Yodobashi Camera! Finally the place that a lot of people have been raving and talkin’ about. (I think I might have missed out on coming here the first time I went to Tokyo 12 years before this trip just due to the pace of the Japan tour that I was on with my mom at the time – doing all sorts of stuff with the tour group, and not having enough time to slow down and check out some of the places that I would have more interest in…especially with electronics and even just being in the presence of that.)

It was definitely a more magnified experience shopping there than BIC Camera – there was just a lot more stuff. I was definitely a bit overwhelmed; it felt like I could get everything I needed as a consumer (well with the exception of groceries I guess) all in one place! There were a total of 29 places to dine at on the 8th Floor, 9 places to eat in on the 1st Floor (including the Square Enix Cafe that I went to earlier that day), and this one cafe on the 4th Floor called Marafuku Coffee [(丸福珈琲店 ヨドバシ AKIBA店)] (known for their hotcakes, or classic style pancakes – originally from the Kansai Region)

You might be thinking “Wow Kev…how were each of the floors? You must have had a ball with the variety of stuff there. I bet you bought some stuff and eat quite a lot there too!” Jokes, I was just focused on going to the 6th floor honestly hahah – I had my eyes on exclusive video game merch that they might have that I may not be able to get in the States. Also, I was hoping that they had more selection of amiibos (especially since I wanted to see if I could still get the Amiibo Cuby or not – the ridiculously rare amiibo that I mentioned in the previous post).

To my surprise, they only had a small section of amiibo (a lot of which were from the Splatoon series) on the 6th floor. Also to my surprise, I did happen to see this awesome Final Fantasy section with some really neat stuff…like these two cool looking passport cases!

It never dawned on me to have an actual passport case until I saw one of these in person – it was just the appropriate first, cool buy that I would make during this trip; it’s practical, it has multiple pockets of various sizes for both my passport and for other things like ticket stubs, mini brochures, and my JR pass. Best of all, it’s FINAL FANTASY THEMED! HELL YEAH… the only thing though was that I had a tough time deciding between the two….

The blue one had cactuars, moogles, and chocobos (which are creatures from the Final Fantasy series), and the white one had different main characters via throughout the Final Fantasy Series + a sleeping moogle on the back.

After 5 minutes of debating, I ended up going with the latter.

I definitely found stuff here that I didn’t really see at the Square Enix Cafe (which is understandable granted that the cafe was more Dragon Quest focused at the time). I then proceeded to pick up more stuff as shown:

~ Side Note #13: The last 8 pictures were taken after my trip (aka today haha) – Obviously, I didn’t open up the acrylic keychain collection no. 2 mini packs at the time I was in the store, but I was pretty anxious to find out what I got – I did open the mini packs after I was done for the day in Tokyo that night. ~

As cool as these products are, there was a cool kicker that came with getting all of these products.

~ The player’s strategy #3 ~> During the transaction process via these FF merch products, the cashier, who was taking care of my purchase, revealed to me Japan’s tax exemption program (which applies to tax-free stores, and in this case, Yodobashi Camera – Akiba). If you purchase ¥5,000 or more in the store at one time, you’re exempt from paying the 10% tax. In other words, Buy just enough to not have my purchase taxed – CHYEAH No-tax purchase! HELL YEAH SON. (although…the only thing about this strategy that sucks is that if you want to get stuff that might not even be close to ¥5,000 total, it “heavily encourages” the consumer to buy stuff that they may or may not want just to get that tax-exempted purchase.) ~

I ended up paying ¥5,200 for the aforementioned items at the 6th floor. Even though I was happy that I was able to get the tax-exempted price…unfortunately, there was a slight downer that came with this purchase though. I tried to use one of my two credit cards (especially my BOA (Bank of America) travel rewards card that I got specifically for buying stuff overseas so that I don’t have to pay for any foreign transaction fee), but here at Yodobashi Camera…my credit card didn’t go through. I tried my other credit card to see if it would work… no cigar. Sigh, at this point (and as I will realize later on during this trip) – using credit cards in general is like a lottery system, you just never know if they’ll go through or not.

All good though, it wasn’t like my credit cards were blocked or anything – they just didn’t work here at the 6th floor in Yodobashi Camera (spoiler alert: I was able to use my BOA travel rewards credit card in certain places throughout my trip in Japan successfully 🙂 so no worries!)

I wasn’t too down about it in the end because I had cash anyway (but…I just thought it would’ve been nice to use my travel rewards credit card when I can so that I can use my yen when I need to, you know what I mean?) The cashier was trying to be nice about it and I could tell that he was having trouble communicating with me since my Japanese was very limited and I was just trying to understand what he was saying to me about my credit cards and what he was about to do next…

After my purchase went through, he did this thing where he stapled my receipt to one of my pages on the passport. I thought it was really weird when he first did this, but (with his limited English and hand gestures/motions) he explained to me that I’ll need to keep this receipt in my passport and just show this to one of the airport employees (when I get to the airport before I fly back home) as a proof of purchase. Thinking about it a bit more shortly after I finished buying my Final Fantasy merch, it made more sense to me about the receipt situation – Japan probably wants to keep track of how much is spent through tax-exempt purchases, but still…I just thought that the concept of stapling a receipt into one of the pages of my passport was a bit strange because I always thought that those passport pages are reserved for passport stamps (indicating point of entry in another country when traveling overseas and all that jazz)

Anyway, after all of that was done – I went down from the 8th Floor to the 1st, left Yodobashi Camera, went outside and walked over to the Ginza Line, took a 14 minute rail ride from Suehirochō Station in Akihabara to Nihombashi Station in Chuo City, entered the Nihombashi Takashimaya S.C. East Building, took the elevator from the 1st floor to the 5th, and the first thing I saw after I turned the corner was this!

OH. HELL. TO. THE. YEAH. IT’S. GOIN’. DOWN. man…I can’t believe it! I’m at one of the best stores that I wanted to hit up for such a long time in Japan. POKÉMON CENTER TOKYO DX. CHYEAHHHHHH. WHAT WHAT?! YOOOOOOO.

This 5th floor also had the famous Pokémon café that I’ve heard all about; however, I wasn’t able to get in and check out the café because unfortunately you had to book your spot to enter in advance (by the time I found out about it while I was still planning out my 2nd Japan trip back in the states, the earliest time available that I would’ve been able to book was November 20th at 3:30pm, which would’ve been too late since I was planning on being at the Narita Airport at that time, getting ready to fly back to the States).

Anyway, back to POKÉMON CENTER TOKYO DX. Oh man… what a ball – there were just so many different types of Pokémon merch, including this beautiful Detective Pikachu (like the movie that just came out last year in early May, but in an ACTUAL DETECTIVE OUTFIT.) This was probably one of the main, premier things to get in this exclusive store! I’m not gonna lie… I definitely regret not getting one of these now that I think about it – at the time, I just thought that it was more practical to get stuff that were slightly smaller in size so that it would be easier to pack…but that logic doesn’t really make sense in the long run because I know that I was going to get a bunch of stuff in Japan anyway. (I did end up getting a stuffed Pokémon plush though, which you’ll see in a bit).

From all different kinds of Pokémon plushes (from the original 151 Pokémon in Generation I to Generation VII…(and a few from Generation VIII) and exclusive Pokémon apparel, to awesome stationary stuff that just caught my eye so much – I was just overwhelmed and couldn’t decide on what to get – it was just a bliss and me geeking out, wanting most of the things in the store, but I just had to narrow it down to some things including the following:

Most of these things that I got from this Pokémon store are part of the “Pikachu Number 025” collection (the 025 represents Pikachu’s Pokémon # out of the 895 or more Pokémon out there).

~ Side Note #14: My BOA Travel Rewards card worked this time whilst purchasing these awesome Pokémon goods! Phew man I swear I hope this works more often than not whilst I’m here in Japan 😀 ~

Man… that was dope. Both Final Fantasy AND Pokémon Merch! Legit. I’m really glad that I got some awesome stuff already from both Yodobashi Camera + Pokémon Tokyo Center DX – in terms of shopping, I’m off to a great start!

Sigh, y’all know what it is… I gotta cut off day 2 and stop it here. Day 2 Part 6 is coming up (and it’ll be coming up sooner rather than later 😅) – I’ll be covering the last few things of Day 2 of the following – all in Shibuya!

• Sushi @ Katsumidori Seibu
• LOFT
• Ramen @ Kindenmaru Shibuya Honten
• Niku Yokocho

Cheers / wave

My next destination would be an area that I’ve been wanting to visit in Tokyo for a long while now – Akihabara, THE LAND OF ELECTRONICS, VIDEO GAMES, AND OTHER COOL STUFF! HELL YEAH DUDE…oh man I could go off for days on how I had to make sure that I made a stop here to just take it all in – I’ve heard about Bic Camera, the ACOS Cosplay Shop, the Gundam cafe, and the Square Enix Cafe (which I’ll talk about in a bit) through you guessed it…Paolo De Guzman from Paolo from Tokyo via his Top 10 Things to DO in AKIHABARA Tokyo | WATCH BEFORE YOU GO youtube vid! – also, who can forget the well known area that is of Yodobashi Camera (the premier place to buy electronics here in Tokyo and the like); I’ve seen a myriad of youtube vids about this place, and I was just stoked to be able to check this out.

