Batter Up!, Bicycle Origami and More
| | 11-May-2014 | First, Happy Mother’s Day!!! 🙂
Woke up to a view of Mt. Fuji this morning – first time all trip. Here’s a shot from our balcony … not to shabby! So anyway, what did we do today …. ? |
| In the middle of Ueno-Kōen there’s a nice cafe with outdoor seating that’s open at 7am … it’s a Starbucks. And it’s smoke-free, inside and outside. Win. We had pastry (more accurately, small Belgian waffle – called “American Waffle” – go figure) and coffee and watched the early Sunday morning joggers, walkers, bikers and people generally enjoying the sunshine. We were the only out-of-towners in the joint. Jeff was able to get a mid-trip dog fix, petting a nearby black and tan pooch who was clearly ready for his Dad to finish his coffee so they could get back to serious walking. Dogs are the same everywhere. 🙂
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 Next up, Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Not the kind of thing you’d expect to be open at 10am on a Sunday but when we saw that it would be we saved it for today not knowing what else might be available/open (turns out just about everything is). Very nice, though small exhibition, with the official “Hall of Fame” placards, and memorabilia from all eras of the game in Japan, including a nod to the women’s league.
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 From there it was on to Fire House – #1 in Time Out Tokyo’s best burgers in East Tokyo. We got there just before they opened and by the time they hung the “Open” sign out there were 8-10 people waiting for a table. Excellent burgers – the beef here is amazing! Pleep gave it a thumbs up.
The guys put the Airstream burgers from a few days ago ahead of Fire House – it seems the fries swayed the vote. Regardless, it was a tasty stop. |
| Sunday is supposed to be *the* day for people-watching in Harajuku so we took the subway over to see what all the fuss is about. Well, it is PACKED on Sunday. And there are teenagers dressed to impress. Did I mention packed? Anyway, didn’t really live up to the hype, except for the being packed part. We did observe that pairs of girls tended to dress almost exactly alike, while the bigger groups dressed similarly though each with their own color theme. You’d never see that at home.
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These caught Berto’s attention on our way to coffee at 7am! “I’m totally coming back for that later.” At a much more respectable time for octopus, 2:30pm, it was done. Grilled and dunked in sweet teriyaki. Get after it! |
| For everything we’d heard/read about Tokyo being crowded, difficult to navigate and hyper-expensive – we haven’t experienced that. Goes to show that everyone has their own experience. It would have been helpful to know that locating the green tea Kit Kats would be challenging – we would have popped into more mini-marts stalking them. |
 Leaving Matsuzakaya after picking up dinner we decided to cut over a few streets to the far side of the park for our return to get out of the crowds. And we walked right into a women’s “demonstration” march leaving the park. As you would expect in Japan, it was orderly, but went in waves as the police monitored traffic, but each group had to wait to cross with the light. BTW, they’re against discrimination and nukes. |
Pleepleus reminds us he’s not *all* about beer and burgers, he likes cheese and beer too. A vacation staple, though without the usual salami or olives this round (I couldn’t find any). Turns out that dark roll had walnuts and dried fruit in it. Surprising, but it pared nicely with the tanginess of the mild, spreadable cheese. Winning!
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Signing off from Tokyo – going to sip sake and take in this view.
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