Tokyo Solo Twenty-Four-Oh: Day 8 - Lucky Cat Temple

 Waking up this morning I was hungry, and I knew exactly what I was craving on this chilly morning. Something warm, a little spicy, and flavorful:

Ichiran tonkotsu ramen! The breakfast of champions!

I was so happy to finally have an appetite for it! I think if I don't start moving forward my sleep times a week ahead I don't give my appetite time to shift. Jet lag hasn't been terrible, waking up at 5 or 6am and going to sleep around 9 or 10pm, and I did my best a couple days before I left with an app, but it wasn't as intense a sleep-shift as I usually do a week before, and I think that really helps you have more of an appetite during appropriate meal times while in Japan. Ah well....

This morning's plan was to take a train ride about an hour outside of Tokyo to the birthplace of the Maneki Neko, the good luck, beckoning cat: Gotoku-ji Temple! "One legend starts with a cat born at the Gōtoku-ji temple in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo during the Edo period (1603–1868). According to temple historians, while hunting with falcons, the daimyo (regional ruler) Ii Naotaka was saved from a lightning bolt when the abbot’s pet cat Tama beckoned him into Gōtoku-ji.

Grateful to the cat for saving his life, the ruler made it a patron of the temple where it has been venerated in its very own shrine ever since."

Good job little cat!

The walk from the station was a very easy and pleasant 20 minute stroll through this suburban town. Lots of newly-built Japanese houses and a market street for the first 10 minutes out of the station. I haven't been talking about the weather because every day has been PERFECT! Sunny, not humid (actually, pretty dry), a chilly 45 in the mornings warming up to 58 by the afternoon. Every day has been like this! And every photograph at every park and temple has been stunning with sunlight illuminating the peak, fall foliage. Marvel at the beauty of Gotoku-ji's landscape:

And now, for the main attraction, the large collection of Lucky Cat statues that line two paths toward the main temple:

I love the pose of the saint in this statue; he has his head on his hand like "Oh heck, what am I going to do with all these cats?! Oh well, at least they're cute."

At the temple you can buy your own lucky cat, sold in 5 different sizes and sold out of all but the smallest one! LOL, I bet you can guess what I bought then. I also got a goshuin stamp. Alas, I don't have a picture of either of them since the cat is safely wrapped up. You can have this picture of me I got a fellow, English-speaking gaijin to take for me:

Nya~n!

And also this selfie:

NYAA~AAN!

I didn't buy any ema, but here's a picture of what they look like. Very cute!

Since I was west of Tokyo, I took this chance to take the train to Shibuya rather back to Ueno so I could hit up three large store chains that have EVERYTHING, good quality, but not super cheap like Donki: Tokyu Hands (now just Hands), LOFT, and Muji. Muji was just because I'd never been in one before and a lot of one-bagging travel item recs come from Muji. I wasn't aware it was pretty much just Japanese IKEA!

LOFT and Hands are just department stores with about 6 floors of everything. I found a few great gifts at LOFT and some cat toys for (hopefully) future adopted fur babies! Also, gotta keep with the cat theme of the day! Speaking of cat-themed, this card at LOFT cracked me up. Classic example of Japanese people just throwing English on items. They're a lot better now with Engrish, but still, they use strange phrases or funny little stories that just don't really make sense on the product. I guess this one makes a little sense, but it still made me laugh:

After all that shopping, it was about 4:30pm and I was actually hungry for a SECOND time that day! Woohoo! I was craving more sushi and there was a Sushiro near the Shibuya station. This time I chose counter, rather than table, and got a seat right away! It was much better that way. Best sushi's this time were the pickled tuna nigiri, the omurice nigiri, and the chicken mayo nigiri. Mmmmm.

I headed back to the hotel and after dropping off my purchases decided to do a nice, long, 2 hour session of karaoke. I came in prepared, having made a check list of what I wanted to sing so there was no dilly dallying! LOL! It was perfect and a fun way to end the night. Man I love Japanese karaoke!

