Day 3 Line Up
- Tsukiji – fresh sushi
- Akihabara – getting lost and Owl Cafe
- Asakusa – Kaminarimon, Namikase dori, Senso-ji
- Nakiryu Ramen – Michelin star ramen at Otsuka
Navigating through the train and subway system of Japan can be a bit complicated especially for people who are used to a very simple train system. Convenience and saving time are the top advantages of this extensive mass transport system and as tourists, this is the best choice to get to our destinations. With the help of the Japan Official Travel App identifying how to get to one point to another became easier especially for today when we have four areas to cover.
Tsukiji
How to get there:
- From E-Hotel Ginza, walk to Tsukijishijo Station (enter at A3 the exit at A1) *covered by subway pass
Walking distance is the best distance.The reason why we chose to stay at E-Hotel Ginza is so that we can arrive early at Tsukiji without losing much sleep.
Food tripping is part of many tourists’ must-do’s. And for sushi, Tsukiji will always be a go-to place for a tourist. Our goal was just to have breakfast there. If we were to watch the tuna auction, 6am would have been late. It was drizzling a bit when we got out at around 8am, a bit later than we originally planned. We roamed around for a few minutes and finally decided to line up for a store.
Nakaya
Nakaya is one of the relatively popular kaisendon / chirashi bowl shops in Tsukiji Outer Market.
**Full post here **
Note that taking photos are not allowed inside the shop. But if you are just discreetly taking a photo of your own food with your phone, the shopkeepers don’t seem to mind.
Akihabara
How to get there:
**From Tsukiji
- Toei Oedo Line: Tsukijishijo (E18) to Daimon (E20)*covered by subway pass
- walk to Hamamatsucho
- JR Yamanote Line: Hamamatsucho (JY03) to Akihabara (JY28)
Time: about 25mins
11:30am – Time for getting a bit lost, window shopping, and visiting an owl cafe.
Got lost on our way out of the station. So many exits! Our owl cafe provided directions via email on how to get to their shop from the station, but we wanted to stroll around first, and check out electronics at Electric town and take photos of anime merchandise. That’s why we got lost… A Japanese salary man helped us out. We got to the street, but we still didn’t know if we were at the place where we wanted to be…
After strolling and taking photos of the buildings, we decided to just look for the Owl Cafe. Having no idea on how to get there from where we currently were, we used Google Maps + GPS for directions. The place was tucked in an unassuming alley. Photos of the owls were outside plus Google said that was the place so we believed that was it. 😆
Still an hour before our reservation, we decided to go back to a FamilyMart we saw on the way to eat a light snack. It also started raining. Watching the rain, sitting by the window at a konbini, while eating a sandwich and drinking instant hot matcha felt quite relaxing after walking a lot.
That building where the FamilyMart was had a neat mosaic wall.
Akiba Owl Cafe
For my first official animal café visit, why not make it something different? Going to an animal cafe is another must-do for me. I haven’t gone to a local dog cafe / cat cafe back home so Akiba Owl Cafe was my first official animal cafe visit. This is a unique experience for me since there aren’t any owl cafés back home.
The attendants were pleasing and assisted all the guests. They gave reminders on how to properly handle the owls. Eating nor drinking wasn’t allowed inside, even if it’s called a cafe.
For the first part, we went around the room to take photos. No flash allowed. Some owls were on break (pink sticker beside their name) which meant that they cannot be chosen later if you wanted to hold an owl. Later on, each guest was allowed to handle one owl at a time. If it’s just a small owl, it can perch on your arm. If it’s a bigger owl with sharper claws, then you’d have to year a protective glove.
Small and calm – that was how I described what owl I would like. The attendant picked an owl for me with that description. Here is my friend, Register! He’s actually just the size of my hand. Really small, and really calm.
