22237

That's how many steps I had on my pedometer after we got back from an adventure yesterday.

First stop...Shinobazu Pond.

The lotus flowers were only starting to bloom.

Hopefully we'll be able to get back here when they are in full bloom.

Next we stumbled upon this tiny arare shop, Takesen.

They've been making arare for over 60 years.

Everything made from scratch and no preservatives or artificial sweeteners.

We purchased two types...the one on the left has three flavors, sugar, matcha and plain.

The one on the right uses "white" shoyu.

We look forward to trying both soon!

Then we made our way to our next stop...journalist, Takashi Tachibana's cat building.

He was apparently a cat lover.

He recently passed away and when I saw the story on the news, they showed his building, a quick check online showed where the building is located.

I'm glad we got to check this out.

And then we stumbled upon Okano Eisen's main shop on the way to our next stop.

If you remember, we stopped in to their Toranomon shop earlier this year and felt they were quite cold, plus we weren't able to purchase their mame daifuku.

Well, this shop was nicer and we got lucky on this day.

I'm glad we tried this, it was filled with sweet bean paste and there are cooked red beans (mame) worked into the outer mochi...the sweet and salty combination is nicely balanced.

Our next stop was the Koishikawa Botanical Garden...loved these copper fences that were punched with holes made to look like leaves.

If I am not mistaken, this botanical garden is run by Tokyo University.

This botanical garden holds all sorts of plants, trees and herbs.

In September 1923, this garden was a shelter for residents during the largest earthquake in Tokyo.

 Hope you can see this short video of the krazy worm I saw in the garden.

It was iridescent green/yellow and there were ants or something eating it...eek!

And then we walked back to have lunch at Firehouse.

I had seen this shop on a Japanese drama and bookmarked it to try.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table.

Satoshi had the egg burger. 

The egg was oozy and he said he enjoyed this.

I had their apple burger...apples sauteed with sugar and cinnamon.

Totally different but I enjoyed the sweet and salty combination.

It was nice to eat out for a change but I was disappointed that the restaurant did not have any acrylic barriers between diners and that at the other diners were talking out loud without their masks while dining.

Hoping this was a safe meal and we plan to be more careful with our choice in eateries in the future...

After lunch, we then walked to see the Akamon (red gate) of Tokyo University.

We had often seen this on the news, but never saw it in person.

We couldn't go on to the campus, but it was nice to walk around this area.

I loved looking at the different buildings.

Like this tiny barber shop amongst the cement jungle.

 and then we were back at Shinobazu Pond...I was fascinated by the water beads on this large lotus leaves...click to see the short video.

And then before going home, we went to check out the Tsuki no matsu located at Kiyomizu Kannon-do in Ueno Park...the original was damaged in the Edo period and this one was restored in 2012.

Hiroshige Utagawa painted this scenery of the Tsuki no matsu and Kiyomizu Kannon-do in his U-kiyoe paintings.

It was quite a long day...luckily it didn't rain very hard, just some drizzles and we got to see all that we wanted to.

Takesen

3-41-16 Hongo

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3811.3268

Hours: 9:00-18:00 Mondays-Fridays, 10:00-18:00 Saturdays & Sundays

Takashi Tachibana Cat Building

2-18 Koishikawa

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Okano Eisen

1-24-4 Koishikawa

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3811.2345

Hours and days off: n/a

Koishikawa Botanical Garden

3-7 Hakusan

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3814.0138

Closed Mondays

Hours: 9:00-16:30

Admission: 500 yen 

Firehouse

4-5-10 Hongo

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3815.6044

Open daily : 11:00-21:30