Good morning!

Guess what? It was another fun but busy day!

This day was actually slightly less busy, because at least we were staying in Tokyo and not moving all of our stuff around today.

Started out with a later start than other days… we were up and around, looking for breakfast at 9:30am.

Now I was very excited about breakfast today because I had been influenced by social media into getting really excited about Japanese pancakes. Spoiler alert, they are really really good. But another spoiler alert, it was 100% only tourists in this pancake shop.

Japanese pancakes are like American pancakes if you quadruple their width. The internet also calls them soufflé pancakes, because they do in fact resemble a soufflé. They are made with whipped egg whites and cooked in a mold to make them tall and have their signature wobble.

Before I show you the pancakes though, let’s talk about the experience of getting the pancakes.

The temperature dropped this morning, and the wind picked up meaning that we went from nearly 60 degree temps the day before, to 40 degrees with a strong, cold wind. Still, not terrible weather and we have only had clear blue skies. Which I’m thankful for because I heard the weather has also been great in Seattle since we left.

Could you imagine if it was raining the whole time in Japan and sunny in Seattle? Truly depressing.

So even though we were missing the rare winter sun at home, we were enjoying it in Japan.

Our Airbnb is in a great location right on the edge of the upscale Ginza neighborhood and the Tsukiji fish market, meaning the walk to the restaurant was less than 10 minutes. We showed up to what looked like a giant line, but was actually one unstructured mob and one very long line.

The Japanese pancake places have all become so popular that they’ve instituted electronic waitlists rather than a traditional line, so you type your info into a computer, then wait until someone comes out and calls you. The mob was for our restaurant.

Right next to the pancake restaurant is also a very famous matcha place. That was the line. Due to the placing of each restaurant’s entrance, the lines basically blurred together and we spent the next 20 minutes telling people we were not in line for matcha and where the matcha line actually started.

The place we went to, by the way, was called Cafe Hanon, and here’s what the outside looked like:

The line actually moved pretty fast, partly because there was a large group in front of us that elected to sit outside. Which was good for us because when signed up for the waitlist I was really hungry and said we would take a seat anywhere, including outside. But I REALLY didn’t want to have to sit outside.

We joked about the possibility of waiting in two lines at once, we could wait for pancakes and also wait in the matcha line and maybe we get matcha before being seated for pancakes. We ended up not doing that, because social media told me that our restaurant did some pretty cute latte art.

We finally got in, and ordered our coffee and pancakes. I got fancy pistachio pancakes which were good, but Jimmy just got regular soufflé pancakes with no special sauce on top and his were amazing.

Here’s the very cute cappuccino

Breakfast was great, but they are very busy and make the pancakes to order, so if you go plan for it to take a while. I think it was an hour and a half from getting there to leaving for us.

Jordan had to run, as he had booked a personal shopping experience in the Shibuya neighborhood for himself and needed to meet his shopper. If you know Jordan, you should ask him about it. I wasn’t there so I can’t talk about it, but I do know he came back with quite a few new clothing pieces.

Jimmy and I decided to stay in the Ginza neighborhood to do some shopping of our own. Later in the afternoon we had our own guided tour to do ramen tasting, but I was hoping we could hit a few shops before then. Turns out we hit exactly one shop, and it was the Uniqlo flagship store.

If you don’t know Uniqlo, it was founded in Japan and makes casual clothing and basics that are incredibly affordable. Uniqlo has some stores in Seattle, but the clothes in Japan were even lower prices than Seattle.

Their flagship is in the Ginza neighborhood and has 12 floors. The top floor is a coffee shop (because by the time you get up there you need a pick me up), and the 11th floor is all clothing collabs unique to Japan, some of which are only available in the Ginza store.

This place is a tourist attraction all its own. And it is BUSY!

One fun part of shopping at Uniqlo Japan is that they give a face cover to put on when you’re putting on the clothes and taking them off to keep makeup from getting on them.

You can take it off to look at the clothes once they’re on, which was good because you really can’t see with it on your face.

You can also make your own designs at the store. I made a sweatshirt that I’ll highlight in the Tōkyō Disney blog, because it’s amazing and Disney themed. It was also ready in 20 minutes.

We were hoping to hit some more shops in the area, but just taking the escalator up and down the 12 floors took some time, so we had to run to meet the guide for our ramen tour. Here are some pics of the neighborhood:

Our tour was a Tokyo Ramen Tour of the Shibuya neighborhood, and I was pretty excited about it because we love Ramen and were looking forward to learning about it and slurping some great bowls.

