Tokyo: All That Shopping Wore Me Out
Mäneka
Around these parts, the so-called “long potato” is a big deal. We had spotted them at the Sapporo Dome during the baseball game, but my katakana reading skills were not up to deciphering what they were. I thought they were fried grissini or thin churros. It turns out that they are foot-long french fries.
Balaram, a noted potato lover, got an order made from Okinawan purple potatoes at the Okinawa Festival in Yoyogi Park. The fries were served up piping hot and crisp with a fluffy interior. Seasoned only with salt, they were a perfect beer snack. I still am unclear on how fries of such length are produced. Perhaps a potato mash is extruded into long tubes and then fried?
Then we spent all afternoon feeling like Claudette from The Room after she declares that her shopping wore her out, rather than her recently diagnosed breast cancer. Tokyu Hands drained our energy and wallets, but left us with many new goods. This was capped off with an invigorating dinner at Maisen at Shibuya Hikarie, which is always a good stop. Their tonkatsu has a fluffy, feathery coating with juicy pork in the middle. Unfortunately the experience was slightly diminished by our lack of unlimited cabbage refills. #limitedcaggage
Balaram
Sunday began as a rainy day with sporadic light showers as we headed to Yoyogi Park to attend the Okinawa festival. We arrived just as it opened for the second day and walked around to see the food booths and the main stage which had a large banner across the top. There were several smaller performance stages also. Many events were scheduled as the festival ran until 9 PM. BP got an Orion beer, reminiscent of his time with the 3rd Mar Div (1981-82) at Camp Hansen in Okinawa. We also enjoyed purple potato long fries, rice taco and nachos, both of which had the same ground beef in them. We saw a very energetic group of young girls dancing and a troupe of adult dancers led by lions and drummers. Very cool!
The park is very close to a major NHK facility and we went to visit the Studio Park part of it, which is open to the public for a small fee. It reviews the history of NHK and features a small live studio in which a program was underway with a small audience inside and a larger one looking in from the outside. Although there is some English, many of the exhibits require more knowledge of Nihongo then even Linda and Maneka possess. Nevertheless it was fun to see the evolution of the programs from the ‘60s onwards and the small NHK World exhibit, a program which we were familiar with as we are regulars of the channel in the US. We spent a bit of time at an interactive site which matches you with an animal (though we were later told that we should have taken off our glasses). BP was matched as 87% (or 83%; this is a point of contention -Mäneka) beaver and Kamala was 86% platypus.
By then the rain had picked up and was more steady and it was cool. We went to a local coffee shop called Roasted Coffee Laboratory which was very chic, welcoming and a nice respite from the rain. We all had cappuccinos and shared some pastries which were so so. The coffee was very good, however.
The rest of the afternoon was spent roaming the floors of the large and interesting store, Tokyu Hands. It is difficult to characterize the store as it contains everything from stationery to hardware, foods & drinks, clothing and numerous other things. It is easy to spend lots of time and money there. It is a great place for unique or unusual gifts for sure.
We ended the day by having a very pleasant dinner at Maisen, a tonkatsu place we had gone to on our last visit in 2016. There is a nice selection of cuts and different sizes with unlimited amounts of shredded cabbage and rice. There were good sauces to accompany the tonkatsu also. A nice way to end an interesting day.