Then it was 9:00 so I went to the hotel and went to sleep! Tomorrow will be the last day in Japan, so I think I'm gonna just spend it shopping for any last minute gifts or souvenirs. I probably won't have time to make another post as I'm planning to get to the airport by 7am. I'll try and do a follow-up post with my usual observations, awards, likes and dislikes from this trip!

おつかれさまでした!

Tokyo Solo Twenty-Four-Oh: Day 6 - Showa and Shopping (edited for formatting)

 I woke up at a decent hour this morning, but today was no day for lollygagging as the hotel was going to be "testing the power" which meant the power was going to be off from noon-1:00pm. That still have me plenty of time to take a shower, get ready, and write a blog post, but I was still cutting it close by leaving at 11:15!

Today I decided to visit Shibamata, an older town with many Showa-era (1926-1989) stores, treats, and cafes, as well as an amazing Buddhist Temple Taishakuten (Daikyō-ji). 

Taking just two trains on the Keisei line, and just 50 minutes outside of Tokyo, you know you've arrived to the right place when leaving the small train station you are greeted by Tora-san.

"Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ, It's Tough Being a Man) is a Japanese film series starring Kiyoshi Atsumi as Torajirō Kuruma, whose nickname is Tora-san (寅さん), a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love. "

Tora-san is much beloved by the older generation in Japan and you'll find a lot of posters and merchandise catering to his fans. 

I was about to go into a local penny candy store (dagashiya) when I was hit with one heck of a bloody nose! Luckily I was able to scramble into an unseen corner in an alley and grab my tissues. While it hasn't been super cold, it has been pretty dry. 

With that crisis over, I made my way to the Shibamata sandō which is a street lined with little shops and restaurants and booths with things to snack on as you make your way to the temple. 

I started with the local recommendation kusa-dango. A ball of rice mochi mixed with yomogi or kusa grass/root, it is said to be bitter like green tea. They slather anko sweet bean paste on top to add some sweetness. I honestly didn't think it was bitter at all and really tasty! The shop put the dango on a little tray with some hot tea to enjoy on a little bench in front of their shop. I enjoyed it!

I was enticed at another shop that sold senbei individually from jars or in packages, so I took one for 80yen. It tasted like senbei, lol, which is tasty and salty, but I really needed a drink after it.

The sandō isn't very long so I quickly came to the gates to Taishakuten. The temple entry is standard, it's what's behind the temple that you pay 400 yen to see. 10 panels of wood carved out in a 3D sculpture but evoking movement and storytelling as well as any masterpiece illustration or painting. Each panel represents a teaching or story or moral from the teachings of Buddhism, but it's also framed with panels of the zodiac and heavenly beings above and birds and nature below. Plenty of birds and dragons to keep me amazed and in love! 

Also, some Buddhist wisdom that struck me as still relevant:

Your 400 yen also gives you access to the garden behind the temple as well and it was radiant in fall colors! 

It wasn't that busy at all so I was able to take my time with everything.

This was the main attraction for Shibamata so it was time to head back to the train station. I was hungry and really hadn't had much to eat yet so I stopped in a restaurant that had yummy chaha fried rice on display, so I had some of that (which is what I really wanted a few days ago in Nakano but it ended up being teppanyaki instead, but I still craved the fried rice). It was exactly what I wanted! 

I held off on dessert because my one last stop was a cafe.

Showa cafe Sepia is a retro cafe that has the feel of eating in a place designed and lived in by a 11 yeast old girl in the 1970s. Dolls and records and stationary and fashion magazines line the walls and decorate corners in staged nostalgia! 

There was even an entire unused kitchen full of play kitchen toys!

I ordered myself a purin and a melon cream soda. The cream soda was delicious! The pudding...eh. But that's okay because everything was adorable and I had fun listening to a woman and her friend' joyful exclamations and laughter at the oishii food and kawaii decorations. 

Upstairs, the lady (owner?) said was the largest collection of Candy Candy memorabilia, owned by a Mister Candy, who loved dressing as his favorite character. He often was there on weekends to talk to the customers. It was impressive! 

Good for him!

