Today, our plan was to check out the Shinjuku national garden, and then check out the main attractions of Shinjuku.
We started the day off early so we could get a head start on our day before the rain. We decided to walk to Shinjuku, since it would only be about 40-50 minutes. We got some food from Lawson or Family Mart after a while of walking, and then we tried to go into the Akasaka imperial property. It was kind of hard to figure out how to get in, so we just skipped it. Adjacent to that was the Meiji Jingu garden, which we walked through.
It was more of a stadium center, with lots of stadiums, a golf hitting area, and a few ball fields. Finally we got to the Shinjuku national garden, and we were able to get inside for a small fee. We took the brochure and amazingly enough, it showed that there were a few flowers that were able to bloom in the winter! We took our snacks to the Japanese garden, sat and ate.
I took pictures of every flower I saw.
Then we walked around, visited the imperial boarding house or something, it was built western style. All the furniture was still there! It felt like Huntington Garden. The grass was all yellow for the winter.
Winter blooms
We visited the greenhouse, and it actually took so long because it was so cool. Then we walked all the way back throught he garden (we saw many pink flower trees1 they were so beautiful and in full bloom, despite there being zero leaves on the trees!)
Fall foliage in the winter
After leaving the garden, we walked to Shinjuku proper, and it felt like a more crowded NYC.
We walked by Isetan mall (a relatively high end mall), and into the pedestrian block where Sushimaru was located. We were sat down, and then we both ordered the chirashi bowl. We ate as we watched the sushi chef perform expert moves, it was like a show and we were mesmerized, I couldn’t take my eyes off the fish he was handling as we ate. He made negitoro, the crushed tuna, quickly made many nigiris in the space of seconds, and prepped more fish, scallops, squid, and other exotic fish type things for future sushis. It was probably some of the best and freshest sushi fish i have ever eaten in my life. Every fish piece broke apart softly and it tasted simply amazing.
Then we walked around Isetan mall, but quickly left since it was just like a normal high end department store. It was so packed though.
We went up to the roof, were unimpressed because it was starting to shower a bit, and left. We went to the red light district, walked by the golden gai (not active yet since it was only early afternoon). We started to walk aimlessly and we passed a bunch of hotels, before i realized that these hotels were advertising their rates by hour. These were love hotels!
Then, we visited many more types of stores that sold everything: biclo, labi, odakyu, etc etc etc. We then came out of odakyu, and realized that we had been spit out in the center of omoide yokocho.
People, about 20 of em, were lining up for one of the tiny shops, so without hesitation, we got in line. The people who made it in line seconds behind us started to fret about not being able to get in in the first wave. I don’t know Japanese so this was translated to me. I was so glad I decided to line up, it must have been good, since it was food + drinks, at 4:30PM, and people were lining up in the rain for this. The shop opened minutes after, and we were the second to last group to be able to get in. Everyone else waited for at least 40 min in the rain in that dark twisty damp alleyway, waiting to get a chance to go in. We ordered what everyone else ordered. Masa may have been Japanese, but we were effectively foreigners there. We had never drank anywhere like that place. We ordered shou-hai, which seemed to be the fan favorite. This was apparently slang for “ginger highball”. Over the course of our meal, we noticed people slam pint after pint of shou-hai. One pair became so red in the face at the same time from these drinks that we were immediately able to tell they were father and son. The guys next to us started ordering, and one guy, who apparently went to Florida State but came back to Japan for work, noticed we were hesitant about ordering. So he told us he was going to order Hamami, Shiro, and Brain skewers. We did the same, but apparently Brain had already sold out. We also ordered the stew, the tea eggs, and a calpis sour. Not really enjoying the shou-hai at all (it must be an acquired taste… people were slurping at the leftover pulp), we ordered more calpis sours and beers, which we knew we would like. We tried the shiro, and the stew had tripe in it, and i was so out of my comfort zone. but it was awesome the stuff that we tried.
Very fun and very cool! the Florida State guy next to us started slurring his words at around 5:15PM and saying, Damn boys, I’m drunk, and their whole group left after paying their tab. After a little more than an hour of drinking and eating, we were stuffed to the brim with new foods and drinks, and we decided to walk around Shinjuku some more.
We stopped at Taito games, and took a cute Puri Kura picture of us. We also watched some girls play the claw machine, and it was SO RIGGED. after they had spent about $15 to $20 dollars, the staff member walking around noticed their predicament, and opened the case to reposition the animal closer to the finish line. After more rounds of money spent, the employee kept coming back to show her how to do it, and more importantly, moving it. Finally she won it, but it must have cost her at least $35…. I’m never playing a claw machine again.
We also visited Okura, a secondhand luxury goods store. Japan is really good for buying secondhand luxury items. The honor code is strong there and people don’t really buy or sell fakes. So you should feel more confident in consignment stores in Japan, compared to The Real Real and other services like that in America.
After some more walking around in the red light district (the littest area in my opinion), we decided to go back home. Drinking is just so casual here, (ppl drink at the park at 9am, grannies drink on the train while babysitting their grandchildren, seniors drink beer after beer with their lunch omelettes… drinking culture doesn’t seem like it’s something especially important to be experienced in a bar or anything).
I said “Are you ready to pregame?” to a young child walking with her dad
Then it became a meme for the rest of the trip.
