Jet lag, art, and a walking tour

Well, we were awake around 4am this morning. Brad got up and toured our neighborhood for about an hour, while I tried (unsuccessfully) to go back to sleep. Brad returned with a smoothie and onigiri in hand, as well as some great early morning pictures. However, as soon as he entered the room, he also mentioned how hot and humid it was already!

Nothing really opens here until 9-9:30 (including coffee shops!) so we actually ate our onigiri and went back to sleep for another hour. Then it was time to hit the road. Our first stop was Muraski Coffee, where we had sweet red bean and purple sweet potato imagawayaki along with our iced matcha and latte. It was a nice start to the day! Everyone we’ve encountered here so far has been so lovely!

We ventured over to Ueno Park, which houses several museums and is a nice refuge of trees in an otherwise concrete jungle. We bought tickets at the National Museum of Western Art to see a special Rembrandt exhibit which featured his early etchings. We then visited the museum’s permanent collection.
As you might anticipate, their permanent collection had works from all the heavy hitters - Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Manet, Pollock, Gaughin, Matisse, etc. We didn’t see much fine art last summer, so it was good to be back in an art museum (plus, it was air conditioned!).

We were going to try and hit up the National Museum, but decided to head to a department store instead to find a few provisions (UV umbrella!). The department store’s food hall was where we spent the most time! Japanese craftsmanship is really on display everywhere you go. From the leather goods, baked goods, to the scores and scores of sushi and sashimi at the grocery store, it is really incredible to see! Even though we are going on a good-based walking tour, I couldn’t help but buy a croquette that was red crab and cheese inside. We shared it back at the hotel as we were doing a quick change before the food tour, and it was so, so good!

Our guide, Aki, met us at the Ueno Station and, to our luck, had the tour to ourselves! Our first stop on the food and drink tour was an izakaya where we ate a lot of sashimi, as well as dishes of fried tofu and eggplant. To drink, we had sochu mixed with Hoppy, a 0.8% “beer” that is classified, technically, as a soft drink in Japan. We had so much to eat, but it was really just our first stop…

The next place we went specialized in charcoal grilled meats, pork in particular. It was here that we had our first sake of the trip! Aki taught us all the customs around drinking sake, including taking the first drink by leaning forward and sipping. Then, we were brought a variety of pork-part grilled skewers and Aki asked us to guess what part of the pig we were eating. This sounds way more gross than it was, but in any case, we ate liver, trachea and esophagus, tongue, small intestine, and “skirt steak” or diaphragm. I have to say… it was all really good! We also tried pickled plums and fermented mung beans, which were quite the experience!

Our next stop was basically a dive bar where you just stand at counters and drink. Brad had a whiskey soda, which Aki kept calling a “skinny bitch” since it is “healthier” than sake, and I had a grapefruit, soda and whiskey cocktail that was just like a Fresca. The “bar” was mostly men and quite something to experience!

Last stop (thank goodness) was for ramen. Chicken broth-based ramen. The broth was made with chicken feet, so it was really silky from all the collagen. The noodles were so good! It was exceptional!

Very full and very tired, we said goodbye to Aki and went back to our hotel. It gets dark here before 7pm, so it keeps feeling much later than the clock suggests. We will do our best to stay awake, but jet lag is still kicking our butts a bit.

Tomorrow we are going to see more art and head to a baseball game!Read more