Initially I was planning to switch owls to try to handle a bigger one, the one that looked like Hedwig from Harry Potter (we were allowed to switch once, you can have photos with up to two different owls). But he was always getting picked and later on I already got attached to Register, so we stayed together the whole session and he didn’t try to fly away unlike the other medium sized owls 😊
Ten minutes before our hour was up, we were notified to say good bye to our new friends. One of the attendants made me and my dad chose one owl printed card each (from two cards) as a souvenir. After we picked, he told us to flip it over. Voila! It was a souvenir photo with our owls! I didn’t know there was a free souvenir photo, printed with their customized border and laminated.
I liked this experience. 💕
Asakusa
How to get there:
**From Akihabara
- Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line: Akihabara (H15) to Ueno (H17)
- Tokyo Metro Ginza Line: Ueno (G16) to Asakusa (G19)
Time: about 13 mins
We didn’t get lost at this station! It was relatively smaller than Akihabara. Of course a must-do is to visit at least one shrine/temple and I chose the Kaminarimon + Namikase Dori + Senso-ji combo for this.
Before anything else, we needed to eat a more filling meal. Time for ramen! Guess the first ramen restaurant we went to?
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Ichiran Ramen!
One flight of stairs down, and you’ll see the vending machine where you choose and pay for your order. Tickets for your orders will be dispensed, then you will give this to the servers. This branch has two areas. First is the regular seating area, Ichiran Yatai – the usual table and chair for groups and you see all the people around. Another area is for the counter seats where you sit in a cubicle type area complete with partitions, free from distractions. And your ramen gets served from a window with blinds in front of you.
**Full review here!**
We spent around an hour here before we set out to walk to Kaminarimon. It was raining hard. With zipped up waterproof jackets and an umbrella each, we continued to walk towards our destination. When the rain got too strong, we stopped under a shed of a store.
It was then when we spotted Mario Kart racers! It’s real! They were even in costume while it was raining (it was a bit lighter at that time). The race still went on. Some racers were also waving at us spectators while they stopped at the intersection.
Kaminarimon is the gate, Namikase dori is the shopping street that leads up to Senso-ji temple. Along Namikase dori were streets branching out as other shopping areas which sell both souvenir items and food. Some shops have signs that say “no pictures allowed”.
Senso-ji temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo, is at the end of the street. Stairs lead up to the inner area. I didn’t get to try fortune telling but I dropped some Yen coins at the box atop the stairs, right before you enter the temple.
Before 6pm, some stalls at Namikase dori were already closing shop. I bought a fan from the main street as a souvenir.
Off we go to have ramen again for dinner. This time from one of the only two Michelin starred ramen shops in Tokyo – Nakiryu Ramen.
Nakiryu Ramen, Otsuka
How to get there:
**From Asakusa
- Tokyo Metro Ginza Line: Asakusa (G19) to Ueno (G16)
- JR Yamanote Line: Ueno (JY05) to Otsuka (JY12)
Time: 26 mins
7:15pm – Well, wasn’t this day about getting lost? Again with the help of Google maps and GPS, we were able to find the ramen shop. Raining still, the prospects of a hot ramen dinner was a dream while waiting in line. Around an hour wait again for this one. Patience is important. Good thing Ichiran didn’t have a line when we ate there earlier during a non-peak time or else we would have lined up about an hour for each of the three meals of the day.
Finally seated at around 8:10pm. We ordered a Tantanmen and Shio Based Ramen with soy dipped egg, shrimp wonton, and grilled pork.
Tantanmen – BEST TANTANMEN EVERRRR. It looks simple but I’ll discuss the food more on my food posts 🙂
**Full review here!**
Time to go and call it a day. Our walk back to the station was much much faster than our walk from the station to the shop. It wasn’t really that far, we just turned at a wrong corner on our way there.
Hotel
How to get there:
**From Otsuka
- JR Yamanote Line: Otsuka (JY12) to Yoyogi (JY18)
- Toei Oedo Line: Yoyogi (E26) to Tsukijishijo (E18)
Time: 40 mins
Back at the hotel! Total of 18,500 steps for today – less than yesterday’s 22,000++ but we felt more tired. Tomorrow’s gonna be another walking day. Time to rest up.
The Gastronomer's Diary 