the map you can pick up on the way in is very helpful. i bought stickers, a rain poncho (a better fitting one than the one i brought from korea), a cool spidery camera tripod thingy and then just spent a long time marveling over all the other stuff.

we would’ve spent more time in shibuya, but tokyu hands and getting our bearings took a little longer than we thought. . . so off we were to roppongi.

roppongi definitely had a air of itaewon to it. lots more foreigners of all kinds, and more signs and menus with english. we had scheduled massages into the week since it seemed like something actually relaxing we could do. i got a shiatsu massage- my first. i could really feel each of the pressure points connecting with one another. i always liked my acupuncture treatments, but this felt more intense. it’s something i wouldn’t mind making a little more routine.

afterward, while basking in a glow of relaxation, we walked around. i saw the blue man theatre there. . . kinda wish i had thought to do something like that. . . but then we quickly moved to find dinner. throughout tokyo we had some trouble finding japanese restaurants where we could decipher the menus, but we found some good picks in roppongi. i had some pretty amazing sushi, and camille tried her first raw fish- on my suggestion she went with a tuna roll. i don’t think she’ll order them regularly, but she didn’t hate it.

a rain storm rolled through. i busted out my new poncho, and we took some pictures of tokyo tower from the rainy street.

i knew when we left in the morning, i’d feel a little bad about missing so many things. . . the fish market, the boat cruise, the ice cream and gyoza theme park. . . and so many more i don’t even know about. overall though, i’m happy with our efforts and all the things we did see. it’s so much more than i could’ve imagined.