After finishing there it was about 3:00 so I took the train to Ikebukuro to do a little otome anime shopping. I hit up the main (and largest) Animate store, all the K Books, some Lashinbangs, and a Mandarake. I bought a few doujinshi (this year's pairing that I found that interested me was Eddie and Venom. LOL, I swear I can never find the pairings of last Japan visits, but always find something new at the last minute), a bunch of Card Captor Sakura trinkets that weren't majorly jacked up on price, and maybe a thing or two for Jeff. All this shopping brought me to the stores' closing time of 8:00pm.

I ambled back home to my hotel, picked up a salad and Famichiki on the way, and ended my day there. Good night!

Tokyo Solo Twenty-Four-Oh: Day 7 - A pilgrimage for laundry, skin care, and fandoms

 Like any vacation I one-bag pack for, a trip to the laundry is needed at least once. I had a choice: a 16 minute walk to an okay coin laundry, or a 22 minute walk to a good coin laundry. Eh, what's a few more minutes? So I threw my undergarments and a few outfits I knew I'd wear these last few days into the provided plastic APA hotel bags glaring with ads and walked my way through Ueno. When I got there, of course all 4 washer/dryers were being used (there was a wall of just dryers, and two older washing machines behind me I didn't even notice), and two gaijin sitting in 2 of the 3 provided chairs. This seems to be the case any time I do laundry, even if it's 8 in the morning on a Tuesday! I was wrong to assume though, these two gaijin were only using the one small washer/dryer, and when it was finished quickly removed their laundry so I could use it! Hooray! Thank you for not being like the people in Manchester or New York!

This was the best and easiest laundry I've done in Japan yet. Since this was a newer coin laundry building it was all done at a computer kiosk with an English language option. Double-yay!! Just pick an available washer/dryer, throw in your clothes, lock the handle, and then tell the kiosk what number washer your laundry is in. Then you pick what level of wash/dry you want, like a car wash lol, and put in your money and it starts up!

Then I just had an hour to kill, so I wrote up the blog for the previous day on my phone using the Blogger app. Boy was that a mistake! Sorry for the large pictures and weird formatting. I forgot to never use the app to post a blog post! And when I go to try and fix it, it takes FOREVER because the pictures are in large format!

An inspirational message at the laundry, but they must have died while writing it

With laundry done (got burnt by the zipper on my hoodie, that dryer got HOT), I made the walk back home, but this time I took a little detour through Ameyoko because it was time to buy the obligatory checked-bag suitcase for souvenirs. Another to add to our collection!

Not carry-on size but not HUGE, it's perfect and purple and only cost $70

I don't have enough souvenirs to pack it full (yet) but I have found that putting your souvenirs in checked baggage is better than carry-on, after a TSA agent at ORD, insisting on swabbing every item with a battery compartment (only 2 items, but still), almost made us miss our last plane home in 2008! This began my love/hate relationship with ORD and also my lesson to book planes with at LEAST 2.5 hours of layover in the airport where you land and have to go through customs. So now we leave plenty of time at layovers and buy a checked luggage suitcase for souvenirs.

Now it was time for my tummy to be hungry for the one time a day, so I treated it to Gusto, a Denny's-like family restaurant known for it's hamburg platters. I normally get omurice or something, but how could I resist cheese IN cheese ON hamburg??

I couldn't resist, and it was delicious. Washed down with melon Coca Cola, the obsession Jeff and I found our last meal in 2023 in Japan, so now I got to have it again. SO GOOD!

And a croquette because it was yummy.

Ordering was all done on a tablet at your table with an English option. Payment was done at a computer kiosk at the exit. Your meal came on the little robots they have at Kawa Sushi. The only human interaction was at the very beginning, when you come in you have to write your name on the sign in list and how many in your party, and they call your name when a table's ready. I did my best to write "A-N-JI" in katakana but my writing is so terrible she called out "PI-N-JI!" LOLOLOL, my A looks nothing like PI, but okay!

