In December 2013, we travelled to Japan (for the second time) and spent about 9 days in Tokyo. This post marks the last bit of our Tokyo trip, awww…
We checked out from our hotel at Kyobashi and travel to Nihonbashi Station (probably walkable, but meh!) to find a restaurant recommended by many for their omurice (omelette rice). The restaurant is called Taimeiken. It wasn’t difficult to find it if you have a map.
We knew what we wanted, so we ordered the omurice. The price was rather steep, about ¥2000 for each meal. So we had high expectations… naturally.
It came. And we sliced open the top bit and… voila!
Yup, just the way omurice should be… It was an experience to do the slicing, in fact! Haha.
Taste-wise, though, it probably wasn’t worth the money we paid. I mean, if it was the usual circa ¥800 per meal, I’d probably recommend this place. But for the 20-odd dollars we paid for an omurice, I expected much richer taste and more stuff.
We also had the borscht soup, which was really cheap. Yup, it was ¥50 for a bowl, not that big of a bowl, but still a nice side dish nonetheless.
We were staying not too far away from Taimeiken, else I think the visit will not be worth it. So if you’re around Nihonbashi area and want to give this place a try, sure! But if not, it’s probably not worth travelling.
We moved on to our next destination: Ginza. Found a car showroom and entered just for a bit.
I’m not into cars, but that was pretty fancy, wasn’t it?!
We then continued walking down the famous Ginza road. After about 15 minutes, we could see Shinbashi Station ahead of us. But what we were looking for was this: Hakuhinkan Toy Park.
Similar to KiddyLand at Harajuku, the Hakuhinkan Toy Park at Shinbashi consists of many floors of toys, anime goodies, silly stationery and stuff. It’s a little older and you can find some things that you won’t at KiddyLand.
We made our way to the top by the lift and then walked down each level (that’s our method of covering everything with the least amount of walking/waiting for lift).
We found a Racing Park where people can race their toy cars, I assume.
There were plenty of things to see and plenty of things that make me go: hmmm I want that, but I shouldn’t buy because they’d collect dust (i.e. useless but cute).
There were some really really kawaii plushies, so if you travel with kids (or the young-at-hearts), beware… LOL.
My favourite section would be the Totoro area. I mean, how can I not love these?!
I *almost* bought this particular one… Mei with a Totoro suit. How adorably cute!!!! Kawaii!
I resisted the temptation and walked away successfully.
We then made our way back to the hotel after our nice day of walking around Ginza. Random: got myself an ice cream, strawberry cheesecake flavour. Yum!
After arranging with the hotel to get some of our luggages sent to Osaka through the Kuroneko service, we headed to Tokyo Station to board our train for Yokohama.
PS: Most hotels will be able to help you with sorting your luggages, but if they can’t, you can also visit nearby convenient stores. I’d suggest emailing the hotels before your arrival, just for your peace of mind. I also emailed the receiving hotel in Osaka to make sure that they were able to keep our luggages for a few days before our arrival.
So Tokyo Station…
If you’ve had friends visiting Japan before, you probably would’ve heard of Tokyo Banana. One of the most popular “souvenirs” that people bring back from Tokyo, this place sells soft sponge cake in the shape of a banana, with custard filling (I think that’s how you describe it).
We couldn’t buy to bring back home (they only stayed fresh for a short while and we had another 2+ weeks of travelling to do), so we decided to buy some to try instead.
These soft and fluffy Tokyo Banana cakes were pretty awesome. My travel companions don’t think they were that great though, so it depends on taste I guess.
What are some of your favourite souvenirs to bring back from holidays? Let me know in the comments below.