Hello Everyone! I know this post is a little late but I was out all day yesterday on a bus tour with my grandparents. Anyway I'll talk a bit more about that later. But this week has been really fun and I'm also excited for next week as its Golden Week* in Japan.
*Golden Week is a week in Japan that has multiple holidays so its like a week long vacation and many people travel during this week.
Hanging Out
This week I spent a lot of time with friends and my grandparents. So I'll just explain some of my adventures...
Roses & A Bakery
Last Sunday, I went out for breakfast with my grandparents. We decided to eat at a bakery nearby. It was a lovely walk and the bread was delicious. It's actually my favorite bakery because I've been going since I was a child with my family each time we'd come to Japan. My favorite is this bacon-potato-mayonnaise bread, honestly, I don't think I can give a good description but trust me when I say it is heavenly to eat. I also ate this really cute apple tart which was in the shape of an apple. The pastry was so flaky and had so many layers while the custard underneath greatly complimented the baked apple slices on top.
The bakery is also located right next this is rose park and there were many flower blooming so I was able to take some nice pictures.
I also cooked with my grandma that night and made gyoza but I think we did something wrong because it was not as good as my mom's.
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Dinner at Shinjuku
On Monday after classes I went out to get dinner with a friend. I had been craving this ほうじ茶生チョコレートパフェ (hojicha chocolate parfait) from Nan's Green Tea. It's a sweet shop that has many locations and very delicious matcha and hojicha sweets. Their green tea parfait is also very delicious but I personally prefer the hojicha. But before eating sweets my friend reminded me that we should eat some dinner beforehand. The Nana's cafe we went to was on the 8th floor of a shopping mall called Lumine near Shinjuku station.
We decided to eat dinner at a shop on the same floor because it was easy and there were many options. My friend and I decided on this Japanese bowl cafe called マルモキッチン (Marumo Kitchen). They had a lot of seafood bowls and I ended getting the kinmedai (red fish with large eyes) and avocado bowl. The kinmedai was so fresh and paired really well with the avocado and other vegetables. Afterwards, we both got the hojicha parfait and it was so worth-it. Honestly I want to eat it again in the near future.
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A Rainy Harajuku
On Wednesday I decided to go to Harajuku. It wasn't the best day to go but I decided the rain wouldn't be stopping me. Honestly it was just really hard to navigate when it was raining really hard and still so crowded. I did get quite a shock though when I ate lunch.
I decided not to research before hand and just go to any shop that seemed interesting. I ended up in this little restaurant eating omurice that in itself was really great. The shocking part though was that one of the other customers was smoking inside the restaurant. I was really shocked because in Hawaii this isn't allowed and even in most restaurants in Japan it doesn't happen. The tobacco smell was really strong and off-putting, it lead me to eating as quick as possible and getting out.
It did teach me a valuable lesson though, I will from this point forward research restaurants before I go in.
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French Toast Brunch
Thursday before my class, I got lunch with another friend of mine at a restaurant near Sophia University. It's called No.4 and it was a bakery/cafe. The restaurant though seemed very popular and we had to wait about 20 minutes before we got seated. Everything on their menu seemed mouthwatering so my friend and I split the french toast with salted whipped cream and a raw ham, tomato, and ricotta pizza. It was the perfect blend of salty and sweet. If your every near Yotsusya, I would definitely recommend checking this place out.
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Hair cut
On Friday after my classes I had a haircut scheduled near Harajuku so I decided I would eat lunch at Ichiran for the first time. I heard from a friend that the ramen is really worth the hype and they were totally right. I got the regular ramen and a soft-boiled egg. It was a really cool experience as well because you eat in a stall by yourself.
Afterwards I went to SOZO, which is a hair salon near Harajuku. I booked a haircut and scalp treatment and it was amazing. Totally on another level compared to the haircuts I get in Hawaii. My stylist asked what I wanted and made sure I felt comfortable. The shampooing and conditioning was so nice and relaxing. The scalp treatment happened before my haircut and was really fun. They also provide something to drink as well from teas to juices.
The stylist also took great care when cutting my hair and I'm really happy with the results.
If you're in Japan, get a haircut, it is a relaxing and really fun experience. I know some hair salons in Japan also exclusively cater toward tourists and they speak English fluently.
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Strawberry Picking
Yesterday, I went on a bus tour with my grandparents. It was so much fun and a first-time experience for me.
The tour was an all day thing from 8:00 am to 7:30 pm. We started in Chiba and then took a 3 and 1/2 hour ride on the bus to Tochigi where we went to Iwafune Fruit Park, which is a fruit farm that has a lot of different fruit picking events throughout the year. We went to go pick strawberries. It was really fun and we were given 30 minutes to eat as much as we could. And you can bet I ate until I felt stuffed. It was so much fun and the strawberries were so sweet. The best ones though weren't vibrant red but rather a darker black-red that I suspected meant they were at peak sweet/ripeness. I feel like I ate a decent 100, but I also lost count after about 50 so I'm not exactly sure how much I ate. The experience lead me to get my fingers dyed red but it so worth it. I definitely want to experience this again in the future.
After the strawberry picking, our bus then went to an outlet and we were given free rein for about 2 hours were we could eat lunch and shop. I ate soba and a katsu-bowl but it wasn't good. Afterwards I got cheesecake ice cream and it was way better than the bowl and soba. I didn't shop though because I wasn't really interested but it was a huge outlet mall and had many designer brands like Coach.
Our final destination of the tour was Ashikaga Flower Park and it was spectacular. Currently, 藤の花 (wisteria) is in full bloom and two of the wisteria trees at this park are about 160 years old and world-famous. The wisteria was beautiful and came in many different colors, I saw white, yellow, and the classic purple. I also loved how fragrant the wisteria was. They were also so many other dazzling flowers like poppies, petunias and roses. During our time at the park my grandparents and I also tried the wisteria ice cream and it was very refreshing.
If your ever in Tochigi during this time of year I personally recommend going to see the wisteria and the other flowers, they are so lovely to look at.
The bus tour though very fun left me feeling exhausted. I ended up sleeping the whole ride back.
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That was everything I did this week. This week was really busy but also really fun. Hopefully I'll have my adventures to share next week.
Until next week...😊
Hozzászólások