We met just outside the Shibuya crossing, which is famous as one of the busiest crossings in the world. Going across is calked the Shibuya scramble, and thousands of people go through it a day.

Our guide for the afternoon was named Makayla, and she is an American expat from California who dreamed of moving to Japan as a kid and actually did it. She came for college, and she has been in Japan for 7 years now.

She was fun and funny, seemed really passionate about Japanese food, and with her we were able to try 12 different bowls of Ramen at 3 different ramen shops.

She also told us a lot of interesting information about the history of ramen, and different types of ramen. Here are our bowls:

They were all good, and we were so full by the end. We had everything from traditional salt based ramen and miso ramen, to curry ramen, and even a pesto ramen. If you want a fun and delicious tour, look up Tokyo Ramen Tours.

Makayla also walked us around off the beaten path parts of the neighborhood and talked about the Shibuya neighborhood and how it’s changed over the years.

She took us to a local shrine that she said is for praying for business matters. Tons of men in business suits going in. She said pictures are allowed at shrines, so we took some.

Oh actually this is a shop she pointed out on the way that hangs these cat dolls outside. She said they have different outfits depending on the time of year and holidays. Very cute.

Here’s the shrine:

You enter through a Tori gate, and it was cool because you could see the skyscrapers behind it.

At shrines you can pay a coin or two and get your fortune. Basically you put your coin in a box, then reach into a bowl with folded up written messages and pull one out. They are in Japanese and our guide said the writing was difficult to translate, but when she first saw Jimmys she got a concerned look on her face. She pulled out Google Translate and was like “oh no it’s totally fine. You got medium luck which is like normal luck rather than bad luck. She told me my fortune was excellent luck, so I should be making the business decisions for our family this year. Lucky me.

One thing we noticed is that very few people in Japan were wearing winter hats. But we were cold and don’t really fit in anyway, so we stayed cozy in our hats.

She also made sure we wore our bibs at all the ramen places “to protect your fantastic clothes”. I wonder if they risked liability for damaged clothes or something because she was very insistent that everyone in Japan wore the bibs, but I never saw anyone else in them our whole time there.

By the way, I didn’t get a great picture of my shirt, but in this pic you can see that there is an embroidered cat coming out of my pocket and waving. I got so much love for that shirt in Japan.

Also, I had heard this before, but she also stated ramen noodles are for slurping. So slurp with pride.

You know what you need after a ramen tour where you ate 12 different types of ramen?

MORE FOOD!

We met up with Jordan who was also back from his shopping excursion and wanted dinner. When one of you is hungry and two are not so much but you still want to have a fun experience in Japan… there is only one option:

Sushi Train.

Sushi trains are in the US as well, and basically what happens is you sit around a giant conveyor belt and a sushi master in the middle is making up sushi that winds its way around the belt. If you see something you like, you just grab it and pay by the plate. It’s cheap, fast, and often a pretty fun experience.

I had read before the trip that sushi trains really went out of favor during covid, so there aren’t many of them left. Jimmy and I had such a great time and had wonderful sushi at a sushi train place in Kyoto on our last trip, so we were hoping for a repeat.

Like many things in Japan, this experience has changed in the 8 or so years since we were last here. Most of the sushi on the belt was tofu and drinks. To get the good stuff you ordered directly from the chef.

It was kind of perfect for what we needed though, because Jordan was able to order a bunch of sushi, and Jimmy and I had just had a couple pieces and it all worked out. It was also pretty fast, which is not always the case in Japan.

The chef was also very nice and funny, and got very excited when Jimmy used a couple of Japanese words with him. The sushi was fine. Not the best sushi we had in Japan, but pretty solid for a casual spot.

After dinner we hit the streets in search of two experiences that were important to Jimmy and Jordan respectively.

Jimmy wanted to see the life sized unicorn gundam. Honestly, I still don’t know what a gundam is or why he was so excited to see it, but he was and I’m supportive.

I think it’s from a tv show? I don’t know.

The gundam was on an island in the bay, and we got truly lost in one of the metro stations trying to change trains. Seriously, this may be the most lost we’ve ever been.

We were following signs and everything was on track until the signs just… stopped. So we’re running around this metro station trying to figure out what happened. We did get to see part of a performance of a Japanese girl pop group performing in that station which was fun, but they had a sign asking for no pictures or videos so I respected that.

Anyway, back to us arguing with each as we run back and forth through a giant, underground metro station like confused little ants who kept telling each other they were wrong and arguing about which way to go.

By the way, turns out I was right. Towards the beginning I thought we should go up the stairs and was told I was wrong. My sense of direction is so bad that I usually accept that I’m wrong, but every now and then I’m right. Like tonight. So I had to point it out. You probably won’t hear about the times I was wrong. At least not in this blog.

