7-11 breakfast

Since I was still peckish, we also swung by the nearby Lawson's for their grilled salmon onigiri.

Second breakfast

After having sampled the onigiri from all three of the major convenience store chains, it is of my completely nonexpert opinion that Family Mart had the best onigiri, followed by 7-11 and Lawson's in last. This may be a controversial opinion since no one else I've talked to seems to hold anything resembling these views.

After breakfast, we headed over to the Meiji Shrine, especially since that was our primary outdoor activity for the day and we wanted to go there before the effects from the typhoon that followed us from Taipei would be felt. Since it was a Sunday it was somewhat crowded and there was a fair amount of restoration going to coincide with the 100th year of the Shrine (and possibly the Olympics as well), so unfortunately there is not as much to see at the shrine.

Torii




Sake


Chozuya


Shrine


Courtyard

One the way out we stopped by the Meiji Jingu Gardens, which existed before the shrine and is tucked into the surrounding forest. It was much less crowded than the shrine itself and provided some serenity from the hustle and bustle of the city. We did a loop of the garden, though it seemed that the garden was between seasons and certain areas seemed to be under work.

Tea house

After our visit to the Meiji Jingu area it was time to start thinking about lunch. Since we had both been before and were looking for some other interesting things to do our friend who took us on the food tour the previous day had suggested that we could go visit the Raumen Museum in Yokohama. So we hopped on the train over to Shin-Yokohama to see what it had to offer.

Entrance

The museum consists of two areas, with an exhibit about the history and characteristics of ramen and the gift shop on the first level and the two basement levels featuring all the ramen. There are 8 shops in the museum each featuring different styles to give an overview of the different regional ramen specialties throughout the country and the world. Each of the shops is categorized primarily by noodle style, broth style, and primary toppings.

Exhibit


Everything to make your own at home!

Once downstairs we were greeted with long lines at many of the stalls, especially since this was a weekend and there was rain in the forecast. The lower levels are built to mimic an older style evoking the era of when ramen became a food item.

Hallways

We queued up for a random stall and ended up at Shina Soba-Ya, which specialized in a salt and soy-based broth. Once we got to the front of the line we ordered from a vending machine, handed the staff our tickets, and had food at our table shortly after.

Shop


Salt ramen

This bowl was a great start to our food tour with a delightful but not overly salty broth and noodles with good texture.

After finishing the bowl we headed to Ryu's Noodle Bar, which specializes in a chicken-based broth and doesn't use any pork ingredients. Ryu's in also unique in that it's one of the few foreign shops to do a rotation in the museum, though I do say that they make a really good bowl of noodles.

Counter


Bowl 2

And last but not least we visited Komurasaki, which makes the well-know tonkatsu pork bone broth. Their broth also contains chicken and vegetables, and the bowl is topped with garlic chips, making it an excellent and unique bowl of ramen. My friend ended up not finishing, so I also ate another half a bowl on top of mine.

Ticket machine




Last bowl


Decent waits, even towards the late afternoon

By the time we returned to Tokyo it has begun raining so we looked to make some dinner plans. Our first stop ended up being at Dean&Deluca to pick up some dessert for later. Naturally since we already had dessert in hand we stopped by Takano again, though this time we went to the less busy fruit bar in the basement instead of the busy one on the 5th floor to enjoy a pre-dinner dessert.

So fancy


Takano part 2


Higo melon and peach parfait

What's great about the fruit bar in the basement is that the dishes are prepared at the bar instead of a hidden kitchen, and it's quite nice to see all of the fancy fruit about. However even after our dessert diversion it continued to rain and we weren't really in the mood to go out for dinner. Instead we stopped by the food court at the Isetan department store. The food court at department stores are usually really nice, and this one was no exception. I bought a tonkatsu box and katsu sandwiches from Maisen-katsu and we enjoyed dinner and dessert in our AirBnB before turning in for the night since we had an early flight out the next morning.

Dinner


Jelly and orange custard slice from D&D