Start of my Ramen Obsession in Japan

I am apparently a bit long winded so our 4 day trek to Japan will come to you in a few parts so you don’t fall asleep part way through.

We are starting our grand adventure in Asia, the only continent neither of us has been to (besides a few steps in Turkey for Mr. Wander). Mr. Wander’s immediate family is joining us for the first few weeks because we are visiting his Aunt & Uncle in Thailand. We decided to do a stopover in Tokyo for a few days to avoid a 30 hour travel day for our nephew and in-laws, and get a little taste of what Tokyo has to offer.

Off to Japan

After many errands and some last minute cleaning of our house we are in the process of selling, we managed to get to the airport and board our plane for Japan. It was great having a direct flight from MSP to Tokyo, I especially love the 2-4-2 seating format so Mr. Wander and I had a little row to ourselves by the window. I had the pork stir fry dinner and it was pretty tasty. I learned before the flight that there are snacks in the back of the plane on long hauls like this, so I did go back there once and found some cookies. 

The flight was about 14 hours and 6 movies long, and we finally landed at about 4:30pm in the evening. Getting into Japan took over an hour after a long walk from our gate and standing in line to get fingerprints and photos, talk to immigration officer, picking up bags, and getting through customs. Then we bought and loaded funds onto a pasmo card for each one of us to ride public transit. It took a little bit to figure out the trains but we managed to get to a station near our hotel 45 minutes later. Here’s our cute little room:

After checking in we walked to find a quick dinner before bed and found soba in the Nakamise-dori Street market area. The dinner was an order at your table sort of place. Here’s Mr. Wander walking through the market

Wandering towards Ramen

We woke up pretty early thanks to the jet lag and were the first ones to the hotel breakfast when it opened at 7am, which consisted of toast, coffee, tea, and soup you mixed from packets. We combined corn and onion and it was pretty tasty.

We started off walking towards the Senso-ji temple through an aisle of market stalls that that hadn’t opened for the day, but while closed had painted murals on the doors:

Senso-Ji is Tokyo’s oldest Temple and It is dedicated to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. A Bodhisattva is a person on the path to awakening, hoping to become a Buddha.

In front of the main temple was a large incense burner, thought to purify the body before entering. There was also a fountain with ladles to cleanse your hands and mouth. After going up the steps, you could give an offering and pray to Kannon. This main area was open to all, but if you wanted to worship the other Buddhas inside you could pay to go farther, but no photography was allowed past there. There were some other gorgeous buildings and temples in this area, this is one of my favorite pictures.

We were starting to get hungry so we worked our way back through all the shop stalls, which were now open and just packed with people and groups of tours. We found a few snacks on our way back, rice crackers and mochi. We had 3 types of mochi that were all deep fried and filled with the red bean deliciousness, Matcha, Sesame, and Plum. All were so tasty.

We finally made it through the madness and so it was off to find a sitdown place that was open, but it was 10:30am so most places weren’t open for lunch yet. We ended up going to a place called Ichiran. The night before we saw a line down the block so we knew it was good. We must have gotten there right after opening because the wait was at the bottom of the stairs, whereas if you were at the top there was a sign that estimated a 40 minute wait. Before you are seated you pick the type of ramen and any extras like egg or extra noodles and you pay at a machine that printed receipts. Then you chose your customizations: spice, richness, pork/no pork, green onions, and garlic level. We both did the recommended options and it was absolutely delicious!

We decided to do a walk along the river and soak up the sun after so much rain we had back in Minnesota before we left. Several of us were feeling the jetlag so we went back to the hotel to rest while Mr. Wander and his dad took a walk towards Tokyo Skytree, the tallest self supported tower in the world. We had a good view of it from our hotel rooftop, here’s a night time view of the tower and a bunch of bridges all lit up.

After the break a few of us took a few local trains to the Akihabara electric town, in search of some games and craziness. We found a 5 story building with a few stories of just the grabber games, where our nephew won some candy in his first attempt. On the 4th floor there were several dart games and a racing game he got to play as well. We walked around a bit more and kept seeing these “fake food” presentations in windows.

We worked our way back near the hotel adn went to a place called Gonpachi for dinner. I had a Yuzu sour cocktail that was really delicious, a rice bowl with chicken skewers, tried bacon wrapped mochi, and their named dessert, Gonpachi pudding, which was like a tall skinny creme brulee. It was fun, we were all ordering different things at different times so we got a little taste of everything. Then it was time for bed, hard to believe we’d only been here for a little over 1 day already! Come back in a few days to learn about our adventure to Nikko’s Temples and a visit to Lady Liberty, and no, not in New York!