Places we traveled:
Tokyo, Nikko, Omiya
Peaks:
- Andrew’s birthday weekend in Tokyo! Jan 24-26 we traveled to Tokyo, booked a hostel just south of Asakusa, and did some exploring. As a surprise, I bought tickets to Hellogoodbye’s Living Room tour, a series of concerts held in “offered spaces” around the world…otherwise known as, uh, regular ass house shows…but this one was in Japan! Hellogoodbye was my absolute jam as an angsty teen. My first concert was Hellogoodbye, and I had an incredible time at this show. Andrew liked it too, probably. Saturday we started the day with some tight pour over coffee at Lucent Coffee, near our hostel. Afterwards, we walked to Kappabashi to shop for a Japanese steel kitchen knife. Then we met up with a college friend of Andrew’s who is working for a racing team based in Tokyo. We took the train out to Diver City to see what I am told is a very cool Toyota museum and the giant Gundam statue. We got (more) melon pan, this time from the World’s Second Best Melon Pan Shop in Shibuya. Later, we popped over to the Nintendo and Pokemon stores at Shibuya PARCO. Most importantly, I scoped out Chaos Kitchen in the basement of Shibuya PARCO. I was able to determine that we definitely needed to eat there the next day. Around dinner, a high school friend of Andrew’s who is in Tokyo working for a high-end chocolate company joined us for food/drinks. Sunday we got lunch at Jikasei Mensho aka “wagyu ramen place” at…yes, Chaos Kitchen in Shibuya PARCO.
- Experimenting in the kitchen. This month, I attempted homemade jiaozi (Chinese-style dumplings), banana Nutella birthday cake, Italian meatballs, vegan taco “meat”, Cowboy Kent Rollins’ shepherd’s pie (j-moven edition), and we started making our own yogurt!! Yogurt making is SURPRISINGLY easy and I cannot recommend it enough.
- Oya Stone Mine, just outside Utsunomiya, and the JR Train Museum in Omiya. I’ll be honest – I liked it, Andrew LOVED it. But as long as I don’t get too snacky I’m happy to tag along with my nerd husband.
- Bonsai Class. One of my fellow Honda wives organized a trip to the Bonsai center in Omiya. At the center, we got to do a hands-on tiny tree-making tutorial. The museum curator gave us a tour of the bonsai trees on display — the oldest tree is over 1000. Yes, that’s 1000 human years. We even had an interpreter as part of the class fee, which was SUPER clutch. After the tour, we worked with a bonsai master to learn about bonsai theory and trim our own tiny tree. The trees could then be purchased for an additional cost!! We continued south to Ueno after the class for lunch and the bonsai exhibit at the Tokyo Museum of Art.
Valleys:
- Struggle fatigue aka the honeymoon has ended. When we first got to Japan, everything was a fun new experience. Well, maybe not everything. As we’ve settled in, we are noticeably less willing to put ourselves in the path of struggle. Like, driving to an unfamiliar restaurant becomes – ugh, do we really want to drive somewhere with an unknown parking situation and then struggle to order food in Japanese with an all-Japanese (no pictures??) menu? Do we even know what we are eating? I’m sure as the weather gets warmer and our Japanese improves, we’ll overcome struggle fatigue. But for now, I am combatting it with home cooking and an HBO subscription, don’t judge me ok.