Before I took the Ginza Line from Tawaramachi Station in Asakusa to Suehirochō Station in Akihabara, I had to get a Suica Pass! While I was in the Tawaramachi Station though, I couldn’t find the machine where they spit out Suica Passes, but I did stumble upon another public transit type of Smart Card Pass they had here called Pasmo!

I even paid a bit extra ¥ to have it personalized – pretty dope! With this new Pasmo card, I can finally feel like one of the locals here! CHYEAH – reload this card with some of that ¥ and scan this card in between gates like a pro! HELL YEAH. So convenient too… AND, (and especially later on in this trip) I’m able to use this card in combinis, coffee shops, and other places! I wish we had this sort of system in the States.

Anyway, after I stepped out of the Suehirochō Station in Akihabara, I started to notice quite a number of these gachapon machines on the street – I’ve always been intrigued by these and it reminds me back to the days of my youth at my local 99 Ranch Supermarket where they would have a few of these toy vending “hand-cranking” action machines both inside and outside the place – those back then would have mini action figurines from a range of stuff such as Pokemon and Power Rangers. It’s like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get! (Quote from Forrest Gump – although, that quote is related to something more with life-meaning moreso than anticipating and feeling anxious about what surprise you’re going to get from a toy vending machine.)

First stop around this area that I went to was the ACOS Cosplay Store to check out some of their cosplay stuff (although, it took me a little bit to figure out how to get to the 5th floor of that building since the entrance to the building (along with the actual elevator to hit up the 5th floor) wasn’t as conspicuous as I thought it would be.)

Going into the store and looking at all the different types of costumes that are available to buy for cosplaying was really nice to see – it took me back to the time I went to Anime Expo back in 2005 for the first time (which was the first time I even heard about cosplaying), and I had a last minute, half-assed Ryoma Echizen cosplay (from one of my favorite sports animes of all time – “Prince of Tennis”). Even though my costume was half-assed, I felt like I was part of the overall crowd back then, and seeing how a lot of other people were cosplaying opened this new world to me of how amazing and serious costumes can be – it’s literally like dressing up for Halloween, but NEXT LEVEL.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of me in that half-assed Ryoma costume; however, I did redeem myself with a much better costume (I first started wearing my Shinsengumi outfit to dress up as part of a Halloween event for work back in 2015) in the form of one of the Shinsengumi (a special police force that was part of Japan’s Bakumatsu period in 1863 + they were featured in one of my favorite animes of all time – Rurouni Kenshin!)

Needless to say, I wasn’t interested in buying a costume to cosplay since I was just there to check it out and browse.

After I left ACOS, I went over to my next location – BIC CAMERA! HELL YEAH SON. There’s a total of 7 floors, and there was only one floor that I was interested in – THE TOP FLOOR. NUMBER 7…which had the toys, video games, and Tokyo 2020 stuff.

~ Side Note #10: For the toy section, I was interested in checking out their amiibo selection, especially since two of my friends (Darrel and Sergio – who I co-host the “Nintendo Jump Podcast” with, which by the way is a video game podcast where we talk about all things Nintendo games and sometimes other games on non-Nintendo platforms as well :D) said that there are super rare amiibo that only exist in Japan that I have the opportunity of obtaining!

For those who don’t know, amiibo are these awesome figures that are a toys-to-life platform by Nintendo – you can use them to store video game data and interact with Nintendo consoles such as the current generation Nintendo Switch! ~

Even though I was aiming to get to the top floor of BIC CAMERA, I took a bit of time just to walk around anyway and check out each and every floor (whether it be phone cases, TVs and monitors, smartphones, and even traveling gear like travel mugs!)

One thing I noticed about BIC CAMERA as an electronic store compared to other electronic stores that we have back in the states is that the lighting is so much brighter (like I’m talking like as if the sun would say that it’s too bright!), and even though it’s so bright, it’s to a level where it doesn’t really hurt my eyes. That was an initial thought that I had when I first entered the store – does anyone else feel that way? Maybe it’s just me, but I mean at this point, I’m just nitpicking.

This was what I saw right when I got to the top 7th floor of BIC CAMERA – a nice “Welcome!” Mario stand thing, along with a TV showing off the upcoming release of Pokemon Sword and Shield (I will cover that later in the blog, not this post!) This floor had your standard offerings of games (via Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft), toys, and other things of the like.

Right after some exploring, I saw this amazing wall of amiibo, including some rare Splatoon (a third-person paint-based shooter video game series on the Nintendo Platform) ones! I went back and forth on this one and other Splatoon amiibo that were here since Darrel mentioned that these sort of Splatoon amiibo are pretty rare to get and virtually impossible to get in stores in the states (unless you order online).

There is one amiibo that Sergio mentioned that I should check to see if BIC CAMERA would have it – Amiibo Cuby! This is a super rare amiibo (oh my goodness, it’s $245 on amazon from when I hyperlinked it) that is only sold/made in Japan.

When I went over to ask a BIC CAMERA employee (in Japanese too! since I wanted to practice beyond my very limited/basic Japanese) about the availability of the Amiibo Cuby, he immediately answered me in English and said something along the lines of “One second, let me check.”

Sighhhhhhhh… even when I try to speak Japanese here, it’s not enough with certain people here that I speak Japanese to in order to receive a response back in Japanese (even if I don’t understand a lot of what they’re saying haha). It’s probably my beginner Japanese accent… don’t get me wrong, I’m not offended or anything – I just think it’s interesting that the gentleman that I spoke to inquiring about the super rare amiibo in Japanese could tell right away that I’m not from around the area and that using English would be a much better way of communicating. They can definitely sniff me out so well – I guess this is a good cue to try to get better and practice speaking more Japanese while I’m here 😀

Unfortunately, the employee said that they don’t carry that kind of amiibo anymore – oh well no worries! It wasn’t a must for me to get a rare amiibo here anyway, but I was just curious. I ended up not getting anything in this BIC CAMERA Akihabara location, which is totally fine because it’s just nice to browse around and check out the electronics store anyway. Even though it could just be a “standard” electronics store to many people who live in Japan, to me it’s always refreshing to checkout stores outside of where I live in general because I think there’s that sort of carefree, exciting adventure that I feel where maybe I’ll come across something that I normally would find unless it were overseas. This also applies not only to electronic stores, but also food as well (which you’ve probably already and will notice throughout this travel blog).

After I left BIC CAMERA, I walked about 5 minutes to get to my next stop – you’ve heard of it, you know it! YODABASHI CAMERA!!! YESSSSSSS. finally. Before I get into the store itself, I happened to see a certain video game themed cafe that piqued my interest immediately…

BOOM. SQUARE ENIX CAFE…like dayeummm, this is actually a thing! I had to stop by before I entered the Yodobashi Camera Akiba store!

I wasn’t surprised that there was a line for the cafe, especially hearing about how cool this cafe is! I mean, my love of final fantasy just spills out and I just wanted to just be here.

I went inside to inquire on how to get a seat in the cafe, and after waiting for a couple minutes (to let the people in line enter the cafe), one of the servers there told me that I need to put my name down for a spot at one of their available times. Since it was almost 1pm (and I thought of maybe going inside Yodobashi Camera first and then coming back to sit and eat/drink at the cafe), I ended up putting my name down for a spot at 2pm.

After a couple minutes, and before I walked out of the cafe, one of the servers actually said that they can sit me down immediately! NICEEEE. Luck has shined on me today!

As I was being directed to my seat, I noticed a couple things: A lot of “Dragon Quest XI | Echoes of an Elusive Age” (which is a game entry that just released not too long ago from a very famous Japanese RPG (role-playing game) series) merchandise were all around the initial entrance of the cafe (pretty cool btw!), and I noticed on my left side as I were going up the half floor height stairs that there’s an exclusive Square Enix Merchandise store with tons of awesome goodies (especially from Final Fantasy…AHHYEAH! THAT’S SO DOPE.)

This is legit! They even use iPads for their limited menu and I could totally understand the strict instructions that they have when in the Square Enix Cafe. I’m glad that they allow pictures though (hence the pictures I have of inside the cafe so far + incoming). It was cool to see the different items on the menu as you swipe right.

I have to say, even though the menu looks really good with appetizing food and unique, exclusive drinks themed after the Dragon Quest XI game… I ended up not getting anything because besides playing a bit of Dragon Quest VI (on the Nintendo DS 9 years ago), I don’t have any emotional attachment or sentiment to this particular series in general (Excuse me in advance Japan, I know that the Dragon Quest series is a national treasure for y’all, and I can definitely see why! I’ve heard A LOT about this RPG series and I’ve been around it for a little bit from friends in years past who’ve played the first three entries).

