Post 37: Hanging Out With My Aomori Friend

This is going to cover the weekend. May 18 & 19, 2019.

My friend Saori came over from Aomori. Her friend came as well. On Saturday, it was an absolutely beautiful day.

I did get a bunch of work done before heading out to meet up with them.

Took a little while to find where they were at. I was coming in on the Tozai Line from Otemachi. Turns out it was best to just jump out on to the city streets. Lol. We went on the search for a restroom and a locker for them to put their things.

Her friend wanted to go to the Kaminari Shrine in Asakusa. Turns out everyone and their sister wanted to go too. It was so fucking crowded. I think her friend was happy to go and see some of it. That makes it worth it.

It turns out it was a festival called 三社祭. Not really sure what it was for…..Just as we were about to get to the entrance of the Kaminari Shrine, we were told to move to the side because a festival mikoshi was to pass by. The mikoshi was almost as wide as the sidewalk…..

We assumed that since it as 三社祭….that there would only be 3 Mikoshi. Nope. We were so close to the opening. When looking through the toori, we saw a crowd sitting on something that looked like bleachers and mikoshi after mikoshi. So, during a break between them, we ran to an open area that had festival food tents.

We wanted to eat, but we did not want to have to fight for a dirty spot on a sidewalk…though the festival food is really awesome. So, we decided to go and look for a restaurant to eat at. Also….that picture of the Tokyo Skytree with the weird fake-looking cloud is pretty awesome.

This looks like a 2-headed rabbit. Not sure this photo gets across what they think it does.

These still exist in Japan. I do not, however, see the beer machines.

We ended up at Coco’s Ichiban. I got my menchi-katsu curry. YUM!

We then decided to walk around Ueno. Saori’s friend wanted to see the pandas, and we learned that in Simplified Chinese panda (according to Google Translate) is 熊猫…literally, bear-cat. D’aawwwww

We did not get to see the Panda’s, because it was 70 min to wait to see them.

We decided to go and call it a day….even though it was a bit early. They were tired from traveling. I was just tired because I have not had a nap. lol.

So, now we had to get back to Tokyo station and find the locker. Saori’s locker game was strong. She remembered which section….and we ran across a machine that had all the locations of lockers in the station. How handy! Though our locker was clear on the other side.

No worries!

I ended up getting a lot of the youtube video edited that I wanted….and all was well.

The next day, we met at Odaiba!

Fuzzy AF picture!….but good people nonetheless!

Some of the coolest looking buildings in Odaiba. VERY touristy. Also, that is the Fuji Television building.

We went to my favorite breakfast place….Egg’s-n-Things. Eggs Benedict are amazing. Very Hawaiian, apparently.

AAAAAANNNNNNDDDDD…..the say Poké correctly. I have seen most other places have it as ポキ(Poh-key) instead of ポケ (Poh-keh). So that’s exciting.

Their menus are very nice, the watercolor is a really nice touch.

Eggs Benedict FTW.

we arrived at Odaiba at 9am, when Egg’s-n’Things was open. We got in just in time, because there was a line not too long after we ordered. The stores do not open until 11 am, so we walked around a bit. Gundam was still around apparently.

Since there are a lot of foreigners, they also have a Taco Bell. I have only seen it in Odaiba and Shibuya. Still greasy AF.

We went to a pet store so I could get some stuff for Tucker, a better brush…and ended up with a cat hammock too. ugh.

We decided to stop and have a lovely coffee at another favorite place: Vintage Island Coffee. Another Hawaii influenced place. This has REALLY GOOD POKE…they do pronounce it wrong, but HEY….they have the love. and the Shoyu Poke is amazing!

Well, they left to Tokyo station early, and I stuck around to check out a few things. Got some great shots of the place.

Went to a socks store, Uniqlo and then went home. I decided to get off at Mejiro, as it is much simpler and just a few extra footsteps away from my apartment. :) Less crowds.

I then just got my shit organized and my lists of things to do made. I am ready for the day.