We got a bit lost looking for our apartment initially but once we found it and dropped our bags, we laid around a bit playing with our devices since we had wifi. I really learned how much I depend on the internet through this trip. Forreal. Anyway, after a while we decided to head out and get ourselves some dinner. We were tired and weren’t in the mood to have confused conversations with restaurants. We finally ended up in a ramen restaurant. The waiter was very nice but didn’t know English. We figured we could point at things in the menu. Soon the waiter disappeared and he actually got help…his colleague spoke English! Really good English! That was super cool.

And guess what? I realized that we were eating at Santouka Ramen! Yes! The sister restaurant of our very own Hokkaido Ramen Santouka! I was really happy to realize that and noticed this restaurant had the same exactly bowls that we have in Hawaii. How nice and comforting that was. Our waiter told us a story about going to Seattle to teach people about Japanese culture but getting arrested at the airport and being sent back to Japan. That was quite the interesting story to hear, didn’t know how to follow that! I’ll just follow that with food.

Tan Tan version of their Ramen – of course I had to get it!

Very open kitchen. This whole restaurant is just a bar against the kitchen. I watched as the soup was boiling away on the side.

My friend’s ramen, yummm

Tan Tan Ramen! This was mine. It was delicious. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the brown stuff on top was meat from the picture but it wasn’t. It was like preserved chinese cabbage, I like that though. Very good!

Free egg! We initially ordered gyoza but they had run out. The waiter was very nice and told us that to make up for it, my friend and I would get free egg! He talked it up. He didn’t have to, I know Japan eggs are awesome! Very nice gesture, very delicious gesture. This dinner was nice and warm for a cold night. It was a nice end for a crazy travel day. Day 2 coming soon!