Monday, December 20, 2010

Plastic food!

First stop today was Asakusa, home to Tokyo's largest temple - Senso-ji. It was a really beautiful sight and there were lots of locals paying their respects by throwing 100Y coins all over the place and waving incense smoke around. Surrounding the temple were narrow alleyways filled with very interesting stores (a lot of them tourist traps). My favourite stores were the ones solely dedicated to creating rice crackers, some of which were extremely intricate looking (and delicious!). There were also dozens of tiny restaurants, each with an impressive display of plastic food!

Part of Senso-ji temple

Senso-ji temple itself

Mike outside the giant temple doors
Deciding where to go next

Asakusa alleyways full of shops

Plastic sushi and sashimi

More plastic food
In Asakusa we decided to have some lunch, so we picked a place that had nice looking plastic food. The entrance of the restaurant led us down three flights of stairs until we were in a dungeon like room. There we had to take off our shoes, shut them in a little wooden locker and sit around a traditional low table. The meal was a veritable feast and cost us less than $20 in total!

Lunch!
We then decided to head to Shinjuku, which is considered the centre of the city and the world's busiest train station! It's also home to Japan's largest department store (Takashimaya Times Square) which is just a sea of designer labels. We went to Shinjuku mainly for Mike to continue his search for a cheap compact tripod at a famous camera supply shop called 'Bic Camera'. He did find the perfect one but alas, they were out of stock.

As our legs started to grow weary we decided to sit down and have a drink and it was at this point we realised we were out of cash. Finding an ATM in Japan that accepts Australian cards is no easy feat! We searched for at least one hour (trying at least five different banks) with no luck whatsoever. Finally a nice lady at a currency exchange point told us to try the post office - bingo!

We decided to try a crazy looking pizza place for dinner, which was actually very delicious.

Shinjuku by day 

Perusing the pizza menu

Shinjuku by night
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5 comments:

  1. David and ElizaDecember 20, 2010 at 2:28 PM

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  2. David and ElizaDecember 20, 2010 at 2:31 PM

    Dammit! You have definitely added another destination to my long list of places I want to go! It is getting unachievable. Japan looks fantastic though.

    In your nighttime photo I wondered what the hell you had done to your hair and then realised it was a hood. Looks like an afro just so you know!

    I love the plastic food - they must have to clean it all the time to keep it looking nice. Grey dusty food would look quite unappetising. But I imagine Japan is a very clean place - is that true?

    Your lunch looks amazing and is making me hungry. Breakfast time! I meant to say, I love how Japanese breakfast is not very different from lunch. Europe was the same. Typically bread, pastries, some fruit, cold deli meats, salad, cheeses, maybe a liver spread and some places even served us things like olives and pickled fish. Most places did have some version of nutella though, which is the king of all spreads.

    Miss you, love you, keep me informed of everything.
    xxx

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  3. JacquiDecember 20, 2010 at 3:38 PM

    lol @ the afro! I just went back and had a look and you're right, it does!

    Yes the plastic food is very clean, as it pretty much everything here. I think they even have people employed to clean the hand rails down the stairs in the subway! It's pretty rare to see any litter either.

    My travel list is almost unachievable too!

    I agree about the breakfast and lunch food, I like it how it's the same. In face I never eat 'breakfast' food at home - cereal sucks!

    xo

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  4. UnknownDecember 20, 2010 at 11:28 PM

    What a crack-up ... you wanted a good meal so you picked a place that had nice looking plastic food. The actual meal looks delicious too. Amazing that you get all that for under $20. Lots of love xoxo

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  5. JacquiDecember 21, 2010 at 2:20 AM

    Hey Wendy! Yeah the food here is great value. Saw Aimee's Japanese twin in a pet shop yesterday xo

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