We rested up the best we could and then headed out to meet our friends from Atlanta, who happened to be the ones who told us about the Trader Vic’s Japan 50th Anniversary party, which was the excuse we used to visit Japan.
We were supposed to meet them at the Ramen Museum on the outskirts of Tokyo opposite our hotel, which would require navigating multiple subway transfers across the city. We had to ask for help four times and one of the people who helped us popped out in between ticket machines like Oscar the Grouch!
We made it with plenty of time to spare, so we sat in a nice little cafe for some coffee and a quick bite. Lina had a Texas-toast cheese bread with honey and I had a perfect little cream puff pastry with a very unique crust. Both were awesome, but Lina was able to show off her Japanese to the appreciative waitress who gave her a lot of compliments. That would have been the highlight for the day…
If we didn’t head to the Ramen Museum immediately after, which Lina perfectly described as Meow Wolf for ramen. I didn’t understand why there was a line at opening for a museum, but it turns out that the real attraction was on the two lower floors, which transported you to a Showa era (1920’s-1980’s) Japanese ramen district. People were lining up to visit the 10 or so Ramen shops!
We didn’t really know what was going on, so we stood in the longest line with no idea what to expect. Each restaurant has a limited menu for their specialty Ramen recipes and we found ourself at the one shop that used a famous chicken fat flavored base. It was the best Ramen I’d ever had!
Then we explored the rest of the facility, which was amazing!
We walked around the district, but couldn’t find anything interesting to do; so we hopped on a train to Kiddie Land because our friends wanted to visit the four story store. Turns out that it was the wrong Kiddie Land, so we hopped on a couple of more trains to the Shinjuku district, and our friends taught us how to navigate the train system so we could figure out how much money to pay at each station.
We also found out what happens when you pay too little, as the entrance was blocked after I inserted my ticket at one station.
The Shinjuku district is what you think of when think of Japan. Tons of restaurants and weird shops like Don Quixote…but it was all a little too busy for us newcomers; so we stopped in a couple of shops and found a random quiet cafe for some dinner.
Then Rick found a tiny bar called Bar Cocktail Book, which was owned by an award-winning bartender who wanted to take a vacation whenever he wanted. We all had his award winning cocktail, a Yuzu Fizz, a yuzu Gin and Tonic, Cherry Blossom Gin and Tonic, Matcha Old Fashioned, Irish Rose Cocktail, and a grape something. Everything was amazing and he also gave us tastings of all the liqueurs used in the cocktails.
We started to crash at 8pm and managed to navigate the train system home!
Great First Day!
We walked 4.75 miles today according to my garmin. That’s probably an undercount because I have to remember to turn it off, on, and off again depending on how we get from place to place…and it couldn’t find enough gps signals through the clouds and buildings
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