koenji, kichijoji and a menchi katsu kind of afternoon
west of the tokyo core and away from the fast paced lifestyle of shibuya and shinjuku are koenji and kichijoji; neighbourhoods connected to shinjuku via the odakyu line. our original plan was to visit both in conjunction with visiting studio…
gyokotsu matador’s beef ramen
while compiling our eat list for tokyo i came across countless blogs that rambled off their top 3, 5 & 10 shops for ramen. some places specialize in a very small number of styles but the majority have at least…
afuri ramen, revisited
afuri ramen is another popular chain in tokyo and has been on our hit list thanks to a visit to the harajuku branch four years ago. i’d say that their callings are: -their broth is chicken based so it’s noticeably…
walking around daikanyama and ebisu
7 weeks into our trip and we had yet to eat a single piece of western fast food. this might be the longest stretch that i’ve been able to avoid the evil grips of mcdonald’s (maybe the #1 reason why…
life in japan as a gaijin
two months in japan have flown right by and i’m ashamed to say that i’ve picked up very little in the way of communicating in the native tongue. there’s a plethora of gaijin (foreigners) in tokyo and haha and myself…
ippudo ramen
ippudo was a recommendation from our tokyo sensei, pablo. he’s the master of all things tokyo and after he gave our group a hands on tour four years ago, if he suggests to eat/walk/jump, we do it. we were coming…
weekly update #6 – tokyo
q. current home/addy where i stayed (neighbourhood) and how long a. tokyo (air bnb in shibuya) for the last week q. favourite meal a. oh man… toss up. it’s either gyokotsu matador’s shoyu beef ramen or afuri’s yuzu tsukemen. i…
hootie hoo
we went to our first cat cafe back in sapporo so why not owls right? i don’t know what possessed us to climb the stairs to this cafe but once we got there, curiousity got the better of us and…
Fire Walking Festival at Mt. Takao
Last Sunday, we headed out to Mount Takao to check out the fire walking festival (Hiwatari-sai). We got there just in time to catch the procession of yamabushi monks walking towards the festival grounds. We quickly follow the procession, making…
butylicious butayaro
after trying tokachi ippin’s butadon in sapporo, we had to see how tokyo’s version compared to it. it’s just a bit outside of the core stations of tokyo in ochanomizu. even though we had the address we were walking up…
