March 29, 2006 - Excursion to Kamakura, evening at Ahikabara, and dinner at Zen No Ya
We did not go shopping today! ...almost. We started the morning wandering into Ginza to reserve the PSP Naruto game for Julian. Afterward, we strolled back to Shimbashi to hop on the JR heading for Kamakura.
Kamakura is a small town about an hour outside of Tokyo. It feels like a mini Kyoto there - with lots of shrines and temples, little shops, mochi/rice cake places, etc. Tokyo's second largest Buddha statue is also there, at Daibutsu. Next to the Kamakura station is a seemingly endless walkway of cherry blossoms on both sides of the walkway. It was beautiful.
We made a right at the end of the cherry blossom walkway and headed for our lunch target - Hisago-tei. Hidden down one of the small alleys close to Hokai-ji is this amazing restaurant that specializes in tofu kaiseki (banquet food). We were seated in a tatami room next to the internal court/garden of the restaurant with (of course) cherry blossom and other plants that one would expect in a Japanese garden. A Japanese lady (possibly the owner of the restaurant?) served us and helped us pick out two of the courses. The food was absolutely spectacular! As they probably make their own tofu there, the texture of tofu is quite different than what one would expect - kind of "Q" (chewy); other than the different types of tofu, they also have different variations of soy (soy milk, soy skin rolled, soy skin fried, ...), from the 1st course all the way through dessert! Our lunch reminded me of Iron Chef, where they focus on a particular ingredient (in this case soy).
After lunch, we strolled down one of the streets and walked through Hongaku-ji. We then continued our pilgrimage to Daibutsu. It was quite a walk... We arrived at Daibutsu at about 4:25 p.m. and made it right in time to go inside the big Buddha (they close that up at 4:30 p.m.). This bronze Buddha statue was completed in 1252 and used to be housed in a huge hall. This home of the statue was washed away by a tsunami in 1495, leaving the statue in the open. As it's cherry blossom week here, any temple wouldn't be complete without the cherry blossoms.
We were beat after Daibutsu and decided to head back to Tokyo. It was easy to hop onto the Enoden to get back to the Kamakura station. From the Kamakura station, we took the JR Yokosuka line back to Shimbashi. As the train was quite packed (making it not so easy to see tiny route map on top one side of the door) and we were dozing off, we somehow ended up in Ikebukuro (the train headed north instead of east after entering the general Tokyo area). We think the Yokosuka line must have changed somewhere into another route (JR Saikyo line?). In any case, a nice Japanese lady saw that we looked a little lost, and directed us to get off at the next station to change over to the JR Keihin Tohoku line heading for Akihabara.
We tried to look for Kanda Yabu Soba and Marugo Tonkatsu in Akihabara without much success. I'll have to say that we have yet to find any restaurant that maps from the Lonely Planet Tokyo book direct us to (and yes, we know how to read maps!). We found that the location of Daiwa at Tsukiji was marked incorrectly on the guidebook's map. And it's certainly the case for these two restaurant tonight (as we were able to find the post office listed on the map but not the restaurants that were supposed to be close by).
We gave up after spending an hour wandering around Akihabara, Kanda, and Awajicho and decided to just check out some stores at Akihabara before heading elsewhere for dinner. By then, it was already 8 p.m. and some of the stores had closed. We wandered for another hour in a few stores before heading back to Shimbashi.
Back in Shimbashi, we decided to try out the restaurant located underneath the JR overpass across the street from our hotel - Zen No Ya. The decor is quite nice there - got a jazzy feel - and it's essentially a Japanese pub. We each had a drink - where we have to squeeze half a grapefruit's juice into it ourselves (mine, the peach flavored one, was quite good!). The spaghetti dish was surprisingly good, when you consider the unusual ingredients: large smelt fish eggs, cavier, thin strips of dried seaweed, and a little bit of red pepper.
So sad that our vacation is almost over. Time for bed....Zzzzzzz
Kamakura is a small town about an hour outside of Tokyo. It feels like a mini Kyoto there - with lots of shrines and temples, little shops, mochi/rice cake places, etc. Tokyo's second largest Buddha statue is also there, at Daibutsu. Next to the Kamakura station is a seemingly endless walkway of cherry blossoms on both sides of the walkway. It was beautiful.
We made a right at the end of the cherry blossom walkway and headed for our lunch target - Hisago-tei. Hidden down one of the small alleys close to Hokai-ji is this amazing restaurant that specializes in tofu kaiseki (banquet food). We were seated in a tatami room next to the internal court/garden of the restaurant with (of course) cherry blossom and other plants that one would expect in a Japanese garden. A Japanese lady (possibly the owner of the restaurant?) served us and helped us pick out two of the courses. The food was absolutely spectacular! As they probably make their own tofu there, the texture of tofu is quite different than what one would expect - kind of "Q" (chewy); other than the different types of tofu, they also have different variations of soy (soy milk, soy skin rolled, soy skin fried, ...), from the 1st course all the way through dessert! Our lunch reminded me of Iron Chef, where they focus on a particular ingredient (in this case soy).
After lunch, we strolled down one of the streets and walked through Hongaku-ji. We then continued our pilgrimage to Daibutsu. It was quite a walk... We arrived at Daibutsu at about 4:25 p.m. and made it right in time to go inside the big Buddha (they close that up at 4:30 p.m.). This bronze Buddha statue was completed in 1252 and used to be housed in a huge hall. This home of the statue was washed away by a tsunami in 1495, leaving the statue in the open. As it's cherry blossom week here, any temple wouldn't be complete without the cherry blossoms.
We were beat after Daibutsu and decided to head back to Tokyo. It was easy to hop onto the Enoden to get back to the Kamakura station. From the Kamakura station, we took the JR Yokosuka line back to Shimbashi. As the train was quite packed (making it not so easy to see tiny route map on top one side of the door) and we were dozing off, we somehow ended up in Ikebukuro (the train headed north instead of east after entering the general Tokyo area). We think the Yokosuka line must have changed somewhere into another route (JR Saikyo line?). In any case, a nice Japanese lady saw that we looked a little lost, and directed us to get off at the next station to change over to the JR Keihin Tohoku line heading for Akihabara.
We tried to look for Kanda Yabu Soba and Marugo Tonkatsu in Akihabara without much success. I'll have to say that we have yet to find any restaurant that maps from the Lonely Planet Tokyo book direct us to (and yes, we know how to read maps!). We found that the location of Daiwa at Tsukiji was marked incorrectly on the guidebook's map. And it's certainly the case for these two restaurant tonight (as we were able to find the post office listed on the map but not the restaurants that were supposed to be close by).
We gave up after spending an hour wandering around Akihabara, Kanda, and Awajicho and decided to just check out some stores at Akihabara before heading elsewhere for dinner. By then, it was already 8 p.m. and some of the stores had closed. We wandered for another hour in a few stores before heading back to Shimbashi.
Back in Shimbashi, we decided to try out the restaurant located underneath the JR overpass across the street from our hotel - Zen No Ya. The decor is quite nice there - got a jazzy feel - and it's essentially a Japanese pub. We each had a drink - where we have to squeeze half a grapefruit's juice into it ourselves (mine, the peach flavored one, was quite good!). The spaghetti dish was surprisingly good, when you consider the unusual ingredients: large smelt fish eggs, cavier, thin strips of dried seaweed, and a little bit of red pepper.
So sad that our vacation is almost over. Time for bed....Zzzzzzz
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