~ Side Note #11: I honestly didn’t grow up with the Dragon Quest series as much as I did with the Final Fantasy series, which is why I was a lot more hyped and excited for the Final Fantasy merch that they had in the cafe. ~

With that being said, I got out of my seat for a little bit, and I checked out the merch area in the corner of the shop! Super dope – as you can imagine, they have quite a bit of stuff (I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the things here are Square Enix Cafe Exclusives!). The soundtrack CDs they had of different final fantasy entries and other games (such as Octopath Traveler – a very good JRPG to play on the Nintendo Switch by the way!) is nice to see.

Both of these creatures (Tonberry + Cactuar) are iconic in the Final Fantasy series, and it’s nice to see that places like the Square Enix Cafe offer these awesome stuffed creatures in person to buy; though… I was tempted to buy one of these (just as a fan of the series), but I decided against it since they were too big to fit into my luggage (plus, I wanted to use that space for other stuff that I thought had priority).

After some browsing, I ended up not ordering anything from the menu or buying anything from the corner of the shop where they had a bunch of Square Enix related merch. I left the cafe shortly after and headed straight to my next location – Yodobashi Camera – Akiba!

YESSSSS…but before I continue, I gotta do a hard stop right here and talk more about the second half of the second part of the day in a next post (I hope that made sense…otherwise, the original intended post about the second half of day 2 in Japan would be WAYYY too long to digest in one sitting). Haha excuse me from the ending of the last post (via “Day 2 (Part 3): Street food in Asakusa + an owl! (11/11/19)“) where I mentioned that I would start and finish talking about the second half of the day in the next post. Sigh… so much for pacing content in this travel blog haha 😅

There’s still quite a bit to talk and blog about for day 2 that I haven’t gotten to yet! I’m talkin’ about stuff including the Pokémon Center Tokyo DX (HELL YEAH YOU HEARD IT RIGHT – A LEGIT Pokémon STORE! CHYEAH), the sushi I had in Shibuya, and last but not least, a shop there called LOFT that was really unique that I’m just dying to share with y’all!).

With that being said, please excuse me for splitting the original intended post (regarding covering the entire second half of day 2 in Japan) into three posts (this one you’re reading currently and the next two posts). You have my word that these next two posts will finish covering the rest of day 2 in Japan! 100%.

~ Side Note #12: from the last post, you’ve probably noticed a picture of some Pokémon and a nighttime picture (of which was taken in Shibuya) – those will be covered in the next posts fsho! ~

Cheers / wave

[Edit Note (1/29/2020): I mentioned two posts earlier, but because of the amount of content that I have to write about in day 2 part 5 that I honestly didn’t anticipate…I had to split that into two posts lol…otherwise part 5 would just be wayyyyyyy too long to consume in one sitting. That’s going to be part 5 and part 6 now. Excuse the split.]

After having those amazing pancakes from Benitsuru, I walked a very short 2 minutes to hit up the next spot around these parts – Yukari!

This is another spot that Paolo from Paolo FromTokyo (as part of his Tokyo Street Food Asakusa Top 10 Hidden Backstreet Tour | Fluffiest Japanese Pancakes Ever! youtube vid) recommended that I had to stop by and try, especially since Paolo himself is a HUGE karaage (aka fried chicken) fan! Since I myself am also a big karaage fan, I couldn’t resist and had to try this place out! FRIED CHICKEN HELL YEAH AIN’T A TIME IN THE WORLD WHERE THIS IS NOT APPROPRIATE.

There were some decent choices right off the bat, and I’m super glad that they have an english menu! My initial thought was that I would order one of each from the menu, but given the fact that I just had a decent sized breakfast shortly before, I gotta employ the following strat (short for strategy):

~ The player’s strategy #2 ~> Try multiple places during the day but don’t get too much of one kind of food/thing from each place – think of the day as a sample platter so that you can eat as much variety as possible. ~

It’s really hard not to eat more of one thing, especially since the quality of food here in Japan is just something else so far.

Anyway, I ended up getting both (1) Kari-Momo (¥240), and (3) Garlic (¥260)! A good ¥500 for a decent amount of karaage? SIGN. ME. UP.

Although I had to wait for about 10 minutes for some FRESH karaage to come out of the kitchen, it was well worth the wait.

As expected, both the Kari-Momo and the Garlic Karaage were delicious! They were fresh, hot, tender, juicy, man… just the whole nine yards. I definitely got my fried chicken fix (for now haha!). The way Yukari made these karaage remind me of 鹽酥雞 (yan su ji – or Taiwanese Fried Chicken), a very familiar style of fried chicken that is really easy to eat, especially with using skewers and eating them like you’re eating Satay or something!

Next stop on the list is Suzukien Asakusa (which is well known for their matcha tea gelato, oh and their green tea!), but before I do – I passed by Don Quijote in Asakusa, which is an awesome discount chain store that is quite famous around Japan. Unfortunately, I didn’t go inside but I could definitely tell that there were quite a number of people shopping there and browsing around.

It was a short 9 minute walk from Yukari to Suzukien (This was also recommended by Paolo from the same aforementioned youtube vid from earlier!). It’s an awesome, old-school matcha store, and they have a collaboration partner named Nanaya (ななや), a Matcha Sweets factory in Shizuoka.

From hearing a lot about how this place is known to have the strongest matcha in the world, I was eager to enter and see what they have to offer! When I entered, I looked to my left and saw the following:

D-D-D-D-DAYEUM… so many different matcha flavors (ranging from No. 1 to No. 7). I was so tempted to get multiple flavors (but that would’ve been quite a lot of gelato to consume). Originally, I had a thought to ask them in Japanese whether I could try a sample of each one…but given that people ahead of me didn’t really do that (and I wasn’t quite sure if that is an acceptable social norm to ask for free samples here via gelato/ice cream places in Japan), I decided to just pick and choose one of the flavors out of the seven.

I figured that choosing the middle ground amongst the 7 flavors would be the ideal option, or as I would usually say – THE PLAYER’S CHOICE. CHYEAH! GET IN MAH BELLY. I was hyped for this! I don’t remember exactly, but I believe it was ¥350 for a single scoop – not too bad, and I would pay a bit more anyway for quality like this.

The kicker to getting a scoop of the matcha gelato was that they provided complimentary green tea! That is so sick. The gelato itself is very nice and delicious – I loved how it wasn’t too sweet (which is usually how I like my desserts anyway), and you can definitely taste the matcha too. It’s not as strong and bitter as I thought a No. 4 would be, but it was strong enough and I can’t imagine how bitter the No. 7 Level is. I also liked how green the gelato is! (Green is my favorite color in general, and it was just a pleasing green color to see).

Onto the next stop! Originally, I was aiming to go to Sharaku (from Paolo FromTokyo (as part of his Tokyo Street Food Asakusa Top 10 Hidden Backstreet Tour | Fluffiest Japanese Pancakes Ever! youtube vid), and I was trying to find it on google maps too, but with a combination of losing track of where I was in Asakusa (while spacing out a bit just because I was a bit overwhelmed at how many different types of shops and things to try and eat here in Asakusa), and just settling for another place that has Tennan Taiyaki anyway, I ended up at this location instead (via the picture above) called Naruto Taiyaki Honpo (Ohhhhh that’s right! it has the name Naruto in it too…like the anime! :D). I figured this place is also a decent option to try Tennan Taiyaki since there was a line for it!

~ Side Note #8: Taiyaki is a Japanese fish-shaped cake that contains filling such as red bean paste! Tennan Taiyaki is taiyaki that is made from an individual cast iron press, which is quite common here in Japan. ~

They had two choices of filling to choose from – Red Bean, and Sweet Potato. The sweet potato is an interesting choice since back in California, given my previous experience with having this similar dessert but it’s a Chinese style cylindrical shape cookie cake thing (I totally forgot what we call it in Chinese to be quite honest haha…) in which shops usually offer either red bean or custard.

I ended up getting the OG flavor, red bean paste! It was fresh, nice, and hot off the iron griddle too! In the theme of how I like my desserts in general, it was just the right amount of sweetness – not too sweet! It also had a nice crispy outside, which compliments very well to the soft inside red bean paste filling that just made this delicacy ever so satisfying. This costed just ¥180, which is a decent price for a quality tennan taiyaki like this.

While I was still around the Nakamise Shopping Street, I managed to pass by this one place called Jungle Cafe Owl no Mori (a cafe and a place where they had a variety of owls that y’all can play and chill with – https://owlnomori.net/about-us). I wasn’t planning on going inside, but I did want to take a picture of this beautiful owl (I don’t quite 100% remember her name, but I believe it was Haruka)

The lady who was supervising Haruka had a sign that said you can take pictures of the owl if you donate ¥100, which I did since I really wanted to keep this as one of my photo memory in my travel here in Japan. Once I donated the ¥100, the lady proceeded to direct the owl to glide/hop onto this small patch of grass as you see here – so cool!

Dang it! it took quite a bit of time to try to have Haruka pose straight into my phone’s camera (and the lady was trying to help me get a good straight picture as well!), but this was the best I could’ve done – oh well no worries haha I still enjoyed taking these pictures. I gotta say though… her feather and wing structure could not have been more majestic (granted that I haven’t met too many owls in person throughout my life). Absolutely stunning.

