And so we start…Day 1/2

Bumpy ride across the Pacific even causing the hot drinks to be deleted from breakfast (no coffee!!!). Didn’t get much sleep but at least it was comfortable & watched several movies on the way over (some very unusual ones – anyone seen “Inside”?)

We got a fast pass through immigration at Narita thanks to business class but the lines in general weren’t nearly as long as last year, during the summer. Grabbed the luggage and got through quickly and onto the Kesei Skyliner with a prepaid ticket. Moment of panic as I couldn’t initially connect to the internet to get the QR voucher code but remembered my instructions “restart if it doesn’t work properly” and then on restarting the esim kicked in, and I was able to get my ticket. Lots of tourists but again, no huge lineups at the ticket counters like last year, surprisingly. A hop to the Ginza metro line (of course there were stairs to drag the case down!) and two stops from Ueno got me to the hotel and amazingly I got out at the right exit. Glad to see a bed at that point but struggled for a couple of hours to stay awake to dull the upcoming jetlag – went for a short walk and dive into the 7/11 across the street in search of chestnut Moshi (unsuccessful) but finally gave up at 8 p.m. and was out like a light… 3 a.m. our time.

The night was punctuated by a brief wakening at 2 a.m. Japan time but happily got back to sleep within an hour and resurfaced at 6 a.m., good omen for jetlag to disappear quickly…breakfast of cold croissant from a Ueno french bakery store (7/10) and coffee then headed out walking to Sensoji temple for a quick recce. Always a lovely place to walk around, and already accumulating tourists. It’s shorts and T-shirt weather here, perfect temps and not too muggy outside of the train stations. After downing a calorific local sweet bun from a vendor headed by metro to Ueno Park which was amazing – full of walks, and birds singing despite being in the centre of a huge metropolis (unfortunately this website won’t support videos).

Senso-ji temple and touristic approach

Ueno Park

Tooled around the Tokyo National Museum for a couple of hours, an amazing collection of artifacts, archaeology and art. Like many museums, one doesn’t do it justice in part of a day… the “Hello Kitty” special exhibit in a different wing was getting a lot of visitors LOL. Getting into the museum was a bonus, as I’d read that it was closed and under renovation until 2025, but apparently not?

Then off for some patisserie and chocolate research, with a quick stop for lunch at T’s Tantan Vegetarian Ramen restaurant which I amazingly found within Tokyo Station with the help of the information booth. It provided a lovely yuzu ramen that fuelled me to the Patisserie Sudahuru Aoki in Marinouchi and the apple store to get a charge cord connection for my laptop (had forgotten Japan didn’t accept three prong cords despite being told that specifically before I left… sigh). Now have a travel kit charger that will work anywhere in the world 🤦‍♀️.

I’d been to Sudahuru Aoki last year, and still remembered the amazing pastries. It is obviously chestnut season as there were all kinds of “marron” flavoured confections, pastries and biscuits. Hard to choose, but in the interests of research I stuck to the entremets and a few chocolate bonbons.

The first one I tried tonight, the pear caramel, was exquisite – real pear with jaconde sponge, custard mousse and a caramelized glaze…. amazing. Dunno how they managed to carmalize the glaze without destroying its’ sheen… but a great trick, and one to practice. Definitely a 10/10. The custard and the jaconde were fabulous.

Then a quick trip around the corner to suss out the location of the hotel I booked for the last night in Tokyo, and a hop back onto the metro to drop off the pastries to the newly replaced fridge in the room (didn’t work when I arrived so wondering when the milk will go bad… esp as the repair person left it out when he swapped out the fridge…).

After a quick cup of matcha it was out the door again to wander down the Kappabashi kitchen street – always fun. Looking for bookmarks of fake food, and a wooden cup but couldn’t find the right fake food store – an excuse to return! Grocery shopping at the Life supermarket (which I’d intended to do this a.m. on the way back from Senso-ji but was surprised to find it didn’t open until 10:30!) yielded an interesting seaweed/rice/tofu/salmon “ball” and some excellent instant miso soup for dinner. It’s hard to shop in Japan as a vegetarian as pork and chicken seem to appear in everything; I found the timekettle T1 translator quite useful on the whole for translating the ingredients but giggled at some of the translations of the fronts of the packages which were mostly fairly nonsensical. It was helpful though, talking to the friendly security guard on the second floor when I had to retrieve it from having left it at the cash register… finding those quite confusing, as the input for coins and bills is different in every machine with interactive screens which also change. Freely admit I’m not the most adept at tech… The guard thought it was a miniature phone, so we had a chat with it translating, to show him, and it seemed to work pretty well.

And so the first day is done. Tomorrow’s menu at the Tokyo Cooking School looks amazing – there are apparently 6 of us in this class. Should be an adventure just getting there, and fun to see a different part of the city.

Tomorrow’s menu:

– Vegetarian ramen with seasonal vegetables and ramen eggs

– Vegetarian gyoza with shiso, lotus roots, carrots, mushrooms, nappa cabbage 

– Black sesame ice cream and seasonal fruits

– Yuzu sake

Today’s highlight: the little kids in the Metro in school uniform with hats and big backpacks.