Akihabara & Seeking Familiar Foods..

So today was a fun day although nothing super eventful. We will be in Fuji tomorrow and Wednesday and we leave Thursday so today was our last full day in Tokyo. We have seen everything we'd planned on seeing so today we revisited some of our favorite spots like Shibuya, Ueno, and Shinjuku. This morning we were supposed to go to Tsukiji Fish Market but you have to be there by 5-6am and despite our best efforts to set alarms, we overslept AGAIN! We are 0-2 for making it to the fish market. We are determined to go on Thursday morning before we leave though! We had not had sushi at this point because we wanted to get the best sushi at the fish market but the wait had been too much for me so we got sushi anyways. We went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Shibuya which works great for us because we can just grab food and not have to worry about ordering in Japanese! The sushi was tasty and actually quite affordable! There's a 7 dish minimum per person and you only have 30 mins! They do a lot of time limits at restaurants here. We had no problem with the 7 dish minimum though and lunch cost less than $20!

Next we went to Akihabara. We saw flying cars and robots that would clean your house. Just kidding! We saw high tech but small washing machines and fridges and lots of other random technical parts and equipment that I have no use for.

Later while we were walking around Ueno we saw some "love hotels" which basically charge by the hour, or in this case, two hours. This is where young Tokyoites go since apartments are so small and everyone lives with their parents before they're married. It's is "Le Chic."

We also saw a capsule hotel which is where Japanese businessmen often go to sleep in a coffin size capsule. Japanese men often sleep there after they've stayed too late at work or lost track of time playing crane games or going to Soap Land.

Then we went back to Ginza because I wanted to go to the Ice Bar which is one of 4 Ice Bars around the world run by the Ice Hotel. The Ice Bar is a bar made entirely out of ice. The walls are made out of ice, the stools, tables, cups, and everything is made out of ice! I've really been wanting to go here because when else will I get the chance?!?! Anyways, we went all the way there and I decided not to go. It looked really tiny and not that cool inside and so it made the $40/person entrance fee not worth it. I still really want to go but I was annoyed with how expensive it was and decide it was stupid to pay $40 to sit on an ice cube and drink a shot sized soda. Also, even though the entrance fee included the warm coat rental, I was in my crocs and decided that maybe being in -5* temperatures was probably not a good idea the day I was supposed to go climb Mt. Fuji. There's a location in London so I made Will promise me that we will go to that location which looks cooler than the Japanese one anyways (they change the ice designs every 4 months and the different locations' design reflects the location's culture.. Japanese design = simple and understated). And I always have Wednesday night if I change my mind and decide to go back. Hmm... what do you think? Should we bite the bullet and pay $80 to each have a drink in an igloo?? Here's a picture of me outside the bar and a picture of melting ice cups.

Now it is dinner time and we are both starving! We combed through Shinjuku's bunches of restaurants and were getting frustrated. As much as we both like Asian food, we are kind of sick of looking for places with menus in English or with pictures and both just want a dinner we KNOW will be tasty. I'm all for trying stuff but sometimes you just want certainty that your meal is going to be tasty. It is also complicated b/c while Tokyoites eat a lot of Chicken, they'll eat weird parts like Chicken heart and tongue and when it's grilled and covered with sauce, the picture looks like chicken breast pieces on a skewer!! We are also really craving beef and I got excited about one yummy looking beef picture on a menu to later find out it was horse sashimi! I'm glad I didn't order that. Anyways, we finally got sick of looking for English friendly places so we settled in on a Japanese restaurant where the staff was willing to be play gestures with us to determine we weren't eating anything weird. We ended up having a very yummy dinner of french fries, chicken skewers (thigh meat as motioned by the cook), and grilled beef. We then finished up with crepes with ice cream for dessert!

Tomorrow night, we will not be posting. During the day, we will be going to Fuji-Q which is an amusement park in the Hakone area. We will be riding roller coasters with Mt. Fuji in the landscape! Then we will be making the long climb to the top of the mountain in time to watch the sunrise. It's going to be great!! That is... until we have to make the climb back down.... booooo!