Tokyo Tower + French Date #2

Yes it's true that we haven't been to Tokyo Tower yet. But to be frank, it's a little bit out of the way, and unless you work it directly into your schedule, you won't find yourself there. Even having been there now, I think that it is a nice place to visit, but not a must see for those short on time.

Yesterday was a bit gloomy and although it didn't rain, it was quite overcast. As a result, I decided that we should go for the night views rather than the day views. I'm so smart. So we headed out after it got a little dark. Tokyo Tower is a short walk from the Akabanebashi Station, and the entrance we actually took to get to it is a bit of an alley. I feel like maybe we went through a side entrance, but it made the walk quite a bit shorter than if we had walked around it.

Inside we ended up on the 2nd floor which is populated by a food court and various gift stores. Tokyo Tower actually has three or four floors of touristy shopping. At the time we went, things seemed pretty empty except the one gift store we went to. We saw a gold Kitty that V really wanted to buy, but there was no smaller version in sight.

We did buy some snacks though...like we always do. We've heard a few thing about Tokyo Banana, which are Banana Custard filled cakes, and we also went for these 半月- Han Getsu - Half Moon crackers. Tokyo Banana is really banana-y. If you like bananas, you'll like Tokyo Banana... Han Getsu are thick french gaufre cookies filled with red bean or matcha cream. Yums.

Tokyo Tower is accessible from the first floor and is split into two tiers. The first tier is the main viewing area and is 150m up. You're high enough to see over all the buildings, but low enough to get a good look at the landscape. The second tier is 250m up; you actually have to buy second tier tickets separately and after buying the tickets we started walking up about three flights of stairs. During the second flight of stairs we started to get worried that we would have to climb 100m worth of stairs, but luckily we did find an elevator eventually.

That's actually a zoomed in view of Ginza from the second tier; so it's more representative of the view from the first tier. V recognized the random obstacle things on the second tier from a Detective Conan movie, so we went on to reenact the scene where Conan hides from people trying to kill him.

Once back on the first tier we checked out the look-down windows which give you a view of how far 150m is. V performed a test of courage by jumping on the windows multiple times. Crazy girl. She's scared of heights by the way. The first tier also apparently has a random performance stage where bands and artists come to perform at certain times of day. We missed it, but we saw a chick signing cds.

Back down on the ground and down the alley again, we saw three cats sniffing at some shrimp that had obviously been planted there for them. Homeless animals are pretty well taken care of in Japan. I tried to give one of them Tokyo Banana, but he didn't want to have anything to do with me. So I left it on the ground and told him to make sure he eats it.

Our original plan was to go for unagi for dinner, but the place we had targeted closed pretty early. So I used this as a chance to try out the ramen stall right outside of Shinjuku Station. Just like the movies! I'm not exactly sure how to read the sign, but this stall is outside the West Entrance pretty much every night. They sell both shoyu ramen and miso ramen along with a selection of oden.

V got some oden, and I decided to go for the shoyu ramen. It was not bad at all; the bowl wasn't too large, so it wasn't a great value for 700 Yen. However, it was pretty good and totally hit the spot. I totally see the appeal of ramen carts.

Our grand plans for all of Thursday amounted to Tokyo Tower and ramen. Good times. Today though, we made it out in time for lunch and we headed back to Kagurazaka for the French lunch date I had originally planned.

I'd read about Maison de la Bourgogne on various websites as being really good French bistrot faire for not too much monies. Seemed like a must try. Last time, we went to Iidabashi Station and walked from there, so we didn't really get to experience Kagurazaka, but this time we were solidly in the right place. Saw a couple people who were obviously European, but the area actually seemed to be home to mostly rich old women.

It's a bit hard to tell from the picture, but all the shops on the street certainly seemed geared towards them in any case. From the clothes boutiques to the traditional snacks, rich old lady crap everywhere. Maison de la Bourgogne is down one of the alleys and was a bit difficult to find.

Once we got there we were disappointed to find that they only had a Souffle Lunch. Their website advertises a regular lunch course as well as the lighter Souffle course, but maybe it's because we were a little late, they only had the souffle. The Souffle Lunch starts off with a salad, then your choice of souffle, and ends with a coffee or tea. I enjoyed my light salad, but V is not particularly partial to vinaigrette dressings. The souffle was really more of a soup with souffle on top. I think I had anticipated something a bit pastry like, but what we ended up getting was a soup and a salad. The whole thing was pretty filling, well made and decent value for 1000 Yen, but it wasn't exactly what we had anticipated. The Souffle Lunch used to be a salad and risotto which would have been awesome. Alas...

Hard to say how I feel about our lunch, because although everything tasted impeccable, we weren't really in the mood for souffle and not having regular bistrot food was a bit of a let down. The dinner at Maison de la Bourgogne is pretty pricy, and I'm not sure if we'll be back for sure.

We capped our meal with some white chocolate mousse which we never figured out how to say in katakana. The hardest part about eating french or italian or american is that you need to decipher what exactly they're trying to say. Some of the weird french sounds are impossible to figure out. We ate something that might have been called "babuarowa," but neither of us are confident that was what it was either. Plus the handwriting was hard to read! Argh.

We ended our date, the way everyone should end a meal: by praying. There was this temple with all sorts of pretty gold detail on the inside that compelled us to pray. Not allowed to take pictures inside though.

Not a bad date, but I'm starting to feel like we should just stick to Japanese food. Can't go wrong with sushi right? I'm off to Kyoto tonight with some school peeps, so I'll hopefully see V for a bit after I get back. She's supposed to leave soonish though...

Nooooooooooo