~ Side Note #9: There were still some places that I wanted to hit up around Asakusa (especially places like Momotarou for their dango [which is a Japanese dumpling and sweet made from mochiko – akin to mochi] + Yasubee for their Yakitori [a Japanese type of skewered chicken] – these places have been mentioned in Paolo’s aforementioned Asakusa vid from earlier); however, given the other places I wanted to hit up today, especially in both Akihabara and Shibuya, my executive decision was to call it good in Asakusa for the day, and take the subway from there on. ~

I am well aware that I mentioned in the last post that I was going to talk about my adventure in both Akihabara + Shibuya as well, but since there’s quite a bit to talk about that part as the second half of the day, I figured this would be a good stop and I’ll talk about that 11/11/19 in the next post!

For now, here are a few pictures as a preview of my next post.

Thanks for understanding, and happy new year + new decade! #2020

Cheers / wave

Given that I got about 1 1/2 hours before I could sit down at Benitsuru later in the morning, and since a bunch of the places I wanted to hit up in Asakusa aren’t open yet anyway, I decided to walk to Sensō-ji temple while hitting up Nakamise-dori Street (aka Nakamise Shopping Street) on the way!

As you can see here, there were some shops that were opened, and some weren’t (since a lot of the shops and stalls here in Nakamise-dori opened at 10am, so no worries there). It was dope just getting a feel of old-school Tokyo at one of the oldest shopping streets in all of Japan (90 shops/stalls too!) – I can see how festive this area can get during the day, and it was pleasant just even walking here. As a quintessential Japanese shopping arcade, this was a nice lead into my next destination for today – Sensō-ji temple!

~ Side Note #5: Nakamise-dori Street, Sensō-ji temple, Benitsuru, and the other stops in Asakusa that I’m hitting up that I’ll show y’all (with the exception of one, which I’ll get into later) were all recommended by Paolo FromTokyo) as part of his Tokyo Street Food Asakusa Top 10 Hidden Backstreet Tour | Fluffiest Japanese Pancakes Ever! youtube vid – this is one of my favorite vids that he’s done. If you’re ever in Asakusa, or even in different parts of Tokyo, definitely consider his recommendations. He knows his stuff. ~

Known as both Tokyo’s oldest temple, and for being one of the most visited places in Tokyo by tourists, Sensō-ji had this immediate, spiritual aura that just permeates throughout both the area, and into my soul – Even though there were a lot of people there taking photos and exploring the temple grounds, I felt like I was alone in my own thoughts and just taking it all in, with the presence of spirits all around me subconsciously guiding me to do what I’m about to do next that I wasn’t originally planning on doing: drawing an omikuji (a written, random fortune on paper from Buddhist temples and Shinto Shrines in Japan).

I followed the aforementioned directions above, and I just hope that I can get (not the best fortune available) the right fortune that would fit me best at this time in my life. (…okay jokes, I wanted to have the best written fortune available haha I mean c’mon y’all – this is it! I GOT THIS. LADY LUCK BLESS ME JUST THIS ONE TIME DAMN IT! LET’S GO!!!)

I shaked the box, got stick #65, and I’m like thinking “okay! at least it doesn’t have a 4 in it lol (since in Chinese culture, #4 is considered bad luck since saying 四 (which is 4 in Chinese) is very close to saying 死 (which is dead in Chinese)).” Yeah I know, this is a Japanese fortune not a Chinese one, but I gotta play out this scenario to my favor in any sort of reasoning favorable to my chances ya know what I mean. c’mon now!

The above screenshot shows how I first saw the omikuji…and immediately I thought “dang it…might just have to use the google translate app to translate all of the written Japanese, but then before I did that, I was like “na na na na na na na na na… there’s gotta be some sort of English on this fortune – gotta check the back side!” Sure enough, my initial intuition was right, and this was the result:

After reading this fortune thoroughly a couple times, I didn’t know whether to consider this a good or bad fortune – it seems like it’s both. It was quite a bit to read and think about this because of the initial thoughts I had about each point this fortune made (for all I know, I could just be overthinking it and going off the rails for something that may or may not be accurate to how my life has been, but since I’m in a spiritual place like Sensō-ji, I thought about the following for each point):

• “You will be suffering from disease and get depreciated by other people.” ~> I’ve had plenty of moments where I did feel this way about certain people throughout my life, but I think a lot of it was because (especially during my high school and college years + given that I’m usually more of a giver than a receiver) I had a lot of trouble determining who are my true friends, and who aren’t – I think a lot of us go through this sort of thing during a time when we’re still maturing, figuring out ourselves, and how we fit into this world. I struggled with being accepted for a long time (and I still do even today to some extent), and it affected the confidence that I had in making friends and maintaining certain friendships that I valued a lot. I don’t know the name of this disease, but it certainly affected my mental health tremendously until I realized that I only have so much energy and time to give to others, and I have to be more decisive on who I spent that time with, especially for those who really do care about my well being and the friendships we have together. It’s easy to feel like you’re being taken for granted, and especially since the beginning of this year – I just try to do what I can to strike a good balance between what I give, and who I give it to.
• “You are always attacked by danger, so you can’t get through everything.” ~> I’m not sure what the ‘danger’ part is exactly referring to, but I took it as the adversity that I face over the years, and how it’s okay to ask for help and get support from others. There’s a saying that goes “No man is an island.” meaning that “no one is truly self-sufficient, everyone must rely on the company and comfort of others in order to thrive.” (reference: https://grammarist.com/phrase/no-man-is-an-island/)
• “When spring comes, you may meet a happiness. You should make a perfect and good plan and wait for a good chance, with patience.” ~> I hope that happens come this spring 2020 – I don’t really know what kind of ‘perfect and good plan’ I can make to set me up for that other than staying course with the process of always improving (on that daily grind) myself, whether it’s physical progress, my career, or with bolstering my already close friendships with people that are part of my tight-knit circle of friends.
• “Your request will not be granted. The patient will get well in a little while.” ~> Well…that’s a downer lol, and what does this mean? Who’s the patient, or is it referring to people who are patient? I think it’s the latter.
• “Lost article will not be found.” ~> Damn…I hope this doesn’t mean the awesome “Mountain Hardwear” (Dark Zinc Color, aka somewhat of a dark purple) down jacket that I have on today. No way am I losing this.
• “The person you wait for arrives late” ~> How late are we talking about?
• “Building a new house and removal are both well” ~> Not sure how to decipher this to be honest.
• “Now is a good time to start a trip.” ~> Like this second trip (first time solo) to Japan? CHYEAH YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS. I’m way ahead of the game on this one.
• “Both any kind of marriage, and new employment are medium fortune.” ~> I don’t think too much about marriage (especially since I’m still trying to find the one for me). As for employment, the current gig that I’m on is more than just medium fortune – I’m really blessed to be a part of a team (since the beginning of this year) that not only works well together, but also looks after my well being and makes sure that I’m not burning out (given that I have a tendency to put in extra hours week after week because (1) I don’t want anyone to doubt that I’m not working hard enough, (2) I have this tremendous pride to be one of the best contributors for our team for both success and growth, and (3) I just want to win, man…I want to win as a team, I want to win at life, I just… want to win).

From the “How to draw OMIKUJI” instructions, it mentioned that “When you draw a bad fortune, please do not worry. Tie it on a hanger and drop bad fortune off here.” Since I was uncertain whether this fortune was good or bad, I just ended up keeping it since I already had my thoughts about it, and would like to look back at it later on to see if any of the predictions that it made actually came true.

Shortly after the fortune thing, I went over to the nearby kiosk/stall area thing where I paid either ¥100 or ¥200 to get one of these sticks – They were a bit thicker than the sticks that I’m used to using as incense sticks. To be honest, I don’t quite remember exactly what the purpose of this was, but I just remembered that I wrote my Chinese name on it, and gave it to the lady (as we both bowed to each other). I assumed that it was probably a spiritual donation to the temple.

There were a few areas throughout the temple where you can burn incense sticks (where they’re like these big pots containing sand and have smoke come out of each of them due to the burning incense sticks) – I went to one of them to burn an incense stick (while bowing three times). The purpose of this was praying to ancestors + relatives that have since passed + meditating at the same time. Also, there were a couple places where you would throw a coin into the fountain or some other spiritual container – this serves as a way for you to meditate + make some wishes that you want to come true. I won’t say which wishes I made, but they were definitely related to my aforementioned fortune.

Before I left Sensō-ji, I thought that it would be really nice to get one of these bracelets (the timing was perfect since I’ve been wanting to find a reliable bracelet that I can wear on the daily). Deciding on which one was difficult, but I ended up getting B-3 “虎目石” (which translates to Tiger’s Eye).

The bracelet was within my budget, and after doing a google search on the significance behind the Tiger’s eye, I read this:

“Tigers Eye Stone is a crystal with lovely bands of yellow-golden color through it. This is a powerful stone that helps you to release fear and anxiety and aids harmony and balance. It stimulates taking action, and helps you to make decisions with discernment and understanding, and unclouded by your emotions.” (reference: https://www.healing-crystals-for-you.com/tigers-eye-stone.html)

The depiction of the Tiger’s eye really spoke to me – if there are ever times when I would feel indecisive, unbalanced, stressed out, or any other emotion that would have me flustered or off guarded in anyway, I would like to think that in a spiritual sense, having this bracelet would aid me in those sort of situations.

