Tania and I headed over to Legends, a sports bar recommended by Matthew H, to watch the Steelers vs. Broncos MNF game. Afterward, we split up; I headed to the Imperial Palace while she headed to the Edo-Tokyo Museum. Missing each other so much, we rushed back to the hotel to express how much we hated being away from each other. We then went to dinner with Matthew's friend Nakaba at an amazing tempura restaurant in Shinjuku named Tsunahachi. After dinner, we partied all night in Shibuya with Nakaba, and woke up the next morning with matching tattoos of the Japanese symbol for puppy and kitty.
The blog entry as it actually happened...
Tania and I headed over to Legends, a sports bar recommended by Matthew H, to watch the Steelers vs. Broncos MNF game. The bar was closed, and so were all other bars in Roppongi that would be showing the game, so Tania and I hit up a small burger joint for a quick lunch before splitting up.
At lunch, we had a few beers and decided to scrap our plans to split up for the Imperial Palace and Edo-Tokyo Museum and head over to Ebisu instead. Thinking it was a quick walk away, we started our trek underneath the metro line. Well, it wasn't as close as we thought, and ended up walking for an hour just to get to Ebisu. Tania was exhausted and just wanted to either sit at a cafe and do some writing, or find a nail salon. We ultimately found a cafe called Monsoon where she was able to relax for a bit.
I on the other hand noticed that we were two blocks away from the Sapporo beer museum. Needing to fulfill my civic duty to explore all culturally relevant spots in town, I walked over the museum, skipped the actual museum since I figured it was just like the Carlsberg tour we got two summers ago in Copenhagen, and headed straight for the tasting room. Needless to say, it was a fine cultural experience, and after the total tasting and an extra amber, I skipped in joy back to Monsoon to pick Tania up so we could head back to the hotel before dinner.
Matthew's friend Nakaba met us in the lobby of our hotel, and gave us a walking tour through the seediest part of Tokyo, the innards of Shinjuku. Walking past a sea of "horny" places and Japanese mafia types, we took a right and quickly darted for the outards of the ward.
Once safely out, we walked over to Tsunahachi, an incredible 80 year old tempura restaurant. We ate tempura'd sweet fish, shrimp (including their crittery heads), green onions, mushrooms, eel, and many other delightful surprises. I got to eat extra since Tania wasn't too excited about the crittery options. All in all, Matthew's favorite tempura spot lived up to the hype.
We headed over to Shibuya in the hopes of dancing the night away, to have it instead start raining, so we headed home after a nice drink with Nakaba.
Once again, we felt extremely taken care of by a very generous local who showed us parts of the town we would have either never seen or understood what it was when we saw it.
Thanks Matthew and Nakaba!
We had planned to go to Izu today, but since it's raining cats and dogs (hehe), we decided to stay local and go to the Edo-Tokyo museum and catch a movie.
Happy anniversary Sabby!!! We're so proud of all you've accomplished over the last year!
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