Japan 2015 Day 3 – Food!

Warning: The following pictures may induce a food coma. Enter at your own risk. And yes, this is what I ate. No shame in my game. Okay, there is shame because I realized there are a lot of pictures as I uploaded them for this post. But hey, that’s basically why we went (right?). So…good…drool…

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Meat Pie! First “snack” of the day. Delicious mince meat filling in a very flaky pastry crust. It was like a gourmet puff pastry hot pocket. Delicious!

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150420-03Sausage in a Bun – I guess this is their version of a hot dog? Does not taste like a hot dog at all, definitely a very Japanese sausage. Tasted okay, not something I would get again.

150420-04I was too curious about this one! Sea Salt Ice Cream!

150420-05It was pretty good! Not really salty. Vanilla Ice cream, strawberry jam all in a wafer like shell. The wafer is very bland and felt like we were chewing on styrofoam but it tasted fine!

150420-07Churro – this was not great. Also! It’s one of the few things shaped into Disney shapes! You can’t tell looking at this now, but it’s actually a Mickey Mouse face shape. I thought the churro was a bit too spongy, didn’t taste right.

150420-06Famous Disney Turkey Leg – I had to get it. Had to. Even if it’s for the experience! Well, they cooked it perfectly. Very juicy and tender. This is a very smoky tasting turkey leg. It tasted good but a bit too smoked for my taste.

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Genoa-style Seafood Salad

150420-09Linguine, Seafood Genovese

This was our lunch from their Cafe Portofino. Very cute little Italian eatery. You order in the cafeteria type line, pay and take a seat. They give you a little token with your food but I was surprised they knew where to find us to deliver the food. The token is not very obvious but I shouldn’t be surprised at how organized Tokyo Disney would be. It was a very good day, pricey (where in Disney isn’t it pricey?) but good. Next up, Tokyo Disneyland!

Japan 2015 Day 3 – Disney Sea

Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea were definitely planned before the trip was even booked! My friend is a Disney fanatic and a big fanatic for tsum tsums, both the game and the stuffed animals! One would expect Disneyland or DisneySea to have all that…it didn’t! That’s my warning to you! He found the tsum tsums he wanted from the Tokyo Skytree Mall Disney Store, they barely had tsum tsums at the theme park! Mainly cute accessories like phone cases and stuff, not the stuffed dolls! Can you believe it?

Anyway, I like visiting Disney theme parks but I don’t ride rides. It’s mainly because I get sick easily and I’m not looking to throw up all through the day. But I genuinely don’t mind waiting on the side as others ride rides…for me, the experience of walking through the park is enough! DisneySea is unique to Japan only so I was curious about what it had to offer! It’s very similar to their theme parks, it’s just an ocean theme and a lot of nice scenic water views. Japan Disney is on point on everything. I think if you went to Japan Disney and then went to the other parks, you’d be disappointed. The service, the cleanliness, the food, it’s all so amazing.

And the Japanese people…LOVE Disney! It’s very busy all the time! And Disney knows how to get their money. Hahaha the biggest thing I noticed about DisneySea was of course the popcorn and then the love of ice cream. Even with the cold weather, there was an ice cream kiosk everywhere I turned. I ate a lot this day…lol. But that’s the post for tomorrow.

Disney was planned for the beginning because our trip was about 10 days long and we had purchased a 7 day JR pass so we weren’t going to activate our pass until later on in the trip. We figured we would spend all day at Disney for two days so that would be smart to do them before the JR Passes were activated. It’s very easy to get to Disney, we jumped on the Yamanote Line and transferred to the Keiyo Line and headed to Maihama. Maihama is the stop for Disney. We didn’t know much so when we got to Disney, we purchased a Disney rail pass. It cost about $8 and would be good for two days. It’s a cute little rail that runs on a loop and takes you to the entrance of both Disney parks and their resort hotels. I think we realized too late that we could have easily walked to the parks from Maihama station but it’s okay. It was a cute experience and the rail has cute details! Let’s get to some pictures!

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150419-02As I always say, the little details count!

150419-03Beautiful DisneySea, this is the view as you walk in.

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Many groups of friends dressed in the same exact outfits. This was probably a line for picture taking with a Disney character. I also noticed kids enjoy wearing their school uniforms around the park.

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I know these are like “fake” buildings built for Disney but I still felt like it was such a beautiful view. I don’t care how artificial it was, I felt transported! I was also excited to see their band give a performance. It was a great start!

150419-07They were very good! Every member was very animated and I loved how each person had their own solo. It was super cool. They played versions of famous Disney songs. I loved it!

150419-08Yup, I went to Italy.

150419-09There she blows! Nice detail!

150419-10I think this was part of the Indiana Jones exhibit

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150419-12I got sucked into Disney. I bought a cell phone case and matching lariat from Disney fever. It was expensive but a nice souvenir.

150419-13One of the few rides I could handle. A gondola ride! It was very nice and we were at the front of our line so I got to sit in the good seats (in my opinion). These guys were pros but they also only spoke Japanese and also sang in Japanese? It was pretty cool. As they would pass the other gondolas, they had cute games or conversations ready to go between gondolas.

150419-14View from the gondola – beautiful right?

150419-15Behind my Italian restaurant in Italy. Hehe I wish, but that ends my DisneySea post for today! Stay tuned for food tomorrow!

Japan 2015 Day 2 – Food!

A day of eating. Wait, let me change that. A trip of eating. Delish! No shame in my game, I had to make sure I ate it up during this trip. I sure did. Well, since we spent all day in Tokyo Solamachi, all our meals were from there too! Let’s get started shall we? First was our brunch meal in the Food Court. You order your food and get a buzzer that goes off when your food is ready to be picked up. Actually these were beepers/buzzers so the food court was abuzz with beeping the whole meal through. When you are done with your meal, you take it back to your establishment’s tray return window. Great system!