We eventually followed some people up some stairs and found the train we needed. But seriously, the signs just stop and leave you hanging.

Our adventure underground lasted about 30 minutes or so, meaning we were a bit later than anticipated, but still arrive about 15 minutes before the gundam shop next to the giant statue was supposed to close. We get off the train onto this giant sky bridge and quickly head in the direction Google map suggested. Jordan started questioning Jimmy’s directions and asked “are you sure we’re going the right way?” Just as we turn a corner and see a giant robot. Jimmy was like, “yep. I’m pretty darn sure.”

Here’s the gundam;

Unfortunately, the mall behind the gundam was all closed up, including the gundam store Jimmy wanted to look at. Apparently Google was wrong about the opening time.

Here are pics of the guys with the gundam:

I mean, I will give it to them: it’s a very big robot. Definitely the biggest robot I have ever encountered.

There was a board next to it with a list of show times for the gundam. Jimmy said it moved and stuff, and the next show was in like 10 minutes, so we waited around with a handful of other people. And the wind started to pick up a bit.

The show started, and they projected scenes onto the wall behind the statue, played music, and lit up the statue with different colors. I keep waiting for this cool movement it’s going to do.

The cool movement is that the two flaps on his helmet rise up into the center and create a unicorn horn, then go back down. That’s it.

It happened so fast I didn’t even catch it on video. Jimmy filmed the whole show, so if you want to see the glorious transformation, you’ll have to hit him up for the whole video.

Here’s what I filmed:

By that point it was time to leave the gundam, as we had timed tickets for an experience in Tokyo called Team Lab Planets.

First, we had to make the harrowing walk back to the train station, over the skybridge, in high winds. It brought back a little light trauma response from being stuck in the wind tunnel on the Cliff’s of Moher a few years ago, and remembering that staying stationary there was a terrible idea I just ran down the (rather long) Sky bridge. I haven’t been running as much since my running buddy (our dog Byron) passed away, so it took more effort than it should have. The skyline view from this bridge was spectacular, though, so I did pause to take a quick and blurry pic.

It was a real catch me if you can moment.

Our last stop of the night was to Team Lab Planets. Honestly, I’d love to tell you about Team Lab Planets, but I’m still not 100% sure what it was.

This was a recommendation a few people had given us, including a friend of Jordan’s who told us not to look it up and “just let it surprise you”.

So we did.

I won’t bury the lead , it was actually pretty cool. If you’re going to Japan and want to take the “just be surprised by it” route, you should stop reading now.

If you want to take a strange journey down a visual rabbit hole, this might deliver.

When people talked about it, my initial thought was that it sounded like an Instagram factory. You know, a place you go to where you take lots of cool pics, but that’s about it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those places, but don’t have high expectations for them.

We wander into Team Lab Planets really needing to use the bathroom. We’d been lost in underground metro hell, went to the gundam where the bathrooms were closed, then high tailed it to Team Lab Planets without a bathroom break. As we were entering we asked if there was a bathroom inside. They confirmed there was, so we hurried inside.

Once we got inside we were in a black room with a TV monitor and had to watch a video that was supposed to explain what the experience was. It was light on explanations and heavy on pop psychology speak. Also at one point it said it hoped we enjoyed this calming experience right as a toddler started screaming in another room. We could hear the toddler clear as day, but couldn’t see them. It didn’t engender confidence in a calming experience.

We finally get released from the video, and they have us take off our shoes, because we’re doing the water section first. They had sections with different themes, and I don’t remember what they all were, but I think it was water, forest, garden… maybe one more?

Finally after we took off our shoes, we were allowed to use the bathroom. Love a Japanese toilet.

The first part you basically just walk through a bunch of ankle deep water walkways. I’m not sure how to explain it. The water was warm so it felt nice, but was pretty unimpressive and made me wonder why we were doing it.

You know what, I’m honestly getting a bit bored typing this, so I’m just going to throw out pics and video of the different installations and let the reader make of it what they will. All of the installations were interactive.

Suffice it to say, it did get a lot cooler.

So, clearly I took a lot of pics, but honestly not as many as I thought I would. I spent a lot of time just enjoying interacting with the different rooms. I’ve seen some amazing Instagram pics out of this place, but it was at the end of our day and was kind of relaxing just to be there. I could have stood in the water with the light fish for hours.

If you’re in Tokyo and have some time to do something kind of weird, I’d recommend it.

We made our way back to Airbnb and I fell asleep immediately.

Good night.