Lazy(er) day in Shinjuku

Everyday, I open up my weather.com bookmark and think that it's gonna be an amazing day. Then I realize it's defaulted to Chicago and not actually 74 degrees in Tokyo but 90. Basically every day in Tokyo ends up being a double shower day when I go out, break a sweat, take a shower and head out again. Today was actually not that bad until we decided to go for ramen but more on that later.

We finally had a take it easy day. I started out the day late by hitting up the Japanese chain, Dotour Coffee. Apparently they do have a regular Americano on their menu, but I totally couldn't find it and ended up with a fairly solid latte. I took a whole bunch of guides with me that I had gotten from the Shinjuku Ward Office and started filtering through them with latte in hand while I waited for V to get ready.

Today we just hit up the rest of the department stores on the East side of Shinjuku Station. We checked out 伊勢丹-Isetan and マルイ-Marui, which is spelled 0101 for some reason. Isetan was pretty expensive overall. It housed a lot of luxury brands and a couple more affordable designers as well. Things were not quite as expensive as Taipei, but we probably wouldn't buy anything until they went on sale. After all, our previous experience with Japanese department store sales at Takashimaya was pretty positive. 0101 was all women's clothes and some of the things inside were probably worthwhile for V to check out.

The basement of 0101 had a branch of our favorite interior design store, Franc Franc, which we finally figured out is pronounced "Frahn Frahn." There was also the bread store, Johan. We bought several things and everything ended up being mediocre until we got to the chocolate croissant. Damn good. I guess we have to go back now.

We had previously looked up 一蘭 ラーメン-Ichiran Ramen and found it in the middle of a million other stores that make up the pedestrian area of East Shinjuku. Notably, one of the stores nearby was a Softbank with a girl outside making announcements and another girl doing this awesome cell phone dance to a cell phone song. I know it was a cell phone dance because one of the moves she repeated was her putting a phone up to her ear. You can barely see her in the back behind that lady in yellow. Down into the basement of Ichiran you find the token ordering vending machine. I've changed my stance on these vending machines by the way. The one benefit that they definitely provide is that they eliminate the need for a cashier. Also, basically every little food stall has one.

Ichiran is a very unique ramen-ya in that every customer occupies their own stall. Small cubicle like walls block you off from your neighbors and women especially enjoy this as they can slurp all they want and do not need to interact with the chef. Indeed, the one other time we had ramen in Tokyo, the shop was occupied solely by businessmen. From the vending machine you order your ramen and your desired sides which can include the likes of rice, extra meat, extra noodles, seaweed, tea, and beer. V and I both went for extra meat but next time I'm also going for some extra noodles and maybe a beer.

When you sit down you are presented with the following order sheet which allows you to customize the ramen just the way you like. Our sheet was only in Japanese and whatever we couldn't understand we just picked the middle option.
Yes, the ramen was downright delicious. The noodles are a little bit thinner than typical and the soup base is very porky. The ramen is simple and constructed flawlessly. It is potentially better than the 山頭火-Santouka we're used to...I'm not sure. There's something cathartic about being all alone with a bowl of ramen, but let me tell you, a steaming bowl of noodles in an enclosed space turns that booth into a righteous sauna. Sure I had a great time and I'll be back but maybe not until December or so. I spent the rest of the day just sweltering from the inside out. V told me to get to the bottom as there's something written down there, so we both got to witness the glory of "the last drop is the best" or something.

Other evening plans fell through, and now that Prospect Axe is official, we decided to go check out what the area is like at night. There was a decent amount of activity with a plethora of restaurants in the vicinity. We found a promising sushi place as well as a number of ramen shops that were packed. Udon, tempura, gyudon, burgers, we have basically every option in the area. We also passed by a massage parlor which didn't look totally shady until I figured out they only open from midnight to 4 AM.

We have a 24 hour grocery as well as a larger supermarket within a block or so. A bit farther away there's a 24 hour Korean supermarket that delivers as well as a meat market. We even have a post office across the street and of course a ton of convenience stores. Basically, everything we see gets us more and more excited. Ahhhhhh, so close to moving in!