150408-01Kristian got a tonkatsu curry. He liked it a lot and let me have a taste. The curry had a nice mild flavor, I liked it! The Japanese are serious about their shredded cabbage. They love it there.

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150408-03I got a Chinese set. It was a chicken and gravy over noodles dish that came with two siu mai and this mochi rice thing. The mochi rice thing was great, it was a mushroom sticky rice thing and it hardly stuck to the leaf/wrapper. The siu mai was okay, not great. Tastes like it looks, plain and bland. I was also a bit disappointed because I am pretty sure there was MSG in my food, I was thirsty all day! Not recommended. After a full day of shopping, we headed to the restaurant levels for dinner!

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150408-06My salad! I love how they put in all these herbs in the butter and cheese. This was a good salad. The bread had some kind of pate on it so it was a bit hard to eat. I used my fork and knife.

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150408-08French Onion Soup that came with my meal. Pretty good! It came in a mini Le Creuset pot, love it.

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150408-10Kristian had two steak dishes during this trip that included an herb butter on top, I got super jelly for both! Looks awesome. Made me crave steak…gotta get my fill when I come home.

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150408-14My dish! Omurice with Hamburg Steak WITH Foie Gras. You can hardly tell there is foie gras but it’s sitting there behind the hamburg steak! The burger was delicious and juicy as was the foie gras, the rice was alright. I’m not a huge fan of the rice but liked the egg.

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As we walked through the mall, we walked through a bakery called Cheese Garden and they were sampling their Imperial Villa Cheese Cake, oh my god it was amazing. Somehow, the cheesecake is super rich and dense yet light at the same time. The cheesecake had an intense cream cheese taste. Kristian bought the cheesecake and we brought it back to the apartment, it took a few days to finish it but finish we did.

Japan 2015 Day 2 – Tokyo Skytree

Our first full day in Tokyo! We didn’t have much planned for this day. The two days after this would be all Disney all day. We also didn’t have our JR passes yet so it wasn’t a day for jumping in and out of the trains or subways. I woke up super early this morning because we slept early the night before knackered from the flight.

I woke up, took a shower, did a small load of laundry because I have a thing about the clothes I wear on airplanes. We decided to go to the Tokyo Skytree on the Asakusa subway line to Oshiage. Did we go up the actually Skytree? Nope. That costs money. Hahaha, so we checked out the SUPER AWESOME mall attached to the Skytree. The mall is called Tokyo Solamachi, perfect mall to start off with.

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150407-04This is a quick shot of their food court. I will share the food from this meal tomorrow. I was just amazed by how clean their food court was. The Japanese are serious business in cleanliness. There was an attendant cleaning up after every person finished, they also had a great water station. You know what I noticed about cleaning attendants as well? They were always greeting people and welcoming them onto the floor, not avoiding contact like they do here you know?

150407-05A Studio Ghibli store! Very cute but I didn’t buy anything. I have enough Totoro stuff and it’s pricey!

150407-06I didn’t go up the Skytree but check out this cool shot I got from the patio area! I love it! And the patio area is great for kids. They had all sorts of physical games for kids to play…so lucky! Day 2 food post coming tomorrow!

Japan 2015 – Day 1 Food

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.

150405-01Tan Tan version of their Ramen – of course I had to get it!

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150405-03Very open kitchen. This whole restaurant is just a bar against the kitchen. I watched as the soup was boiling away on the side.

150405-04My friend’s ramen, yummm

150405-05Tan 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!

150405-06Free 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!

Japan 2015 – Day 1 Recap

Ah yes. My spring trip to Japan! I’ve been to Japan once before in 2011 and it really helped this trip around. It was my friend’s first time to Japan so I was able to guide us around pretty good. I am now pro at the Yamanote Line. Sorta. I am going to journal out my trip here on my blog as tips for you guys and of course for me to document back to! I’ll try to give you folks specific details as much as I can.

First off, my plane tickets were a crazy good deal. I don’t know about you folks but I thought $645 was a great deal for a round trip ticket. I was watching the ticket prices every day and this one looks like it got added late so I got it for a good price and was able to pick some good seats! Yen was also awesome – I was able to get them for 121, it was much higher than like the 80 I got a few years back. This is a great time to buy yen!

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Ready for take-off!

150404-02Chicken Dinner – small but good!

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150404-04Small snack pack before we landed! It’s a ham egg salad sandwich. That was interesting.

150404-05We got our luggage and headed towards the train ticket kiosk. Our JR pass would not be validated until later in our trip so we took the Keisei Skyliner and transferred at Shinagawa Station to jump on the Yamanote Line to make our way to our apartment. The Keisei Skyliner ticket was pricey, about 2,500 yen.

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150404-08Did Jenny say apartment?? Yes! We opted for an apartment rental over a hotel. We booked pretty late so the hotel options were slim. It was okay though because this apartment was great! Two beds, quiet and safe neighborhood, close to the subway and on the Yamanote Line! All great stuff! The bathroom was insanely small….the shower allowed us basically to stand up straight and in one direction. Hahaha…the biggest perk?

150404-09Pocket WiFi came with the apartment rental! We could carry this around everywhere we went! No getting lost with google maps (just super long winded walks…more to come on that later…) I booked my apartment from airbnb.com.

I’m home!

Yes, I have returned safe and sound from my trip to Japan! The trip was AWESOME! I enjoyed it very much and am excited to share with you folks! In fact, if you don’t want to learn about Japan – you may want to avoid my blog for the next few weeks. I’ll probably have to do a general tips post and then of course a food post for the day! Can’t be in Japan without eating. I hope you are all doing well. I’ll leave you with a picture of cherry blossoms I took from the Imperial East Gardens.

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