After a nice visit to this temple, it was time to head back to the one, the only…B-B-B-B-B-B-BENITSURU! OH YEAH YOU KNOW MY RESERVATION IS STILL GOOD FOR THE DAY. CHYEAH my body, my soul, my heart, and most importantly, my stomach ARE ALL AT THE READY. y’all know what it is! HERE WE GO.

It was a quick 5 minute walk from Sensō-ji back to Benitsuru. I got there about 9:50am ish, and even though they technically open at 10am, they were already starting to have people sit down and start ordering – I gave one of the employees there my reservation, and immediately after, I saw both Paolo and Celine already sat down and ready to order.

~ Side Note #6: Now here was something that I thought was a bit strange – After I was greeted by the Benitsuru crew and saw both Paolo and Celine sitting down at the counter, there was a spot next to them where I could sit; naturally, I decided to sit next to them since we’ve met earlier and it would be great to continue conversing together like we did while we were waiting in line earlier in the morning. All of a sudden, one of the Benitsuru crew motioned me (a couple times) to sit in the seat one space away from them to the left. I was thinking… “Why?” Clearly I recognize these folks and it was very conspicuous that we knew each other a little bit and it would be fitting for us to sit next to each other. Both Paolo and Celine thought it was strange too, and we didn’t know how to ask if we could sit next to each other. Oh well, whatever I guess – even though I sat a seat away from them, we still were able to converse a bit (just a bit awkward since there’s an empty seat between us where I could’ve sat in…) ~

Looking at the menu (and considering the specials of the day), I already decided on what I wanted to get – the Bacon and Eggs! HELL YEAH. PAOLO’S (from Paolo FromTokyo) RECOMMENDATION, AND THAT’S THE PLAYER’S CHOICE ya know what I’m sayin’? (coincidentally, both Paolo and Celine ordered the same thing! they know what’s up!)

While we were waiting for our pancakes, Paolo, Celine, and I were just watching the chefs make the pancakes – we were just filled with suspense and anticipating how delicious the pancakes will be.

Oh my goodness, these look soul good (and the Benitsuru crew weren’t done with finishing the orders).

There we go. Both Paolo and Celine were pretty excited about these too. They were taking pictures, especially for the gram (referring to instagram). Both really liked it, and they were just oozing about how unreal and delicious these pancakes were. I got even more excited and hyped just hearing them talk about it and gush over them! MAN…I CAN’T WAIT BRUH. DAMN IT I AM READY FOR THIS. LET’S GO!

Several minutes later, my order was ready… BOOM there it is – holy shit. This is way too pretty to eat.

Each order of these “Bacon and Eggs” pancakes contains 2 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, and 3 LOVELY, FLUFFY pancakes stacked between the eggs + pieces of bacon. Right off the bat, A+ on the presentation. If you were curious (which I was too), the yellow sauce that they put on top of this masterpiece is called Custard Sauce (or their version of hollandaise).

Straight up – these are the best pancakes I’ve ever had. The presentation, the taste, the contrasting sweet and savory notes back and forth with each bite you take. As a fast eater, I definitely tried my best to slow down and savor the flavor in every single bite I took. I honestly felt a bit giddy and just chuckling at how good this really was. Both Paolo and Celine were looking at my reactions and could totally relate, and even a couple of the Benitsuru crew were smiling and laughing with me at my reactions to these pancakes. What a gem. How is this real?!

I’ve never had pancakes this good before. Also, I don’t usually have hollandaise sauce that often, but MAN WAS THIS A NICE TOUCH. The whole thing just came together as one, and even the seemingly darker orange egg yolks were just right. This is truly top tier and one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life.

~ Side Note #7: Usually with pancakes, I would do the following (given that it’s a three stack with a bit of butter in the middle):

I would cut multiple, little holes starting in the middle of the pancakes (where I would cut through all layers – kind of like crevices that you see on mountains and in other hiking areas) and subsequently throughout the pancakes’ areas (while never cutting through to the edges of the pancakes); then, I would proceed to pour the maple syrup into those holes so that the maple syrup can sift into both the middle and bottom layers of the pancakes. This is a great way to make sure that you get a good maple syrup to pancakes ratio so that you’ll get a nice bit of syrup in every bite; otherwise, the syrup would just pour from the top of the top pancake stack, and onto the edges. You’re not going to get an evenly distributed ratio of maple syrup to pancakes per bite that way.

I learned this neat trick from an old man when I was about 6 years old at an inn that served continental breakfast during a trip where my parents took me to San Luis Obispo and other parts of California that I’ve never been to before at the time. During that morning long ago, while my parents and I were eating breakfast together, the old man sitting at the table next to ours saw that I was proceeding to do the whole “pouring maple syrup on the top stack and just having the syrup glide to the edges of the pancake stack” strategy, and he decided to talk to both my parents and me about his strategy on eating pancakes (which is what I just described above). The way he did it was like he’s been doing it for years, and he explicitly said that this is the way to eat pancakes. Brilliant – I’ve never eaten pancakes any other way ever since. ~

Now, you’re probably wondering – “Well Kevin, you didn’t follow your usual strategy this time! YOU CUT THROUGH TO THE EDGES OF THE PANCAKES. You’re supposed to cut multiple little holes that cut through all layers of the pancakes and pour maple syrup into each of them to get that perfect maple syrup to pancakes ratio per bite! C’mon Kev!”

😅 I know! I hear ya! but sighhhhhhh… I couldn’t help it this time since I wanted to take this sort of picture of these aesthetically pleasing, GORGEOUS lookin’, packing heat type of pancakes in such this way. I’m making an exception this time, so you know, all good! Note: I did pour a bit of maple syrup that Benitsuru provided, and man…just love to my soul right now. I love these pancakes.

When I finished and asked for the check, I got the bill and saw that it was only ¥700 (the Bacon and Eggs pancakes is ¥1700)! SAY WHAT?! YOOOO I GET THESE SCRUMPTIOUS PANCAKES AND A DISCOUNT. How can this be?! UN-FREAKING-REAL. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to leave with just paying ¥700 though. I wanted to make sure that this was the right amount that Benitsuru charged, cuz you know, I don’t want any of that bad karma. No way dude.

A minute later (as I contemplated on how I was going to ask the Benitsuru crew about this), I realized that OHHHHHHH…. it’s because it’s taking into consideration the ¥1000 deposit that I put in to make that same-day reservation earlier just to eat at this lovely place. Makes sense haha! 😅

After finishing the meal (and both Paolo and Celine finished theirs around the same time that I did), we decided to exchange instagram handles with each other and hopefully keep in touch. That was really nice, and this was the first time I exchanged instagram handles with people I met overseas. I hope this sort of social interaction can become a regular thing for me (especially when traveling solo like I am now). We walked out of the restaurant together before bowing and saying good bye to the Benitsuru crew (and to the people from Philly who were in the middle of enjoying their pancakes too!)

Before we parted ways, I said good-bye, take care, and wished both of them a fantastic time for the rest of their trip in Japan. They did the same, and I’m now off to doing the following that I’ll be talking about in the next travel journal post:

• Asakusa street food
• Shopping and other things in Akihabara
• Dinner and more shopping in Shibuya

Cheers / wave

12:30am, 2:00am, 3:00am, and 5:30am – these are the times that jetlag decided to wake me up. Jetlag 1. Kevin 0. After waking up the fourth time, I just couldn’t go back to sleep – time to get the day started… with some tap water! Originally, I was going to take the elevator downstairs and use the awesome vending machines that have water, green tea, coffee (both with and without milk), and some apple + lemon drinks that I was not familiar with); however, I did a quick google search to see whether the tap water in Japan is safe to drink. Lo and behold – it is safe to drink!

I went downstairs to the common room, filled up my travel mug with tap water, and drank a bit to check and see if it’s drinkable – I gotta say, I approve! Japanese tap water is DECENT. It doesn’t taste funky or whatever because back in the states, the tap water is not safe to drink unless you use some sort of water filter pitcher (like one from BRITA), or have someone incorporate a water filtration system with your kitchen sink to get clean, filtered water. Growing up, that was always the case, but not in Japan though!

I gotta say that the common room here is pretty legit – I love the wooden decor and it feels like you’re living in a woodshop that doubles as a house with a plethora of manga, tour guide books, and random framed posters of miscellaneous stuff (which pretty much is the motif of the place along with the trinkets, toys, and stuffed animal things spread all throughout the place).

