Long Weekend in Tokyo!

Tokyo today! Woke up at 7:30am, some bread for breakfast, and then drove to a car park near Takasaki station at 8:30am. This car park is so good! ¥500 for 24 hours – I left my car there for 3 days, so a total parking bill of ¥1500 really isn’t too bad. Took the 9:12 train to Ikebukuro, then transferred two times to arrive at the station nearest my friend’s house at 11:32! Found my way to her apartment with Google maps, and her apartment is really nice. Although it’s similar to mine as in it’s a 1LDK (one room with a kitchen, dining room, and living room), her kitchen area is quite spacious (she actually has a counter to chop things on!) and her bathroom and room is also a little bit bigger. After I dropped my bags off we headed out for lunch at this very cute café that serves Chinese dim sum and set meals! She got the Xiao Long Bao set, and I was really hungry so I got the Wonton soup set, and a separate order of Xiao Long Bao. All the food was really good! You also get unlimited jasmine tea and congee too! We spent quite a while there catching up and enjoying the food. After that we walked around a bit in a nearby mall and bought some cute stuff at Bleu Bleut! It is the most adorable store with the cutest things that tempts you at every corner. I bought a scarf for my friend since it was her birthday last week, and also a sleeping eye lavender salt bag and a watch for me, since I actually needed those things.

We then made our way to find Dominique Ansel’s bakery! I have been wanting to try his pastries for a long time, so I’m really glad we go to go. We rode the train to Harajuku, and then walked to his store in Omotesando. Luckily there wasn’t too much of a queue when we arrived – but by the time we had sat down with our food, the line had grown so long out the door! I decided to try his 2 signature treats – the infamous cronut and his Frozen S’more. My friend got the summer special, which was watermelon ice cream sandwiched in a slice of actual watermelon. The cronut was nice but not anything special – I think it was because it was filled with a very sweet custard-y type of thing that ruined the croissant/doughnut texture and taste. The Frozen S’more was our favourite though! It tasted really good, and despite being ¥770 I thought it was actually pretty worth it. It wasn’t overly sweet, the freshly toasted marshmallow was delicious, there was a layer of crunchy chocolate stuff before the block of vanilla ice cream inside, and it’s fun to eat because it’s served on a wooden campfire stick!

After that we walked around Omotesando – it’s a well known fashionable place with a lot of the high end brands and clothing stores. Everyone dresses really well and fashionably here, but there were also weird things like these two guys walking a pig. I had to do a double take because I thought it was a dog at first! We decided to book a massage since Omotesando has very good salons and the like. Got a 19:00 appointment, so until then we browsed this artsy designer shop, and I also finally got to try Luke’s Lobster Roll! The bread roll was really delicious but I wasn’t expecting the lobster to be cold. It was still really nice and juicy though. We then went for our massage and it was so great. It was my first full body massage ever, and I thought I’d be sensitive to the pain but it felt so good! I didn't know I had so many parts of my body that were tired and fatigued. The masseuse will ask you which areas are the most tired (they were both Chinese actually) and I requested shoulder and neck area. My shoulders were so sore after the massage, but in a good way I think. My legs and feet felt great too! After the massage ended we called it a night and headed home.