Our last full day in Tokyo was on our own, which, to me, is much more preferred than doing a guided tour since we can do what we want and aren’t on someone else’s schedule.

We had breakfast on the rooftop of our hotel (40th floor!). Thankfully, it was enclosed because it has been FREEZING here!

The view was picture perfect. I could have stayed up there for hours. But, nobody was really down with that idea. So, instead, we walked over to the metro station to head to the museum. Sometimes my mom fell behind because she likes to take panoramic videos and narrate ALL the things.

I’m not always the biggest fan of museums. This one was was OK for two reasons.

1) There was an outdoor garden that had lots of cherry blossoms! I took pictures of other people taking pictures of the cherry blossoms. Creeper status.

2) I also got to roll animal bones to reveal my fortune.

Shagai (the ankle bones of animals) are shaken and rolled – similar to dice. But, unlike dice, they don’t have numbers or pictures on the sides. The way that the sides look/are shaped correspond to a specific animal. The combination of your four dice will tell you your fortune.

My fortune was: “You will face some obstacles but you will get through them.” The lady who read my fortune felt really bad that I was going to have to face some obstacles so she made me roll again until I got something like, “You are perfect and beautiful and smart and all your wishes will come true.”

Much. Better.

Now my life will be roses and butterflies and rainbows.

After the museum, Sister and I tried to convince Dad that he wanted to go to Subway for lunch. He didn’t fall for it. Instead, we walked around for about an hour while he checked out different restaurants and food fairs and ALL the things. [I get my indecisiveness from my papa!]

 

Finally, he decided he wanted to head to Ginza Station to eat, which was recommended to us by Chhavi Didi (who helped plan our whole trip!)

Ginza Station is basically a 12-story department store and the bottom two levels are fancy food courts. But they’re not your typical looking food court. They’re set up like the perfume/jewelry sections in Bloomingdales or Nordstrom. Each area has a small little display of the food they have, so, for my indecisive papa, it was a really difficult decision to choose a few things when there were literally THOUSANDS of options to choose from.

About a half hour after we got there, we settled on a bunch of random little things like salads and calzones. After two days of traditional Japanese “bento box” lunches, I was more than willing to change it up.

So was Sister.

Except she didn’t really have to ‘change anything up.’ Ice cream – all day, every day.

We went back to the hotel in the late afternoon to rest a little bit. And, a few hours later, we decided to hop in a cab and head to Harajuku for dinner.

I was reluctant at first to head back out again since I had just gotten nice and comfortable after a long day of museum-ing. Once I’m in my PJs, it really takes a lot to get me outta them.

But, I’m so glad we ended up going. It was like a clean, less smelly, more FUN version of Times Square in NY. Without the blinding, neon lights.

After exploring the streets and shops a bit, we decided to venture down a small alleyway for dinner and stumbled upon a cute, double-story Hawaiian cafe. When we got seated, we noticed that everyone had ordered MASSIVE stacks of pancakes. So, obviously, when in Rome…

(Or, I guess, when in Japan….)

  

Again, not your typical Japanese dinner. But, the pancakes were so fluffy and delicious that I don’t even regret it one bit.

We also got some other dishes (Chicken Steak and Loco Moco) and they were both so YUM. I love love loved everything about that place. The service was also wonderful – the owner chatted with us for a while and gave us free tote bags on our way out. Apparently they recently opened up a location in Shanghai. So, another city to explore and more pancakes to eat, y’know?

It was a beautiful day filled with fun experiences and delicious food. Can’t really beat that! 🙂

Question of the Day:

If you had to choose between the following pancake stack options, which would you choose? 

• Mixed Fruit topped with Whipped Cream
• Peanut Butter, Banana, and Chocolate 
• Strawberry and Milk