Today was Jessica’s birthday, and we had a fun day planned. We started at the world famous Meiji shrine, which was only a train stop away. The grounds are huge, which helped people spread out, as there were a lot of visitors. The pathways were as wide and under cover of many large trees; the shrine buildings were impressive as were all the trees around.
We had lunch reservations at the posh Hills House 33 restaurant in the high-end Roppongi neighborhood; the restaurant was on the 33rd floor (duh, I later thought) of the building below (that’s Tokyo tower behind it).
Here’s Jessica in front, and the entrance was cool as well.
For Jesse’s birthday lunch, we were in for a treat; the view and the six-course Japanese-inspired French tasting menu (so reasonably priced too!), menu below. It was such a wonderful, unforgettable experience!
Had to snap one more picture of Tokyo tower while we were up there!
We visited a few art museums, and walked and walked and walked, but those are saved for the next “For Art’s Sake” post, so on to more food! Jessica’s birthday dinner, to be specific. We had reservations at a Tonkatsu restaurant in Shibuya. Tonkatsu are deep fried pork cutlets (and other meats and fishes) and we ate until our hearts’ content.
After taking some more pictures of the Shibuya scramble, and the bright lights of the tall buildings, we headed back to our own bright lights, big city area, Shinjuku, for some much needed rest. We only had a half day left in Japan, and we had a couple places we still wanted to visit!
Since it was still Jesse’s birthday back home (when the time difference works for us) we continued celebrating! We started our last day in Tokyo visiting the Ikebukuro neighborhood. We had planned a tour there, but it wound up being cancelled by the tour operator (twice!) due to lack of interest, so we decided to visit on our own.
We ate lunch at a diner where we put money into a machine, and hit the button of the food we wanted and out popped a small ticket. It was all in Japanese, and the pictures were quite small, but we had seen a video that raved about the salt and pepper pork steak, so we knew we had to try it. We gave our tickets to the counter, and soon they brought us a ton of tasty meat, a heaping pile of white rice, and we ate and ate, and couldn’t even finish it all, for only a few dollars. It was great! (photos below from googlemaps).
We walked around the neighborhood some more, passing this oddity on a corner:
We also visited a couple neighborhood shrines (because when in Tokyo), including the Ikebukuro Mitake Shrine.
Our last site to see was the most peaceful of all, the Rikugen Garden, dating back to 1702. Many Japanese gardens, especially from this time period, were meant to induce different feelings, and provide different perspectives from every location in the park; even while looking at the same pond, or tree, from different angles, the whole scene can look and feel different (and hopefully inspire those poets of old).
Rikugen Garden is most popular in early spring when the cherry blossoms are blooming, strolling through the serene park was just what we needed to complete our trip to Tokyo.
We headed back to the hotel, picked up our bags, and were soon on our way to the airport, ready for the long flight home. What a trip! I cannot recommend a visit enough. Until next time Japan, sayonara!
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