Lucy’s journal notes: day 79
Journal day 79
Today we had our first full day in Tokyo! When we first got up, mom and poppy and I went to Starbucks to grab some drinks and breakfast. Poppy and I had a little bite to eat and mom had coffee (yeah shocker right?). It was our first time out of our hotel, so we got to see the neighborhood. It was super cool and very walkable. It is really hard to get lost because there were so many people going to the same place as you and the sidewalks and signage were very clear, even though we couldn’t read the language. After breakfast, we went to the grocery store right downstairs from our hotel and got some food. Since Dad is super sick, we grabbed him some instant Ramen and green tea.
After that we headed back to the apartment and finished up breakfast before getting dressed. After we got ready for the day, we went out for a walk. We walked to a Don Quijote, which is a Japanese chain that sells many different goodies, trinkets and beauty supplies. I got two sets of cute chopsticks for my friends, and a little figurine surprise bag. After that, we wanted to go to a cat café but the ratings for some of them were not very good.
Later, we went out for lunch at a noodle place on one of the side roads. For some description, once in a while there will be a little turn off of the main street, where you can find a ton of host clubs, which is basically a long road of clubs where there is just a bunch of couches inside and you can hire someone to sell you drinks and be your “hype man” for the night. They party with you and their job is to sell you alcohol. Our lunch spot was at the end of one of these roads. for our first Japanese meal, I’d say it was pretty good. We got some noodles with beef and also some Gyoza. When we finished our lunch, we went to a nearby temple, where we got to see a Japanese religious site, and also see some people praying.
Our evening activity was a food tour. Our guide named Chambliss met us and our group at a nearby KFC. We started off our tour by going to Japanese Gastropub where we got to try many different kinds of chicken. Poppy and I also got some cotton candy flavored sodas. Our next location served us some more meats, especially raw fish. I had some raw salmon and raw tuna, and we also got to try sea grapes! They are basically a little tiny popping grapes on a stem. They make a really satisfying sound but they are not very good. Mom seemed to think they were good though, because she ate half of the plate.
Everyone in our group was so nice, which I am glad about because mom got to talk with a nice woman from San Francisco who works in healthcare as well. I am happy for mom for that reason. The rest of the tour was more tasting and snacking, and it ended with us at a gyoza restaurant with a very spirited waiter. He took A LOT of photos for us, and we took some photos with him. He said he liked kids because he used to work at a nursery school.
Walking around downtown Tokyo at night was amazing. I love seeing the nightlife and everyone’s cool outfits. Even though Japanese people seem kind of serious, they also also know how to have fun after work. We saw tons of people in cool outfits taking pictures and having fun on the streets. Poppy and I paused our fighting for a night so we could have fun together, which I might recomend we do more often. I’m glad that we are close in age so we can have friend moments like this. For dessert we had Yuzu ice cream, which was like Japanese lemon sorbet. I had Yuzu in my Starbucks drink this morning, but it was like, really bad. We ended the night with a nice walk home and something funny happened at the end of the tour. Basically, the whole group and our guide were outside and it was after the last restaurant and we were all saying goodbye. We all parted our ways and we were figuring out the map when the last member of our group, kind of a loner dude, walks out of the restaurant and says “where did everyone go?!” we laughed about it for a few minutes and then we were on our way.
It may be too early to say this, but I think I want to move to Japan for a few years in my 20s. I think it would be fun to move here with friends.