As usual today I woke up as late as I could and around 3pm, started my food hunt. My objective today was to go check out the Subaru Headquarters in Shinjuku, but of couse, how could one go with an empty stomach?
I was craving ramen for some reason, shoyu ramen in particular. There was this ramen place called Wan-Zhu-Ji at the train station that I walked by a few times, right next to that restaurant where you buy your food at the machine, but never had a chance to try, so I decided to go there.
The menu was in all Japanese, so I ordered the only thing that I could read – Miso Ramen. I guess it was ok since it was my second choice anyways. Most of the other dishes seemed like they were quite spicy, so I stuck with the basics hoping that it will not be spicy.
There weren’t other patrons there at the time so the food came fairly quickly. It arrived with lots of sprouts on top. The noodles were very good and the soup’s spiciness was very manageable, almost not spicy. The crunchy texture of the sprouts when eaten with the noodles were pretty refreshing.
I paid with all the loose change I had, maybe with over 30 coins of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 yen, apologized and left. One thing I hate about the currency here is that everything up to 500 yen are coins. So I end up having a whole bunch of coins in my pocket every time. I seized the moment and got rid of almost all of them – 680 yen worth of coins. I only had two 500 yen coins and one 50 yen coin. Perfect!
I then called my friend to confirm that I was going on the right train to Shinjuku, and got on the right train to transfer at the next station. After being here for a little over a week I’m starting to get a little used to this whole SUPER complicated railway system. At least I could find my way to most of the major stops without having to ask someone anymore. Of course I still rely on the charts they have.
When I got off at the next station Musashi-Kosugi (O and btw my station is the Musashi-Nakahara) to get on to the train to Shibuya to transfer, I was smart enough to wait for the “Express Train”. If you can see from the sign, the red train at 16:03 is the express train, that means it won’t stop at all the stations, and even though I had to wait another 4 minutes for it, it would actually save me more than that IF I were to get off at one of the few stations that it stops at.
Apart from the Express Train, there’s also a “Commuter’s Express” which is only available at certain hours and marked in orange. This is like the super express train, which would probably only stop at 3 stations instead of 15 with a regular train. You do find a lot of people who go on these trains especially during rush hour.
Anyways, Shibuya Station is one of the larger stations and transfer points and was also the final station for my train. I got there pretty quickly, maybe because I was concentrating on playing games on my phone like a majority of the other Japanese and was also listening to music on my iPod. I then got onto the train towards Shinjuku which passes by Harajuku and Yoyogi.
Shinjuku is considered the heart of Tokyo where there are lots of high-rise buildings and the Shinjuku station is even busier and way larger than the Shibuya station. Remember the other time I went there, we got off the wrong side of the station and ended up on the side with many offices and ate at the Toro place? This time I ended up on the more exciting side with all the department stores and restaurants.
I gave myself a small tour around the area and eventually found the department store chain Mitsukoshi where they used to have one in HK. I also found one of my favorite Japanese stores Muji. I took a tour Mitsukoshi and thought it was pretty nice. They had LV and Tiffany’s at the ground floor, and they had a few dessert shops and bakeries in the basement.
THEN I found Isetan, another Japanese department store chain and I was even MORE impressed. It was very nicely decorated inside, much nicer than Neiman Marcus and Saks in the US. Very nice and grand entrance with a red carpet which leads to the very end of the store, though the outside didn’t look too great. I then realized that the department store had multiple buildings. The building I was in was women’s clothes only.
I then walked across the street into the Isetan men’s store. It was also very nicely decorated and everything very nicely laid out. There were 8 stories and all 8 for men!!! I was so excited! They had a huge men’s Prada collection, in addition to other brands such as D&G, Dsquared, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Underground, Dior Homme, etc… and is so far the nicest department store I’ve seen here in Japan.
Then I go downstairs to the basement and I’m even more impressed. The food section is huge, seems much larger than Albertsons in the US. Again, everything very nicely laid out and displayed behind a glass display.
Grapes and melons are sold on glass platters.
The Japanese sweets and snacks all nicely displayed, I wanted to buy EVERYTHING!
Even coffee beans are displayed in these ultra nice ceramic bowls.
Wine is very nicely and neatly displayed in these wooden shelves.
The pastries look very yummy!
The checkout counter looks very classy and the fruits all laid out in a very appetizing manner…. Maybe I’m just hungry again?
Afterwards I met my friend at the station and we went to the Isetan men’s store again, and then we went to a local book store Kinokuni to get some books. This store is 8 stories high which is quite rare for Japan since everything here is much smaller in size. My friend was able to find what he wanted and as we paid, the cashier wrapped the book’s cover up with paper very nicely. No he didn’t by those book shown in the picture if you were wondering.
We were quite hungry by the time we were done, so we walked around and decided quickly on a restaurant. We went to this restaurant Blumare that was in this “Lion Beer” building because in the front, they had a nice display of “Italian” food and my friend was craving fondue. They were quite busy and there were only 2 waitresses so they were a little understaffed. But it was ok since the menu was in Japanese only, we needed some time to decide what we wanted.
After a ton of thinking, we eventually ordered iced-lemon tea and orange juice.
I was craving ramen for some reason, shoyu ramen in particular. There was this ramen place called Wan-Zhu-Ji at the train station that I walked by a few times, right next to that restaurant where you buy your food at the machine, but never had a chance to try, so I decided to go there.
The menu was in all Japanese, so I ordered the only thing that I could read – Miso Ramen. I guess it was ok since it was my second choice anyways. Most of the other dishes seemed like they were quite spicy, so I stuck with the basics hoping that it will not be spicy.