As it is shown conspicuously, there’s a bit of rain this Tuesday morning – luckily, Min placed a good number of umbrellas just right outside the AirBnb entrance. I wasn’t 100% sure if we’re allowed to borrow one of them; I texted him to ask if it’s cool that I can borrow one for the day, and he was totally cool with it – phew, otherwise, I was going to stop by a combini (Japanese term for convenience store, which oh man…I will get into later on!) to pick one up. The umbrellas that Min had were these transparent ones, which apparently are super common to have in Japan.

oh btw, these are the vending machines that I was referring to earlier – soul cool. I definitely took advantage of using these throughout my trip (especially with the water + the occasional green tea!) Whether it’s because there are drinks inside each of these that I haven’t tried yet, or just the fact that they’re in Japan and they have that “x-factor”, I was always drawn to stopping by each one that I come across for a little bit and seeing what each would have.

Don’t mind the current location dot – my google maps app was acting pretty weird when I took this screenshot; but yeah! I walked about 5-6 minutes from my Shinjuku AirBnb and took the Oedo Line (one of the local subway lines operating in Tokyo). Originally, I thought that I could use my JR Pass for this one; but I forgot that there are local subway lines like Oedo (not just in Tokyo, but all over Japan) that operate outside of the JR system.

Totally fine though, I ended up buying a one-way ticket from Higashi-Shinjuku Station to Kuramae Station for 220円 (or ¥220) so that I could end up in the first area that I wanted to hit up for the day – Asakusa! (one of the districts in Taitō, Tokyo).

You probably are wondering from that last screenshot, “yo kev, what is Benitsuru?” Ohhhhh man…y’all ain’t ready. Y’ALL AIN’T READY FOR BENITSURU. CHYEAH… LET. ME. TELL. YOU…later!

~ Side Note #1: The Left is the actual subway train ticket, and the right is the receipt for that subway train ticket – man…the way they print out both the tickets and receipts feels nice in the hand. The paper material and the typefont / lettering that they use is something else. (I know…I’m geeking out on these little things unnecessarily, but I can’t help it sometimes haha). I’d like to know what that specific paper material is, and I’m pretty sure they use this kind of paper material back in the states for stuff.~

~ Side Note #2: Dang it! I forgot to purchase a SUICA card at this moment in time, which is a prepaid smart travel card that allows you to use a lot of the public transport [buses, metro, monorail, and trains] and in Japan. Shoutout to Eshani, a coworker friend of mine who has been to Japan before, for letting me know about these things (even though I forgot to get a SUICA card this time). I wouldn’t make that same mistake later (I would be getting a different card than SUICA card though to use in Tokyo…but it’s just as good!). ~

By the time I stepped outside of Kuramae Station, the rain had stopped: it was still decently early in the morning where there weren’t that many people outside just yet.

You’re also probably wondering, “yo kev, why did you wake up so damn early? Don’t you know that a good number of places don’t usually open until 9 or 10am?” You’re right, but there’s one place that I NEEDED to get there as early as I can just to get a same-day reservation (just so that I can eat there today without having to consider the possibility of not having able to eat there at all.) – you’ll see in a bit!

A bit anticlimactic (I know), but this is Benitsuru! (at about 7:10ish am haha…). Given the fact that this place opens at 10am, Paolo (that’s right y’all, from Paolo FromTokyo) recommended this spot (as part of his Tokyo Street Food Asakusa Top 10 Hidden Backstreet Tour | Fluffiest Japanese Pancakes Ever! youtube vid. He also recommended to get a same-day reservation for this place too, and you’ll see later on that it’s mighty worth). After watching this vid (before I made my second trip out here to Japan), I was sold! This video helped me get a bunch of ideas on what to do for a good half of the day, including (as you’ve already have seen it – eating the “Fluffiest Japanese Pancakes Ever!“) none other than B-B-B-B-B-B-BENITSURU. OH HELL YEAH. (If you already watched that vid, don’t spoil it for others just yet!)

Anyway, point being – I thought I was too early, and I didn’t know when Benitsuru started taking reservations until I checked on TripAdvisor about this place that they start taking reservations at 8:30am. Sighhhhhh… oh well all good – I do want to explore Asakusa a bit anyway, and oh! I do want some coffee.

~ The player’s strategy #1 ~> Get a nice cup of coffee nearby while keeping an eye out on the time and checking back maybe a couple times between now and 8:30am so that I can still be one of the first (hopefully the first still) in line to make a same-day reservation to eat there. ~

I used google maps to check out some nearby places to have coffee, and I ended up finding this one Japanese coffee cafe chain called Doutor – the thing is, this shop wasn’t open until 7:30am…but all good. It was 7:23am, you know what time it is. time to walk back for a bit to check back at Benitsuru!

When I walked back, there were two people that were just waiting right outside of the establishment – I just stood next to them, and one of them decided to walk out of the line a bit after I got there (looked like he was going to take care of an errand or something).

Now here’s the thing – I initially didn’t say anything to the other person still waiting outside because (1) I thought they were veterans, the OGs, the locals that knew that y’all need to wait here as early as possible just to get a chance to eat here on the same day, and (2) they looked Asian, so I made a calculated assumption that they were Japanese and spoke little to no English (yeah I know, probably not a smart, right assumption to make, but I only made that assumption because I was shy as hell initially, and didn’t really know what to say except trying to ask them “Hello, is this place Benitsuru, and are you both waiting here to make a same-day reservation?” in my limited, basic Japanese BECAUSE I thought they were veterans, OGs, and/or the locals here who knew about this place like they’ve been here for years).

Shortly after a couple minutes of not saying anything, the lady turned to me and asked me something along the lines of (in an aussie accent) “Hey! Are you waiting in line to get the pancakes too?” and I was like “Hell yeah! Wait, is this Benitsuru – the place known for their fluffy pancakes?!” She responded, “YESSSSS! my partner and I are waiting in line just for those!”

Phew, (1) she spoke English. (2) when her partner came back with some pre-breakfast snacks, we formally introduced each other – Paolo and Celine! They’re visitors too and they’re from Australia (both of them had aussie accents – hell yeah!). I instantly felt relieved that we could have at least a decent, friendly conversation about each other through small talk. They’re pretty cool, and they were super nice enough to hold my spot in line because I wanted to get a cup of coffee (as part of my original plan from earlier).

I walked a short 2 minutes from Benitsuru to Doutor (and they just opened by the time I got there at around 7:30am). I ordered their large sized iced coffee for ¥320. They gave me both “gum syrup” (sugar syrup!) and a “coffee fresh” creamer singles to use for the iced coffee. As an important note – I’ve heard quite a bit about the iced coffee culture here in Japan (primarily from Buzzfeed’s hit series “Worth It” [Andrew, Steven, Rie, Adam, and the rest of the production crew] with their $1 Coffee Vs. $914 Coffee youtube vid – I’m a huge fan of your show, and shoutout to y’all!)

Short backstory before I continue: I used to love drinking coffee straight up (just black, without any sugar or milk/cream); however, since I moved up here to Portland last year, I’ve started first using unsweetened almond milk as a creamer (since I’ve starting hearing that drinking coffee black stains your teeth), and why not? Still pretty decent, but what made this beyond decent was the eureka moment of using oat milk. Oh my god – oat milk is fantastic. I love using it in coffee because it gives this subtle, nutty flavor to the coffee. CHYEAH.

Conclusion: the player’s choice – coffee with oat milk. soul good – take that to the bank!

Anyway, I was very curious (and going against my usual of how I like my coffee); I put in both the sugar syrup and coffee creamer singles into the coffee, and originally, I thought that it would be quite sweet, but nope! It was just the right amount of sweetness that I liked. It instantly took me back to the times when I was a lot younger when my mom would take me to Curry House in Southern California on occasion to have both Japanese Curry, and… their signature Tropical Iced Tea (which was this DECENT tea that was accompanied by this sugar syrup that they gave in a small glass open syrup server type thing [ahaha that’s how I describe it…I don’t know the exact term for this, but y’all know what I mean] on the side that you can put in). I gotta tell ya, that was my soda – that was my drink. That was the OG, the go-to, the myth, the legend, the captain of drinks (y’all know what I’m sayin’?) – I loved it. I’ve had this kind of similar awesome sweet tea drink before at cantonese cafes in the form of Lemon Iced Teas, but it was still fascinating to me to see that sugar syrup can blend in so well in an iced, cold drink (contrary to using sugar packets that you could use to put that sugar into your iced tea, but the sugar wouldn’t blend into the tea that easily).

~ Side Note #3: Before I forget, something that I instantly noticed when I ordered iced coffee at Doutor (which will become the norm during my travel here in Japan when purchasing or ordering food/goods etc) – the cashier/employee will average four bows per transaction + interaction with the customer – in the same fashion, I average the same number of bows too with them!

• The first bow together occurs when I give them the money for what I’m purchasing (or ordering in this case, a large iced coffee)
• The second bow together occurs when they give me back my change and what I ordered
• The third bow together occurs when I receive my receipt from what I purchased
• The fourth bow together occurs when I’m about to leave the shop, waving good-bye at the same time.

Crazy right? But this is how they do things here in Japan, and it’s honestly refreshing and super humbling to me. I wasn’t used to it at first, but after a few times of this happening, it became second nature to me. ~

I took my iced coffee to-go, went back in line with Paolo + Celine at Benitsuru (thank you both for saving my spot! much appreciated. NUMBER THREE FOR THE DAY. CHYEAH. STILL EARLY RISER WIN), and I met a few others in line who are from Philadelphia (HELL YEAH AMERICANS. THE STATES. CHYEAH) who found out about this fluffy pancakes place too! Dang it…I totally forgot their names though, but they were real nice people to talk to for a bit.

