Thursday, January 11, 2024

• Our original plan for the day was to explore Asakusa, Kappabashi-dori, then heading to an arranged onigiri cooking class and amazake tasting, but we didn’t feel like doing that today!
• Instead, we decided to stay in Ueno and finally do a visit to Ueno park, which is something we’d scheduled into our plans every single trip to Japan, but had never actually done.
• Being on foot in Ueno feels great, it was a good reminder of why it’s our favourite place to stay in Tokyo
• We first stopped by a fancy coffee shop, with a classic interior décor and serving staff dressed in very classy outfits. Unfortunately, the coffee was very expensive, but not very tasty, and as cool as the ambience was, it was not a caffeine highlight of this trip
• Stopped at a kombini near the park entrance to get MBW some gum, then ventured into the park itself!

• Only now, in October 2024, do I realise that this is a somewhat momentous occasion – it’s my first ever pseudo photowalk! Going out with a camera, on foot, for no other reason than to have a good walk, take some photos, and explore an area. Given I’ve tried to do one of these a day for the last six months, finding the first ever is a nice bonus!
• A selection of photos from the walk – click on any for a larger view:

• It’s great to see how my photography has evolved from this early point, and how I would be looking to compose/expose/shoot these same shots differently now; it will be a good test when we’re back here next January!
• After grabbing some lunch from a restaurant in the park (near the art museum, if that helps), we headed over to one of our favourite hidden gems of Ueno, the Mominoki House Foot Onsen cafe.

• Sitting with feet in the delightfully warm water with a great coffee is divine, made even more so with the 20 minute shoulder and neck massages that came with our package.
• The ladies working on MBW’s shoulders were astonished by the knots she’d developed, constantly explaining ‘sugoi!’ and likening them to working on Mount Fuji 😂😂
• When done, we then raced out to grab a taxi over to Minato for our onigiri cooking class at Amazake Cafe KomeDreaming.
• As we know from previous cooking classes in Japan, MBW can both prepare some tasty Japanese delicacies…. but only one of us can also make them aesthetically delicious! My efforts are more “characterful” than beautiful, according to our expert instructor.

(how they should look, courtesy of MBW)

(My less impressive attempt at creating triangles…. Luckily, still tasted pretty great!)

• Cooking done, we were also invited to try our first tastes of amazake – a non-alcoholic drink made with fermented rice. We tried half a dozen different flavours, and enjoyed it so much than we bought a few bottles (original and Sakura-flavoured) to bring back home to share with family and friends.

• All in all, a wonderful experience, highly recommended if you want something fun, friendly and educational to do in Tokyo.
• We made our way back to the hotel and packed up (we’d be changing hotels in the morning). I went out to pick up some takeaway food to eat in our room from the local Mos burger, then finished the night off with a quick solo walk around Ikebukuro to check out some of the stores we’d missed (and to try to find another bottle of MBW’s favourite perfume).