Andrew Zhao

Slow Start#

We woke up relatively late, and got breakfast right before it closed. The danishes were really good, and I ended up eating several of them. We went back to our room to laze around until 1 PM or so. Friend J had done some research into how we can do laundry, and one of the options was to go to a chain called WASH&FOLD where you can pay to have your laundry done for you. We packed our clothes into bags and took a taxi to the shop. The communication wasn’t easy since I didn’t know any of the vocab, but we managed to buy a reusable bag that’s required for the service, and dropped off our clothes to pick up later in the day. I really like the idea of asynchronous clothes washing on the go since that means I don’t have to spend a couple hours doing it myself.

First Stop: Yoyogi Park#

We took another taxi to Yoyogi Park to search for cherry blossoms. There were a few more trees blooming than before in other locations, and a lot of people were already on the grass having picnics or just chilling. The variety was really interesting to see, such as cute girls with phones on tripods taking videos and pictures, groups of college students having a club celebration, and tourists just chilling together.

The park itself was honestly kind of disappointing though, since it was smaller than we expected and there weren’t actually that many trees. We ended up walking around a bit then leaving not too long after, taking a taxi to Shinjuku Garden to see if we’d have better luck there.

Second Stop: Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden#

There were way more trees and people here, and every tree had people crowding around it, especially the trees that had vibrant pink petals. The wind rustling the trees knocked loose petals that would flutter through the air, which was really pretty.

We walked through all of the garden and used Gemini to identify interesting trees and flowers for fun.

We had some time before our dinner reservation so we went to one of the restaurants in the park to get a snack. I got a matcha warabimochi with yuzu soda drink that was really refreshing.

Dinner#

We had a 22 minute walk to the dinner reservation at 5:00 PM, and we were leaving at 4:35 so we were really cutting it close now. Talk about classic, give us a deadline and somehow we’ll manage to relax because we have time only to end up rushing. Friend J realized he was navigating us through the original entrance which you’re not allowed to exit from (maybe for congestion?) so we had to pick up the pace and go through a different exit further down. Fortunately it was still somewhat along the way, so we were making good time. We walked directly through Shinjuku’s red light district Kabukicho since it was between us and the restaurant. I didn’t even realize until we were inside when I noticed the streets lined with girls bars, love hotels and really attractive men and women that looked like they stepped out of a magazine.

We barely made it on time, but it turns out the restaurant was empty anyways, so we sat down and the course immediately began. To preface, we had made this reservation just the night before while on the train back from Fuji. It was a fairly pricy Shabu course focused on Tajimaguro, a type of beef from an area called Tajima, which we found out at the restaurant is from cows that are raised with a method that allows the meat to build up a lot of amino acids that resemble tuna, giving it a light and soft feeling. We opted for the most expensive course just to be able to say we tried oscietra caviar, even though it seemed relatively low value.

They poured sake for us into cone shaped glasses which was really interesting cause they had to have special wooden blocks to hold the cup upright.

The oscietra caviar honestly felt like fancy salt to me, probably since I wasn’t used to eating it and it’s strong salty flavor was pretty overwhelming. Friend J didn’t like it that much in the end, he felt like it was just straight salt. For me I still liked it since there were hints of seafood umami, and the texture is way softer compared to salt flakes which blends it together with the meat. I can see why people use it but it’s definitely more something you splurge on rather than a must have.

While we sat and ate the various dishes we chatted about how this is the sort of meal that probably isn’t worth the price tag for most people, since you can realistically get most of the value of a meal at a fraction of the price. Realistically as you approach the ceiling of quality of meals, it gets exponentially more expensive, especially when you include the service and experience. So it’s really hard to judge meals just on how good they are, you need to come into it with a mindset more focused on getting the experience once and seeing how far you can take food.

We saw a few other people enter the restaurant as we ate as well, and they all looked like locals here for special occasions, or perhaps just rich people with escorts since we were on the edge of Kabukicho still.

Final Stop: Yasukuni Jinja#

My stomach was dying after dinner from all the fat, but it was worth it. We took a taxi to our final stop, which was a shrine that had a sakura festival set up. There were a couple of stalls setup where I bought a sakura themed omamori. We couldn’t enter the shrine but we were able to go up to the entrance, where you can see the sakura trees lit up by colored lights, lining the pathway to the center of the shrine. It was actually really pretty, and I don’t think my picture of it really does it justice due to it being pretty dark.

There was a cluster of food trucks not too far away with a bunch of people sitting at tables eating and drinking, and it seemed really lively. We mentioned how it’d be really nice to finish a day of work and just be able to go out and eat food under the sakura trees like this. We also saw a huge torii gate outside, which in the pictures looked normal but turns out it was easily 40-50 feet tall.

We took another taxi back to the laundry place and the employee brought us our bags of folded and clean laundry, tightly packed into a plastic bag within the reusable bag. They were super friendly and answered questions about how we could also do delivery to hotels in the future. The service was actually super nice because the clothes were packed tighter than before, and they felt super clean.

Finally we took one last taxi and chilled while figuring out logistics for our next two day subtrip.

Thoughts#

Even though day 9 was a lot less eventful, it was nice being able to take a slower paced day just to see the sakura, since it was one of the main reasons we were in Japan at this time. We were still a little early for full bloom but at this point a lot of trees were fully blooming so we could really appreciate the beauty of being surrounded by sakura trees. We also got laundry done and had a nice dinner, so it was just a really nice day in general.

Day 9 Travel Numbers#

0 hours and ¥0 yen covered by JR Pass

0 hours and ¥0 yen not covered by JR Pass

We only took taxis on day 9, which I haven’t been counting since I didn’t track the exact prices! I may check over our expense sheet later to either add them in or add them to the final post.

JR Pass Value after Day 9#

Cost saved: ¥89,160

Time Travelled: ~24 hr

Not covered by JR Pass#

Cost: ¥5,550

Total Transportation Time#

Time Travelled: ~26.5 hr