We can't brag that we've been to Tokyo if we didn't Tokyo itself, can we? We slow ourselves down today and focused mainly on two opposite ends of Tokyo - Shinjuku and Tokyo itself!
Day 4:
Jonathan's, Shinjuku, Tokyo
Jonathan's
We had already spotted this 24 hour, Japanese-Western, restaurant few days ago, but we only had time to try it this morning. The restaurant concept is similar to that of Saizeriya, which is an international Japanese-Italian restaurant. I went with a traditional Japanese salmon rice set completed with natto (fermented soy beans), while the bro went with a Western breakfast set with unlimited drinks from the drinks bar. Affordable and filling, and of course, tasty!
Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
This is a governmental office building, but they had transform a higher floor of both wings into observation decks, free of charge! Since there will be security checks, do try to refrain from bringing too much belongs here. And then we catch sight of a group of reporters armed with cameras, trying to interview some guy in suit. All the action was over within two minutes though...
Shinjuku
Trying real Japanese conveyor belt sushi, but given that this shop is not as high tech as we had imagined, we had to order by shouting our orders in Japanese, instead of ordering through a computer screen. Haha we ended up eating most of our food off the conveyor belt because we only knew how to order salmon sushi and crab miso soup. While we missed out on trying interesting morsels, it was an experience of another kind to order in a foreign language. The crab miso soup is my favourite, with half a crab in the bowl for an affordable price!
We visited another restaurant which allows us to cook our own takoyaki and okonomiyaki. Since we went after lunch time, we were the only ones in the whole restaurant. Perhaps the staff did not know enough English to chase us away, which we were slightly embarrassed to disturb their rest time. Anyways, we burnt a few of our takoyaki becuase we didn't know how to control the heat, and one of the staff has kindly assisted to replace that few and cooked them for us!! Hehe generally a great experience and the location is accessible, but we still prefer the okonomiyaki shop we visited on Day 1!
Shinjuku Godzilla. Too bad you can't see it properly unless you are a hotel guest, or visited the cafe within the hotel premises. We didn't manage to find a good spot on the streets to take a good picture of Godzilla.
Of course, shopping at Uniqlo.
Tokyo Station
The building of Tokyo Station is more than 100 years old, and is now a hub for transport and leisure. There is a hotel inside the station as well! Too bad it was under renovations during our visit, so we couldn't capture the station properly. The Imperial Palace is opposite of the Tokyo Station, and there are various empty pavements leading to the Palace.
See? All scenic, peaceful, and quiet. Apparently no jogging on the palace premise but there's lots of people just strolling and enjoying the evening walk.
Feeling peckish, we had initially wanted to get a department store bento. But due to our tight finances, we chanced upon a standing soba shop within Tokyo Station and decided to just pop in and try. Thankfully, the ticketing machine has the English option so we kinda knew what we are purchasing. (There's Korean and Chinese options too. Payment by cash or transportation stored value card)
After purchasing the ticket, we passed our tickets to the staff at the window, then went to get a cup of water and the utensils. I guess we looked too touristy so the staff were quick to inform us of where to get water and utensils etc. We then collected our orders and found bar counter seats. They are just bowls of piping hot soba with a vegetable tempura disc as topping, but we really enjoyed the comfort food.
Of course, we ended the day by popping by the kombini on our way home for supper before resting our tired legs.