Gusto was on the basement floor, and on floors 2 and 3 were a Book Off, and I can't resist a Book Off, so I went to check it out. It was a smaller one, but they had some decently priced retro games so I found a few SNES games we can play in our Retro Duo console for Jeff. Apparently our Retro Duo can play NES, SNES, and Super Famicom games! Gotta find us some good ones to test it out on, because it can play Japanese cartridges.

For some reason I have recently become a little obsessed with the urge to buy Japanese skin care products while I'm here. I remember loving the sunscreen I bought back in 2012, and no one understands moisturizing and UV skin protection like the Japanese. There's a Matsumoto Kiyoshi right up the street from the hotel and across the street from Gusto. Armed with about 8 tabs of recommended products and what they do, I grabbed a shopping basket and went to work. These places know what we're here for, as most of it was right there on display at the front! LOLOL. So I decided to buy two of each, one for me and one for lucky people at home. Maybe I'll see who is interested and randomly draw names? If no one wants it, more for me! I got some face scrub, moisturizer, face masks, body lotion, makeup primer, makeup setting spray, and eye liner! I might go back and get a foundation I really liked. They also had fragrances and I am on the hunt for the smell that "reminds me of Japan". I think it's just cherry blossom? I dunno, but out of all the little fragrance bottles, the one I liked and was looking for was sold out! BOO. So I'll try back again later. That all came to an amount that allowed me to get it tax free, so I can't use any of it until I get home.

Getting back to the hotel I rested for a bit, packed up all my purchases into the new suitcase, and then decided to go hit up the city that is the setting of my favorite trash anime: Yokohama. I had been there in 2019 for the first time and took pictures of most of the places featured in Nightwalker: Marine tower, Hikawa-maru, Yamashita park, Red Brick Warehouse, and China Town. It wasn't until a year after I got back that someone on Twitter shared the location of the building that was used for Shido's office. I thought I had found it before but wasn't 100% sure, and it wasn't the right spot, but now I had the knowledge and the opportunity!

Yokohama is only an hour train ride away, and you don't have to change trains at all. From Ueno you can get to Sakuragicho station, easily. And right across from the station exit is the Yokohama Sky Cabin, another sight-seeing gondola that will take you across the bay and to Unga Park and Minato Mirai, also nearby is the Red Brick Warehouse, the Cup Noodle museum, and the giant ferris wheel Cosmo Clock 21. I bought a round trip ticket on the Sky Cabin and also a ticket for the ferris wheel. It's a HUGE sight-seeing ferris wheel, lit up beautifully, and has the option to be in a cabin with a see-through floor. Yes please! When the husband is away, Angie gets to go on all the high-up things!

It was kinda difficult finding the platform for the ferris wheel since it's inside a small amusement park called Cosmo World, but I finally got there.This ferris wheel is 112.5 meters (369 feet) tall, and even I was getting a little spooked, but it was still fun!

And whattya know, only a 20 minute walk away was the location of Shido's office building. It's an old building, but currently in it is a Scandinavian fine dining restaurant, which is hilarious! Even funnier is the restaurant right next door is Hawaiian and it has tiki torches lined above the entrance! A very different feel to the building now than when it was used in the anime in 1998 LOL

Huh! They do have the flag of Denmark on the second floor awning, don't they??

And the website does say that the restaurant was founded in 1963!

Yessss! Pilgrimage COMPLETE!

Passed this pretty, illuminated street lined with Ginkos on the walk back. The Ginkos are so beautiful right now, but also SO STINKY since Ginko nuts are smelly.

I walked past the Christmas Market at the Red Brick Warehouse on the way back to the gondola, but you had to pay to get in, and my feet were telling me to get back to the hotel. Plus, the gondola's last ride was at 9 pm and it was already 7:30, so I passed by and took some pictures:

Good night Yokohama! <3

On the way back to the gondola, it's connected to a mall, so I did a little, little shopping and also came across this petting zoo place. It was closed but they let you peek into the windows to see some of the animals. Looked like it was bath time for the capybaras!

Bath time for them and bedtime for me! It was another easy train ride straight back to Ueno, another limping walk back to the hotel, and another night of plastering Lion foot-relief pads to the bottoms of my feet before falling asleep!