Tokyo Day 2: Shan + Asakusa Kagetsudō + Sensō-ji + Asakusa Gyukatsu + いーはとーぼ. Tokyo. Japan.

On Day 2 in Tokyo I woke up and made my way over to Asakusa. I have never been to Asakusa, so I decided to head over and finally check it out for myself.

I started off at Shan, who is famous for their cafe lattes. Sadly, due to it having gone "viral" (my least favorite word), they no longer serve it. It's a kissaten so I got my regular kissaten order of ham and egg sandwich with iced coffee. It's very old school, and since we no longer had any influencers coming due to the lack of caffe lattes, I preferred it that way, although I was sad to not have gotten to try their cafe latte. They also allow smoking, so be warned.



Since I have also never tried melon pan in Japan, I decided to head over to Asakusa Kagetsudō soon after they open at 10 to avoid the crazy lines later. It was warm and I got it with matcha ice cream as recommended to me. I did not get the fuss about melon pan after eating this. It made me crave a really good pineapple bun from Hong Kong instead. Perhaps I am just not a melon pan kind of girl.



Then I braved my way over to Sensō-ji. It was so crowded at Asakusa that I wanted to leave as soon as humanly possible. It was filling in with bus loads of tourists from every direction. Honestly I did not enjoy it. So much so that I texted James Curd who is arriving a week later and headed into Asakusa with his family to warn him.









I wanted to try Gyukatsu Motomura, but there was the Asakusa Gyukatsu right there so I had lunch there instead. I did enjoy the meal, which was the only redeeming thing about my trek to Asakusa.



Then I went on a long walk through Yoyogi Park to meet up with my friend Ozaki-san. I saw this happy man walking 15+ dogs. 



Then I saw this dog completely sideways carried by his/her owner which was comical. 













Ozaki-san and I went to いーはとーぼ, a cafe in Shimokitazawa he's been frequenting since his college days for almost 50 years. We sat in his regular corner and he told me nothing much has changed there since his college days. Ozaki-san told me about the new books he is editing and that it takes him about 3 years to edit a book. I told him my awesome new weird Japanese sentence and he laughed his head off. And of course, we traded our notes on our favorite Japanese restaurants. He was impressed with my last dinner reservation in Kyoto, which is a high compliment coming from him. 







Before I headed back to my hotel, I had to go to a pharmacy to get a few things. And of course: