Day 17: Blind Date

DID: Arranged a free tour through an agency, which pairs students wanting to practice English with visitors. We were sort of expecting it to be a young student who would give us kind of the hipster neighborhoods/street food tour. As it turned out we were matched with a very lovely, older native Tokyo-an who was doing a tour for the first time. She also had some different expectations of us. Jason told her that he was a foodie and wanted to see markets and eat at a regionally typical, small restaurant for lunch. She understood that to mean that we were going to be very fat and wanted to eat for the entire 6 hours. ☺

She took us to an enormous playground in the middle of the oldest park in Tokyo. The photos say it all, needless to say the train was a big hit with Gavin and Rhys was up and down the elephant slide all morning.

After that we went to a restaurant at the top of a government building, which offered both good food and an incredible view of the city. Could also see the foothills of Mt Fuji. 

After that she took us through a touristy souvenir type market in Ginza which led to a big Shinto shrine. Although it was not the sort of market we normally visit, it did have a shop with stickers of the Japanese flag, so we got to cross that off Gavin’s shopping list.

Our last stop was the post office where she helped me buy postcard stamps and send out a few birthday gifts. (Megan and Steffi, you’ll have to let me know if you ever receive anything from the Japan post!) Again a very lengthy conversation to do something very simple, but at least we got what we wanted!

ATE: Breakfast – pastries in Ueno station. Chocolate pandas for GnR which they took down in about 10 seconds. L

Lunch with guide in ??? neighborhood. We all had the special of the day which was grilled thin slices of beef, miso, rice and a bunch of pickled things. Ordering was kind of funny – we were sort of relying on the tour guide to be our translator but we probably ended up with more miscommunications than when we do it ourselves. We are still struggling to figure out how to order a plain bowl of rice for Rhys.  A 10-minute conversation between the guide and the waitress resulted in a ball of rice wrapped in cling-wrap, accompanied by a salt shaker.  At least we got the rice, other times we’ve been flatly told no (once at a sushi restaurant where clearly they have rice), other times we had to order miso AND rice, but not rice alone. Afterwards we asked the guide if she could tell us how to order it but we got a blank stare. We must really be breaking some kind of protocol!

Dinner was at a miniscule ramen place recommended by our Luxe guide. 8 seats at a bar, and as with the ramen restaurant in Kyoto, ordering + paying took place at a vending machine. Luckily there was someone who could translate the buttons for Jason. It was sooooooo good. Later Jason read that this place is rated in the “top 3” of ramen restaurants in Tokyo. I’ve decided that it’s the best food I’d never tried before arriving. The bad thing is I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat it elsewhere now that I know what it ‘should’ taste like!

SLEPT: Like a happy sardine in Ueno