There weren’t other patrons there at the time so the food came fairly quickly. It arrived with lots of sprouts on top. The noodles were very good and the soup’s spiciness was very manageable, almost not spicy. The crunchy texture of the sprouts when eaten with the noodles were pretty refreshing.
I paid with all the loose change I had, maybe with over 30 coins of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 yen, apologized and left. One thing I hate about the currency here is that everything up to 500 yen are coins. So I end up having a whole bunch of coins in my pocket every time. I seized the moment and got rid of almost all of them – 680 yen worth of coins. I only had two 500 yen coins and one 50 yen coin. Perfect!
I then called my friend to confirm that I was going on the right train to Shinjuku, and got on the right train to transfer at the next station. After being here for a little over a week I’m starting to get a little used to this whole SUPER complicated railway system. At least I could find my way to most of the major stops without having to ask someone anymore. Of course I still rely on the charts they have.
When I got off at the next station Musashi-Kosugi (O and btw my station is the Musashi-Nakahara) to get on to the train to Shibuya to transfer, I was smart enough to wait for the “Express Train”. If you can see from the sign, the red train at 16:03 is the express train, that means it won’t stop at all the stations, and even though I had to wait another 4 minutes for it, it would actually save me more than that IF I were to get off at one of the few stations that it stops at.
Apart from the Express Train, there’s also a “Commuter’s Express” which is only available at certain hours and marked in orange. This is like the super express train, which would probably only stop at 3 stations instead of 15 with a regular train. You do find a lot of people who go on these trains especially during rush hour.
Anyways, Shibuya Station is one of the larger stations and transfer points and was also the final station for my train. I got there pretty quickly, maybe because I was concentrating on playing games on my phone like a majority of the other Japanese and was also listening to music on my iPod. I then got onto the train towards Shinjuku which passes by Harajuku and Yoyogi.
Shinjuku is considered the heart of Tokyo where there are lots of high-rise buildings and the Shinjuku station is even busier and way larger than the Shibuya station. Remember the other time I went there, we got off the wrong side of the station and ended up on the side with many offices and ate at the Toro place? This time I ended up on the more exciting side with all the department stores and restaurants.
I gave myself a small tour around the area and eventually found the department store chain Mitsukoshi where they used to have one in HK. I also found one of my favorite Japanese stores Muji. I took a tour Mitsukoshi and thought it was pretty nice. They had LV and Tiffany’s at the ground floor, and they had a few dessert shops and bakeries in the basement.
THEN I found Isetan, another Japanese department store chain and I was even MORE impressed. It was very nicely decorated inside, much nicer than Neiman Marcus and Saks in the US. Very nice and grand entrance with a red carpet which leads to the very end of the store, though the outside didn’t look too great. I then realized that the department store had multiple buildings. The building I was in was women’s clothes only.
I then walked across the street into the Isetan men’s store. It was also very nicely decorated and everything very nicely laid out. There were 8 stories and all 8 for men!!! I was so excited! They had a huge men’s Prada collection, in addition to other brands such as D&G, Dsquared, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Underground, Dior Homme, etc… and is so far the nicest department store I’ve seen here in Japan.
Then I go downstairs to the basement and I’m even more impressed. The food section is huge, seems much larger than Albertsons in the US. Again, everything very nicely laid out and displayed behind a glass display.
Grapes and melons are sold on glass platters.
The Japanese sweets and snacks all nicely displayed, I wanted to buy EVERYTHING!
Even coffee beans are displayed in these ultra nice ceramic bowls.
Wine is very nicely and neatly displayed in these wooden shelves.
The pastries look very yummy!
The checkout counter looks very classy and the fruits all laid out in a very appetizing manner…. Maybe I’m just hungry again?
Afterwards I met my friend at the station and we went to the Isetan men’s store again, and then we went to a local book store Kinokuni to get some books. This store is 8 stories high which is quite rare for Japan since everything here is much smaller in size. My friend was able to find what he wanted and as we paid, the cashier wrapped the book’s cover up with paper very nicely. No he didn’t by those book shown in the picture if you were wondering.
We were quite hungry by the time we were done, so we walked around and decided quickly on a restaurant. We went to this restaurant Blumare that was in this “Lion Beer” building because in the front, they had a nice display of “Italian” food and my friend was craving fondue. They were quite busy and there were only 2 waitresses so they were a little understaffed. But it was ok since the menu was in Japanese only, we needed some time to decide what we wanted.
After a ton of thinking, we eventually ordered iced-lemon tea and orange juice.
Haha that wasn’t all. We also ordered this beef salad thingy,
fondue,
mozzarella pizza
and some kind of bacon spaghetti. When the spaghetti finally arrived, I was too hungry and had it on my plate already. I then remembered that I had to take a picture of it, so I put it back on the dish JUST so that I could take a picture of it for you guys before I completely consume it. 
Then when we were about to leave, we looked into the display window and found all 4 items that we ordered. Can you find them all?
Right before we left, we went into UniQlo, a Japanese clothing chain, much similar in price to Gap in the US, but the styles are quite a bit nicer. And they fit me much better. I didn’t get anything yet because I wanted to check out the one in HK first since I will be coming back anyways.
Then when we were about to leave, we looked into the display window and found all 4 items that we ordered. Can you find them all?
Right before we left, we went into UniQlo, a Japanese clothing chain, much similar in price to Gap in the US, but the styles are quite a bit nicer. And they fit me much better. I didn’t get anything yet because I wanted to check out the one in HK first since I will be coming back anyways.
Finally we took the express train and headed home.
