We actually didn't have a plan for the day. We got a leisurely start to the day and ended up just shopping. We went to all kinds of cool malls and stores but I didn't take many pictures because it's pretty awkward to take a picture in a crowded store when your phone makes a very loud shutter noise that everyone can hear. This is because I had a Japanese SIM card in my phone and by law, Japanese phones have to make a loud camera shutter noise even when silenced. Why? Because men were taking pictures up women's skirts, especially on trains and in other crowded situations. Ugh!
But I did try to sneak in a few here and there while we were out...
Since Andy knows me so well, he took me to the largest Daiso I'd ever seen on the entire 6th floor of the Ikebukuro Tobu department store. It was like I died and went to Daiso heaven! And unlike in America, most everything was still only 100 yen which made all of the incredible things only about 75 cents USD. All this means that I had no concept of time or self control while there...
We rode the escalators upstairs to the restaurants and found one serving something none of us had heard of before: doria. Think a very thick cheese-y rice gratin. It's a traditionally French dish that is now a Japanese dish. Chris and Andy got the carbonara doria and I got the shrimp and lobster. It's cooked and served in a hot stone bowl over a flame so that the edges and cheese continue to cook and get all brown and tasty! We ate a lot of good food while in Japan but this was our favorite! It was absolutely delicious!!!
Look what we could see when we were walking back to the station...
Back in Andy's neighborhood at Kameido, we did some shopping at the Don Quijote. It's a store that has everything you need in an organized but chaotic way on each colorful busy floor of the store...
In stores in Japan, they put your things back into another shopping basket and then you carry that outside (or inside) to the bagging station where you bag your own things.
Next to the bagging station was this bag of snack mix. I didn't buy it because it was expensive and I wasn't sure I wanted my snacks to have eyes... LOL
Andy had an early appointment the next morning so Chris and I went back to our hotel after eating the rest of the cheesecake with Andy. Since it was still early, we did a bit of exploring in the "other direction" from out hotel.
No comments:
Post a Comment