Pizza part II

And hanging with my cousin!!!

Top of mind

My stomach and back are KILLING me. Ryan thinks I pulled a muscle. I think I need more green food and coffee. My Pokemon go sleep tracker says I got 10 hours of sleep despite the tossing and turning.

The weather has cooled off significantly here, so much so that at the beginning of the trip I was rocking a lightweight tee and Patagonia shorts, and now I’m sporting my toasted af jeans (from sweat and spilled drinks) with a tee and a Patagonia rain jacket. Armpit zippers open of course.

I’ve been saying “oyasumi” every evening to strangers, thinking it simply meant “have a good night”. And it’s always unanimously met with laughter which I chalked up to them being impressed with my Japanese. So according to my cousin “oyasumi” is actually more like a “I’m going to bed now, I’ll see you in the morning” kinda thing you’d say to your spouse before turning the bedside lamp off. And I’ve been saying it very generously:

“Thanks for the drinks, oyasumi.”

“Oyasumi, do you have a table for 2?”

“We had a good time at Disney, oyasumi.”

10/9

Laundry day. Coin operation was very easy. Will likely need to do another laundry day in 2 days before I head to the next spot.

OMG I got a bad fortune at Sensō-ji Temple. It started with “lightning crashes and thunder booms through the sky” and then proceeded to warn me to stay at home and that none of my wishes would remotely come true. So naturally I tied that ish to the nearby fence.

Bad fortunes aside the temple was booming so we got our goshuins - likely our last for the trip - and dipped.

We spent a massive amount of time in Kappabashi Hondōri Shopping Street - hunting for the perfect tea cup. And right when we were about to give up, Jesus took the wheel and we found a spot that had some decently vibey cups**.

I needed at least some anime fixes so we hopped on the train to Akihabara where Ryan got overwhelmed by the anime girls. I made a B-line to Radio Kaikan on the prowl for Evangelion jawns to a very mixed bag. I was reading on my screen that most of the good shit usually is gone immediately but like, why is it so hard to find Eva mech stuff? Maybe I’m doing it wrong. We did grab plenty of mystery boxes for the low though.

What I ate

While we were waiting for our laundry we hit up Tsukiji Fish Market, and yes we are aware that it’s mostly a tourist trap and the 5AM auctions for fish are done elsewhere in Tokyo.

To demonstrate that we were no ordinary tourists we ate pizza* instead of fish. JK it was because my cousin had a rec and the market was close to our hotel. The cafe was run by this dude from western Japan but lived in Pittsburgh for a while and gave us his whole elevator pitch for the cafe, a jack of all trades quite literally with a b2b focus on fresh peppercorn and a b2c focus on pizza. We also had homemade coke with pepper in it and it met the bar.

Yeah, I have a cousin who lives in Tokyo, NBD 😎. We linked up and he took us to Ebisu, a pretty slick neighborhood south of Shibuya, for food and drinks. And drinks aplenty we had. First stop was yakitori (skewers)*** with a big pint of beer. Followed by some absolutely choice cocktails**** nearby. Some standouts include shochu with chartreuse and liquor infused with wasabi and bonito flakes (shaved pieces of dried tuna). I was pretty tossed by EOD.

Oh we also got more pizza at the cocktail spot. It ended up being a dessert pie loaded with mixed nuts and cheese, of which my cousin took one bit of and immediately realized it had walnuts, the only food allergy we had mentioned prior to ordering lol. It ended up being fine AFAIK.

7-Eleven haul: french toast which was okay, more fibe minis (fiber fluid), a mf cheese curry bun. We also hit up Lawson for potato chip flavored chicken nuggets, a bacon egg and cheese adjacent sandwich, and more ezaki glico ice.

What’s next

Last day of being non-solo! It will be a tossup between Tokyo Greatest Hits or some new spots. We couldn’t get Ghibli museum and that’s a bummer :( but we gotta save at least some things for the next trip you know?

Appendix

*Tsukiji Peppers Cafe

** Dengama (the good stuff is upstairs), but I would recommend potentially finding a more local ma & pa shop outside of that area since it was p touristy.

*** Webisu

**** unknown, Bar TRENCH