asia - day 4 - seventy-one
i woke up at 5 a.m. on day 4 - itchy and red. eventually when vince woke up, we counted my bites and came to 71. i'm sure we missed a few so i estimated total tally at 75. YOWSA.
we decided to try the japanese breakfast - lots of teeny tiny dishes, meticulously prepared and beautifully presented.
after we ate every bite, vince was still hungry (and admittedly so was i) but he was too bashful to call the concierge and ask if we could go to the breakfast buffet. so we hid out in our room and ate the mini cakes that the hotel gave us as our honeymoon gift. they were DELISH! the first one was a small piece of butter cake and the second was like a japanese napoleon.
today's agenda included a sumida river boat ride to asakusa in the northern part of tokyo. i haven't included any of the hundreds of photos i took on the boat ride because quite frankly the city from the river is not much to look at. we did pass under 11-12 bridges, each painted a different colour. i was super excited about all the kisses i would get as we passed underneath each bridge but, after the first few, vince "forgot" as he was preoccupied with taking photos.
we were hungry again as soon as we disembarked and it was raining anyway so we ducked into a famous ramen place just south of senso-ji, a buddhist temple we were looking for but couldn't quite find. we suspected the ramen eatery was famous because there were photos posted of the chef with famous japanese people. or rather we assumed they were famous people since we didn't recognize any of them. the ramen was good - vince ordered a spicy ramen and i ordered cold ramen with a hot dipping broth.
after lunch, we headed to the temple and looked around. it was lovely to see people going about their daily routine. we people watched for quite some time before moving on.
then we took some requisite silly photos.
there are a bunch of shops that line the road to senso-ji selling all sorts of things. i used to love these little monkeys (what are they called?) - i think i had a fake one though because i don't remember it looking quite like this one.
we bought a few little snacks to munch on. the first image is of green tea ice cream sandwiched in crispy rice crackers - an excellent and refreshing combination! i got one too but with chestnut ice cream. the second image is of these little round spheres that i believe were some sort of chilled flavoured bean paste - also yummy but i wasn't a fan of the glaze that made the spheres all glossy and shiny. vince got green tea and i got strawberry.
we were tired and wanted to rest so we sat for a while. when we were tired of people watching, we did what we normally do when we're bored - take silly photos.
afterwards, we walked a long while and you wouldn't believe it but we were hungry again. so we went to a 7-11 and bought snacks. vince bought a hot dog without a bun and i bought noodles in a bun. seriously. i love carbs but even this was a little strange for me. tasted good though.
it started raining again so vince and i donned our raincoats that we purchased at a 100 yen store (japanese equivalent of a dollar store). we must have looked strange because people started staring at us.
we made our way back to roppongi and guess what we ate for dinner - buttery curry udon! we also struck gold and found a yummy snack that we had tried a few years ago in hawaii that i thought we would never eat again... but more about that later.