From when I got back around 7:40am ish to when Benitsuru started taking reservations at 8:30am (on the dot.) We were all talking as a group discussing what each other is planning on doing in Japan, and when it came for me to share, I just pulled out my notebook and showed the following pages right off the bat:

All of them (including both Paolo and Celine) were in amazement and super surprised that I had something like this with me – the fact that I would handwrite down a bunch of things that I’m planning on doing in Tokyo instead of typing up a list (to be fair, I just wrote down a bunch of stuff that I want to do and I was planning on doing some of them and leaving the rest of the time up to the “see food diet” + winging it) was what they thought was impressive. I guess I was a bit surprised that they would think that honestly because to me, this is a normal thing for me to do – I’m old school when it comes to planning trips as a first pass – I like to write stuff down (instead of just typing it out on the computer) and use it as a reference that I can pull out of my backpack anytime I needed to. Paolo liked it so much that he took a couple pictures of these.

~ Side Note #4: In terms of writing down things to eat and do in my notebook, I did the same treatment for the next few cities that I traveled to that I’ll talk about in my travel journal later. I’ll show later when I start talking about those cities later on. ~

I talked to both Paolo and Celine a lot more – we shared quite a bit about each other’s lives and what we planned to do in Japan, which is always nice because that’s a great way to converse and pass the time while we’re waiting for same-day reservation bookings to eat THEM FLUFFY PANCAKES THOUGH.

We even talked about sports (especially Paolo with basketball when he mentioned the Blazers (and Damian Lillard!) and asked how they’re doing in the NBA this season so far).

Both Celine and Paolo recommended me a few places to hit up when I get a chance, including this awesome coffee cafe spot that they’re planning on hitting up (see screenshot above) called Koffee Mameya. (sadly… I didn’t get a chance to go, but if y’all get a chance to do so in Tokyo, let me know how it is 😀)

8:30am came. Celine + Paolo got their same-day reservation set up, and I got mine set-up as well! I was slated to sit down inside Benitsuru at 10:05am, and it was required to put down a ¥1000 deposit (which Paolo from Paolo fromTokyo warned me about already in the aforementioned Top 10 Street Food Asakusa youtube vid, so all good!)

This worked out, because for the time being, I’m free to explore more of Asakusa (including the Sensō-ji temple) until 10:05am when I had to be back by to eat these pancakes that I’ve been hearing so much about! HYPE!

For now, here are a couple photos as a small preview of the next travel journal entry.

My body is ready. LETS GET IT. but first, more exploring!

Cheers / wave

NRT (Narita International Airport) – I arrived a bit earlier than expected. Going through customs, grabbing my checked-in luggage, setting up my JR (Japan Rail) Pass, & retrieving my pocket wifi went really smoothly.

Also, seeing the “Welcome to JAPAN” sign held by both Mario & Luigi (Nintendo Characters) was awesome (there was another “Welcome to JAPAN” sign held by Rosalina, Luna, & Daisy (also Nintendo characters) that was just as dope too! Love the Nintendo usage here.

Oh, and it was nice to see the Tokyo 2020 posters up at the airport (showing both anime-like mascots!) Man… can’t believe the olympics is coming around the corner. There’s a Nintendo Switch game associated with the upcoming olympics that I’ve been going back and forth about getting (“Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020”) – we’ll see! For now, I just enjoy seeing stuff that are related to the Olympics anyway.

Just like my passport, I had to make sure that I kept my JR Pass close to the chest (literally) – losing this would suck… as I would have to fork over the same amount of money that I originally paid to replace it – (no worries, because “spoiler alert” – I did not lose my JR Pass at all throughout the trip! :D, great). Even though my trip was only 11 days (technically 10 since I lose a day from flying), I got the 14 day pass instead of the 7 day one (there were 7, 14, and 21 day pass options) since I wasn’t sure how much I would have to pay (& what I would do as an alternative at the time) for those three days without it. Better safe than sorry!

Before I continue further, I just want to give a shoutout to one of my brothers from another mother – Tony! Including the fact that he and his fiancé (Eva, who is another close friend and shoutout to her as well since she helped me with ideas on what to eat and see in Tokyo) have been to Japan in the past, when it comes to logistics, Tony’s my guy – he’s very reliable when it comes to organizing and preparing for things, especially for international trips like this where having a JR Pass is a must-have when traveling in Japan. He helped me with the JR Pass stuff, and he also suggested that I get a Pocket Wifi too, because you never know when you’re in certain areas in the country where the mobile network connection can be spotty (Having that Pocket Wifi man…what a save).

Anyway, after getting both my JR Pass + Pocket Wifi – I went to the front desk (that handles JR stuff. I showed him my JR Pass, and I told him that I was heading to Shinjuku (one of the more popular boroughs within Tokyo). He asked me if wanted a window seat, and naturally, I said “CHYEAH MAN YOU KNOW IT BRUH WINDOW SEAT ALL DAY.” (jokes! I just nonchalantly said “yes.”) Taking the Narita Express train (from Narita Airport Terminal 1 to Shinjuku, which is where my AirBnb is) was really nice – assigned seating + DECENT amount of leg room (when I say that…I mean it was a good amount of room) – just overall a good experience.

It was relaxing and nice just to look out the window (even though it was nighttime), and to actually be in the country. Even though I’ve already adapted to taking the MAX Light Rail (our light rail system here in Portland), there was something about taking trains in Japan that just had that x-factor (maybe it was the precision timing of the train arriving on the dot, the different stops and places that I was unfamiliar with that the train conductor would announce every so often during my train ride that I was curious about, or maybe it could be just that I’m just super hyped and get excited even for the most little of things (which I can say that I do get excited about certain things pretty easily haha).

Train ride: [departure time] 20:44 (8:44pm) ~> [arrival time] 22:09 (10:09 pm)

After stepping out of the train & going outside of the Shinjuku Train Station, I was surrounded by all of these lighted up buildings in Shinjuku – HELL YEAH. THE CITY! Some of the buildings that I saw already gave me this initial feel good impression of the ideal modern metropolitan look. I missed this side of urban Asia… forreal.

As I was admiring the urban environment around me, I was getting super hungry! What would be the first meal that I would have in Japan?! You guessed it ~> RAMEN.

First stop ~> Misoya Hachiro Shoten! It was a 7 minute walk from Shinjuku Station – not too bad. Here we go!

When I first walked in, I knew to expect to order from the menu machine right beside the sliding door entrance (shoutout to Paolo de Guzman, a super awesome dude / tour guide that has a youtube channel called “Paolo fromTOKYO”. I’ve gotten a lot of ideas from him & his youtube vids + he recommended this Ramen shop as part of his “Tokyo Ramen Top 5 Must Eat at Shinjuku | Japanese Food Guide” youtube vid.)

Anyway, I ordered the Kara (Spicy) Miso Ramen (¥920 + recommended by Paolo). The miso is a special blend from Hokkaido (the northernmost of Japan’s Main Islands).

This bowl uses this special burnt garlic black oil (that sits on top of the broth) that just added this nice, heavy touch to the dish. It also had this soft chashu, as well as ground pork.

The noodles were thicker & more straight than I would typically taste & see in Ramen (comparing to ramen back in the states) – I liked it a lot! Although… for some strange reason, my bowl didn’t include the soft-boiled egg that was illustrated in the menu machine (I thought about inquiring on it, but decided against it since I was just too hungry to care & at the time, I wouldn’t know how to ask about this in Japanese). Overall, what a good first meal to have in the land of the rising sun!

Before I headed to my Airbnb in Shinjuku, I was still a bit hungry – there’s one other stop that I wanted to hit up that was only a 6-7 minute walk away… ANOTHER RAMEN SHOP! CHYEAH. LETS GO.

Next stop ~> Hosenka! Ordering food was the same way as it was from Misoya Hachiro Shoten – from a menu machine (I hope that’s what you call it haha… correct me if I’m wrong). This (& the ramen I got) was also recommended by Paolo from the same aforementioned youtube vid.

I ordered their Tokusei Ramen (Special Ramen in English. ¥1,000) – oh. my. goodness… I’ve never had this kind of ramen before! The broth is made from a premium sea bream called Kinmedai (金目鯛) or “Golden eye snapper” in English. With rare pork shoulder chashu, bits & pieves of Kinmedai, bamboo sprouts, chopped red & green onions, AND this delicious half-broiled marinated egg, this bowl of ramen was quite exceptional. I loved every bit of it, and I couldn’t believe that ramen can be soul good like this ~> it must be the fish broth. Also, the whole wheat noodles paired very well w/ the broth.

Something that I didn’t order shortly after I finished this Special ramen is the “Kinmedai Chazuke,” which Paolo did recommend & which was eaten afterwards w/ the leftover ramen soup. This dish consists of an additional bowl of rice w/ the soup topped w/ 2 small pieces of Kinmedai chunks & a bit of mild wasabi. I decided not to get it at that time because (1) I was too full, & (2) I didn’t know how to ask for that in Japanese… (in hindsight, I could’ve been resourceful & showed Paolo’s video on the “Kinmedai Chazuke” & hand motion to order this).

Man… not one, but two bowls of ramen – what a way to start off! After finishing up at Hosenka, I started walking to my AirBnb in Shinjuku – even at around 10:30pm, the streets were still crowded w/ people left & right. Originally, the walk from Hosenka to the AirBnb was supposed to take 10 – 11 minutes – it ended up taking at least 20 – 25 minutes. I relied on Google Maps to find the place, only to realize that the address that I input into Google Maps was a bit off… I then re-input the address (straight from AirBnb just to be sure) & thank goodness… I was able to find the place (along w/ help from Harumi’s (AirBnb host) directions from our 1v1 AirBnb chat.

The AirBnb was at OMORI BLD via the 9th floor. When I first came into the place, I was met by two gentlemen:

• Min (Harumi’s Husband)
• “Ratis” (Latvian tourist, who has been to Japan 5-6 times prior) [I think that’s his name… at least that’s what I remembered]

An interesting moment happened after we greeted each other w/ handshakes – both commented on my handshake & how strong it is – I’m not joking. I was surprised that they would comment on something that I considered to be a norm in my everyday life when meeting people for the first time. Min told me that having a bold, strong handshake is an American thing, and that in Japan, the standard, normal handshake is just a mild grip (as he demonstrated to me shortly after). Both Min and Ratis were pretty friendly & we talked a bit about each other’s backgrounds & our prior experiences in this country.

Shortly after, Min showed me his nice, unique place, (& from the pictures I saw on the AirBnb website) and the room I was staying in was pretty dope – it had all of these trinkets, toys on display, & old, framed posters (such as one about Pasadena / Rose Bowl… whoa! that’s pretty much a 5-10 minute drive away from my hometown back in Southern California. What a small world).

A couple other things to note that Min showed me about his place:

• The Shared Bathroom – the toilet doubles as a bidet! HELL YEAH. I remembered using the bidet quite A LOT back during my first trip to Japan 12 years ago. I’ll definitely be making good use of using the bidet whenever I take a deuce. The shower was cool – there was this flat, grounded platform that was dedicated to showers, & a separate bathtub (all in the same area). Both are controlled by this built-in mini machine thing on the side wall that configures the temperature of the water Honestly, I wish I had this setup at my apartment. (I know that a lot of houses nowadays have that sort of thing where you have a small, enclosed shower area + a separate bathtub, but with this one at the AirBnb in particular – it just had this x-factor of a design, and the built-in mini machine attached to the side wall was something that I’ve never really seen before in households.
• Throughout the place, there were tons of action figures & other stuff that Min + Harumi had collected as tokens of appreciations from prior AirBnb guests – that is really nice to see.

The view outside of my window is quite nice – 9th floor view & there’s a shared balcony next to my room. Time for some shuteye, & hopefully jetlag won’t do be too badly tonight.

Cheers / wave

Flight from PDX -> LAX: caught up on some sleep; not bad of a flight! (especially with the aisle seat! (my preferred option).

Flight from LAX -> NRT (Narita Intl. Airport): even though it was a 10 – 11 hr flight… honestly, it was decent – it’s been a long while since I’ve flown on Singapore Airlines, and man…they’ve definitely upgraded some stuff:

The built in monitors are a lot bigger now than when I remembered back when I used to travel with my family to see relatives + extended family in Malaysia + Singapore.

They even have a menu! (and for Economy!) Times have changed, and (as a usual economy flyer) we’re starting to get some of the perks that business + first class are getting! (I hope haha…obviously, they’re going to always have the better perks and stuff, but still!)

I ended up catching up on some Luigi’s Mansion 3 (a very good game on the Nintendo Switch) + the following films:

• “Kings of Beer” – Nice documentary about brewmasters competing for the championship of best brewmaster (through who can make the best version of the American Lager – Budweiser). In the film, I got to see my old professor (Dr. Charles Bamforth) talk about beer for a bit (I took his “Introduction to Beer” class back in my college days at UC Davis. One of the judges, Jane Killebrew (that’s a pretty awesome name btw) is a brewmaster who graduated from UC Davis! I spent time watching this documentary even though I don’t drink beer anymore… AND I was drinking red wine thru it… haha the irony. Vina Borgia (2018). Not bad.
• “Against All Odds” – Second documentary that I watched from the plane. Really good one about Team OG from DOTA 2 (aka Defense of the Ancients 2 | PC game). Good underdog story.
• “Detective Conan – The fist of blue Sapphire” – YES! Detective Conan! I’m a big fan of the anime, and it was dope to watch this on the plane – interesting plot, and I should catch up on the other Detective Conan movies!
• “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”: Star-Studded cast! Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, & Margot Robbie?! Hell yeah! Decent film overall. This was the last thing I watched right before the plane landed in Narita.

Fortunately, I was able to catch a little bit of sleep in between watching films and the airplane meals. For those who don’t know – I’m notoriously known to be the worst at sleeping – I usually wake up early in the morning (anytime between 5-6am on work days… AND even on the weekends: yeah I know, what is wrong with me hahaha); I can’t sleep in for the life of me… I usually average about 5-6 hours a night, and that’s just how my body has gotten used to for a while now. I know it’s not healthy… and some of my immediate coworker friends have teased, joked, and got on me for it (which I’m glad they are, because I’m starting to get better with it).

Anyway! Enough of that side tangent haha…back to Day 0 – I didn’t show it externally, but internally, I was very excited and super hyped to be in a different country. Before we touched down in Narita, I thought about the times when my parents saved up enough money for us to make trips overseas (whether it be to visit family in Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore, or to explore unfamiliar territory like some of the countries in Europe such as England, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France).

They never explicitly said this, but they made it a point to me that traveling to other countries is important not only to meet, hangout, and get to know extended family, but also to experience how people live their daily lives in different cultures, and how we can take bits and pieces of that and better our own lives. Sure, the different kinds of food is always exciting to experience for the first time, but seeing the world in different perspectives (through the eyes of many) helps broaden and open our worlds to become more accepting and empathetic with people.

To be honest, I did not think much about how seeing the world in other peoples’ shoes would ultimately help me to be more accepting and empathetic with people until I was more mature enough and older to understand that concept – when I was a lot younger (and especially when seeing extended family for the first time), I was just focused more on being accepted and hope that people would actually like me (given that I had this anxiety of thinking that I’m too much of an oddball for people to even like).

With that being said, I hope that this trip can help me continue to get a glimpse of life through the locals’ lens, even if it’s just through something like small talk.

Cheers / wave

Eight years since the last time I flew outside of the country, living in a city as an adopted local, priorities shifting left & right throughout the years, & the non-stop daily grind to be a better person everyday. After yesterday’s 13-hour fiasco of a workday, I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief – travel mode activated.

Although there are still parts of my personal life that I’ve been struggling with (a work-in-progress), I feel like I’m in a decent spot at work where I can travel, knowing that my job is secure & that the anxiety of not being able to hold my own at this time in my career is at the bare minimum.

I spent the last couple hours here at LAX deciding (from my big bucket list) what to do right when I arrive in Tokyo, & for the next day ahead. Just a bit more time before I board. Ready. Set. Go. 

Cheers / wave

What’s good y’all? Oh man… it’s been a hot minute since I’ve thought about blogging forreal – it’s one of those things where I felt that this is the right time to put thoughts onto print, and it could not have come at a better time where I just came back from my second trip to Japan.

The first set of posts will pretty much be about that trip – not only will it talk about the usual – food, desserts, bullet train rides, scenery, food, the locals, food, more food (obviously eight different things right? haha), but also I’m going to get more into the little things that may get swept under the rug – the little stories that happen during the days, and just the memories and thoughts we feel and think about whether when we’re enjoying exploring a place that we’re unfamiliar with, or something you’re eating that just brings you back to a time where you feel carefree and without any immediate responsibilities and obligations to tend to.

It happens too often when I travel somewhere, and I just completely forget about these little stories and memories that I always wanted to remember and share – I did not make that same mistake this time with this most recent Japan trip. Being able to treasure these thoughts and things is what makes traveling such an invaluable experience. You’re probably thinking, “Well Kevin… what about culture? Isn’t traveling about experiencing, embracing different cultures, and learning from them?” Absolutely, which is why treasuring and remembering these little stories and interactions with the locals is so important to me. Embracing different cultures is already in my mind and heart by default – this is one of the beauties of traveling.

I know that talking about my traveling experience in such this manner may sound grandiose and unnecessary to some of you, but I just want to be able to share my traveling experience with y’all through my lens, in a genuine, upbeat and reflective spirit that embodies everything I am as a person. Also, it helps that I’ve gotten a lot of comments and requests from people about living vicariously through me through my Japan trip. Let’s do this.

Hope y’all enjoy, because I can’t wait to get started with this.

Cheers / wave