That’s right folks, our first visitors have come and gone and the trip was truly one for the books!

By pure happenstance, my best friend Amanda’s job sent her to Korea and Japan at the end of February. When she found out about the trip several months ago, we excitedly started planning for her to extend her stay and spend some time with me in my new locale. It took a little convincing, but her husband Austin also made the long trip out and met up with us for the week. Couples trip! ❤

I drove to the airport to meet Amanda on Sunday morning and we toured around the city while we waited for Austin’s flight to get in that evening. It was so good to see her and have some girl time before we met up with the boys :’). I could write a million words about how deeply I love my girlfriends, but for now I’ll just say that I was elated.

We took the train to Kikanbo—one of my favorite ramen shops in town—for lunch, then went to walk down the famous Takeshita-dori in Harajuku for some shopping. Takeshita used to be the “it” fashion place in Tokyo, where one could find the wacky, the colorful, the latest trends, and all the counterfeit luxury brand items one’s heart desired. This is quite literally what Gwen Stefani and Eve are singing about in the ever-iconic Rich Girl bridge. Now though, it is much more geared towards tourists, with less avant garde fashion stores (there are still several, though!) and more souvenir shops, animal cafes, and eateries. While there, we shopped, found the most purrrrrrrfect cat cafe, and stopped for some crepes on the street.

We headed back to the airport to welcome Austin with our snazzy homemade signage, then back to our place to meet up with Chase before we left for Kyoto the next morning.

We set off to Kyoto early Monday morning on the Shinkansen, which was Amanda’s, Austin’s, and my first time on the bullet train! The Shinkansen is a high-speed train that is on the same plane as a local airline as far as price, speed, and ease of use. It is actually faster and more convenient to take the Shinkansen than to fly many places in Japan, and the train bathroom is easily 3x the size of your average plane bathroom, in case you were wondering. Chase and I were also stoked to have found seats that face each other for the ~2 hour trip.
Photo evidence:

Even though it was supposed to rain the entire time we were in Kyoto, it only consistently rained one afternoon, and it was the off-season while we were there, so it was much less crowded than usual. During our whirlwind two days there, we visited the Fushimi Inari Shrine and walked through all the bright red torii gates, marveled at the famous Yasaka Pagoda, walked through the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, ate all the delicious food, saw a mystical rainbow at Kyoto Tower, walked and shopped at the famous Ninenzaka and Sannenzaka streets, and even looked around at the Seven Eleven, just like Phoebe Bridgers! 😉

We got back to Tokyo on Wednesday afternoon, which was also Chase’s 35th birthday! We went to Kappabashi-dori, or “kitchen street” to peruse the Japanese knife offerings, and then went up to Tokyo Skytree for some sunset views of the city. Skytree is the tallest tower in the world, but even from a higher vantage than any city viewpoint I’ve seen before, the view of the Tokyo really doesn’t end. Like at the Willis tower in Chicago, you can clearly see the end of Chicago, but the expanse that is Tokyo is seemingly never-ending from Skytree on all sides. That said, once you’ve done one city tower view, I kind of feel like you’ve done them all. Chase thinks I am crazy for saying this, but I don’t care; it’s my blog.. 😉

After taking in the views, we went to our favorite gyoza house in Shinjuku before spending a night out in Golden Gai; Golden Gai is the bee’s knees. It’s pronounced like “golden guy” and is a network of narrow alleyways with easily over 100 tiny, dimly-lit dive bars and eateries that have as few as two seats each. A very happy drunk man on the street recommended a bar to us as he was walking out, so naturally, we heeded his sage advice. We got a couple drinks, including a fabulous Negroni from Masa, bartender and MC extraordinaire, before a wildly uninhibited British couple came in and started to unintelligibly grill us about the current American political situation. We were like, “We agree with you, but ummmm, bye.” We left, but not before everyone joined in a boisterous chorus of Happy Birthday for Chase! We ended the night with some karaoke. I’ll spare you the video footage, but I think Shania would have been proud! 😉

The next day, we got up early and went to eat the fluffiest and jiggliest pancakes any of us had ever had at Micasadeco & Cafe in Shibuya. It was totally delicious and 100% worth the wait for them to slow-cook the pancakes. After that, we went over to Tsukiji Fish Market, where Amanda and Austin picked up knives for some family members and we perused the street vendors’ offerings.

Before we knew it, it was Friday, Amanda and Austin’s last full day. The weather was perfect, so we took them to Sawanoi Ozawa Sake Brewery, one of our favorite local spots. We spent a relaxing day outside tasting their many sake offerings, laughing together, and soaking up the short time we had left.

Let me just tell you, having friends in our guest room warmed my lonely little heart! It was so much fun seeing Amanda and Austin and playing tour guide. I hope I get to do this a hundred more times!

More later! xx