Art, baseball, and wow, it’s hot!

Jet lag is still an ever-present force for us. Brad was up at 4am and I was up just after 5am. I’m sure we will get it sorted in the next day or two! Anyway, I had to attend my class at 7am (7:30 pm Newfoundland time!), so it worked out. While I attended my online lecture, Brad went and bought us breakfast. He returned from the kobini (convenient store) with the famous egg salad sandwich (so good!), green smoothie, iced coffee, and three onigiri (tuna, shrimp, and pickled plum). I am a big fan of the shrimp one! Pickled plum is an odd taste yo describe as it is simultaneously salty and pickled with almost no sweetness. We had one on its own last night, which was a hit to the tastebuds, but with the onigiri, the rice tempered the saltiness quite a bit.

After class, we hit the subway for the first time and travelled quite a way to another prefecture in Tokyo. We had timed entry to see a show by Ron Murek, who creates these realistic looking human figures. The scale of the pieces is really what makes them stunning to see in person, so I tried to include some people in the photos as well to give a sense of scale.

The show was really impressive and we were glad to have seen it! We tried to make our way out to the street, but it always seems like you end up in these very large department stores. Coming down the escalator, we saw a boulangerie by Joel Robuchon, so we had to go in. We came out with a curry bun (delicious!) and a brioche with custard (so good!) which we ate before making our way to the National Gallery to see a Picasso show.

The Picasso slow was curated by Paul Smith, a fashion designer, so each room was an experience that referenced the art. I tried to take photos to show the colorful rooms, but I’m not sure it’ll translate well. The show was very “Instagrammable” and people seemed to enjoy it,

It was getting to be lunch time and we’d been up for hours, so we took a cab to Amam Dacotan, a bakery we’d seen on a tv show about Japan. The sandwiches and baked goods were overwhelming! We settled on a shrimp sandwich with homemade tartare, a mortadella sandwich with nut sauce, and a pistachio cream bun for dessert. We inhaled the sandwiches, so there are no pictures, but we paused long enough to snap a shot of the cream bun. Everything was delicious!

Our goal was to keep cool before the baseball game at 6pm, so we ventured through a bougie shopping area (bougie = AC!), went to a hipster coffee shop for iced lattes, and then checked out Tokyo Brew Labs. We had some very fun pours including a dragon fruit smoothie beer and a matcha ice cream inspired beer.

Before the Swallows game, we went to the merch store which was so busy with fans! Brad got a Swallows cap and then we went on to the ballpark. The Swallows were playing the Tokyo Giants, but the Swallows were the home team. It was very hot and humid, so Brad got us two draft beers from the cute Japanese beer girls who carry coolers on their backs and pour beer from little hoses. They also gave out hand fans to everyone, so we used those throughout the game!

The atmosphere at the game was fascinating. Both teams had designated fan cheering sections that stood, sang, and chanted during their team’s at bat. It made a “go Jets go” chant sound pretty lame! Anyway, when the Swallows scored a run, all the fans took out little colourful umbrellas and did an umbrella dance! Crazy to see!

Of course we had to try some ballpark food, so we got some fried chicken bites (we wanted katsu sandwiches, but they were sold out!) and then tried an octopus ball “hot dog”! Both were very good!

After the 7th inning ended (Tokyo was winning 3-1), we decided we had enough of the heat and humidity and started our half hour subway ride back to Ueno. Definitely a busy day with lots of steps and lots of sweat!Read more