Another Day in Tokyo

We started the day in Meguro City for coffee and a bakery. Coffee is easy. There is coffee everywhere, not as intense as in Seoul, but between the coffee shops and the coffee bars inside the stores, you can be fully caffeinated from dawn to dusk. Onibus is a two story shop built in between two other buildings with excellent coffee, and a great vibe.

This spot “Im Donut” has a line all day long. We admit that standing in line for donuts was not in the cards but they do look delicious!

The Meguro River is cherry blossom heaven. It feels a bit like the 10th in Paris and the canals of Amsterdam. When the cherry blossoms are in season, it must be mayhem.

Visvim General Store is stunning. The outdoors has a garden, inside the store is minimal and open on both floors, and there are two structures to move between. We popped in a bunch of stores before going over to Daikanyama.

Tsutaya Books is the best bookstore we have ever been in. The main store is in Daikanyama. It has a few buildings inside an open plaza of other stores.

You can eat, you can relax, you can read, you can find art, you can work, you can have a coffee or a drink. It is amazing.

There are a few beautiful stores in this area, including this record store.

We stopped in Johns Ice Cream for a treat. I don’t know how sharing the ice cream candies and sprinkles would go in the States, but it is incredibly civilized here.

The Sato Sakura Museum is filled with paintings of Japanese fine art. Not our thing but nice to see.

The Kinto Rec Store is a concept store filled with home goods.

Then, the day got a little crazy. We were starving and decided to grab another piece of luggage to bring back. We didn’t need it, but that is another story. We jumped on the subway and went to FoodShow, hoping to get something to eat. You can get something but there really isn’t anywhere to sit down and have a meal which we did not want. We raced up and down the aisles getting very frustrated holding on to our empty water bottle because there is rarely a garbage can to be found on the streets of Tokyo.

We ended up on the streets of Shibuya that can be insane with so many people on the streets it is a massive sensory overload. Times Square is sedate in comparison. We returned to the hotel and grabbed a few snacks downstairs in the food area, which was good enough. That evening we met some people at a bar for drinks. Many of the bars and restaurants are tiny so even there you need to make a resy. I was so happy to get a big martini!

Dinner was a total bust. We were both, especially me, frazzled by the days events. The restaurant sat us in our own room, where our feet dangling into a pit underneath the table, and handed us a 15 course tasting menu starting with shark sandwiches. I looked at Fred and said let’s go. We were in an out, much to the dismay of the owners, within 5 minutes. We went back to the hotel, and had a delicious Chinese meal before crawling into bed.