Because
we had a reservation at a special tempura restaurant in Tokyo at
5pm, we decided to stay in Tokyo for the day. We were also totally
exhausted from walking around the entire previous day.
We wandered around Shinjuku first, went in the very fancy department store there and bought a lovely bento box lunch. We had the bento box outside of a shrine near the Harajuka area. I found out that the sake bottles wrapped in straw are offerings to the temples.
Finally, we made our way to the Harajuka area, a big fashion street with lots of people dressed up.
However, the weather wasn't great and we were tired, so we went back to the hotel early to rest and get ready for dinner.
For dinner we went to this Michelin starred tempura restaurant, it was a tiny hole in the wall kind of place close to the Tokyo train station. Inside we all sat around the open kitchen area at the bench. Dinner started at 5pm and the chefs (main and helper) prepared all our tempura individually. The most interesting vegetable one was an entire chestnut.
The fish tempura I had the most difficulty eating was this entire fish of I don't know what species. It was lightly battered and when it was served to us (two of them) I could see it's eye still and count it's teeth. I wasn't sure what parts to eat so I paused and watched how my neighbour ate hers. She ate the entire thing head first. Ugh! But what the heck, I'm here to try things. The part I didn't like was eating the head, the lightly crunchy texture, I imagined the bones, the brain, the teeth, the backbone, the fins. I thought the middle part had a funny texture and when we finished Mic pointed out that the fish was cooked full of eggs.
The next morning we caught our flight back, and just by chance we went to the correct airport, we caught the wrong train in the morning which took us to Tokyo station instead of Akihabra, but this wasn't a problem, we were just one station away and could still get to the special airport train. While we were standing on the platform waiting, I said we had better double check the airport again. Turns out we were going to the wrong airport, but the correct airport train happened to leave from Tokyo station. So just by accident we were able to immediately get on the correct train and get to our flight in time. Lucky.
The flight back was uneventful, we were just ahead of the Typhoon which caused travel problems the next day. The weather was actually nice in Switzerland, not raining at all!
We wandered around Shinjuku first, went in the very fancy department store there and bought a lovely bento box lunch. We had the bento box outside of a shrine near the Harajuka area. I found out that the sake bottles wrapped in straw are offerings to the temples.
Finally, we made our way to the Harajuka area, a big fashion street with lots of people dressed up.
However, the weather wasn't great and we were tired, so we went back to the hotel early to rest and get ready for dinner.
For dinner we went to this Michelin starred tempura restaurant, it was a tiny hole in the wall kind of place close to the Tokyo train station. Inside we all sat around the open kitchen area at the bench. Dinner started at 5pm and the chefs (main and helper) prepared all our tempura individually. The most interesting vegetable one was an entire chestnut.
The fish tempura I had the most difficulty eating was this entire fish of I don't know what species. It was lightly battered and when it was served to us (two of them) I could see it's eye still and count it's teeth. I wasn't sure what parts to eat so I paused and watched how my neighbour ate hers. She ate the entire thing head first. Ugh! But what the heck, I'm here to try things. The part I didn't like was eating the head, the lightly crunchy texture, I imagined the bones, the brain, the teeth, the backbone, the fins. I thought the middle part had a funny texture and when we finished Mic pointed out that the fish was cooked full of eggs.
The next morning we caught our flight back, and just by chance we went to the correct airport, we caught the wrong train in the morning which took us to Tokyo station instead of Akihabra, but this wasn't a problem, we were just one station away and could still get to the special airport train. While we were standing on the platform waiting, I said we had better double check the airport again. Turns out we were going to the wrong airport, but the correct airport train happened to leave from Tokyo station. So just by accident we were able to immediately get on the correct train and get to our flight in time. Lucky.
The flight back was uneventful, we were just ahead of the Typhoon which caused travel problems the next day. The weather was actually nice in Switzerland, not raining at all!
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