Japan Trip 2016 Part 9 : Ikebukuro and Japan Culinary Adventure
9:32:00 PM
HOLA!!!
OMG OMG I really need to finish my Japan Trip post quickly, after this there'll be 2 posts left, must finish it before 23rd, ganbatte me!!! If you happen to like our lifestyle posts, i might not be able to resume lifestyle blogging before January because i simply have no time or slot to finish it! It's insane that i haven't even been able to blog about Little O's bday dinner back in August! Oh well, better late than never truly is my matra nowadays.
Anyway.
This post is a bit of a random one. Part of it's about Ikebukuro-where we decided to go (can't remember the reason... Probably coz we passed it otw back to Kamata and because we found Ichiran ramen there) after our visit to Kawagoe was cut short-then i decided to throw in all stuffs (mostly food and drinks that we had while in Japan *LOL*) that don't fit in any specific posts.
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| The sight that greeted us when we emerged from the MRT station |
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| Ikebukuro at night. I like how every part of Tokyo, although some is quite similar, they have different vibes |
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| The series of canned stuffs begins. I was fascinated because not only they have warm vending machines, but they also sell soups in a can. You can immediately drink the soup and get warmth from it. Actually it's scalding hot WTF |
We were scrambling around with our GPS trying to locate Ichiran Ramen (which apparently is a very famous ramen restaurant in Japan-but i was told that it's only famous among tourists. And i understand why. Will explain later) but not before making several detours. Went to Uniqlo for some shopping and i was also magnetized to this Sanrio store.
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| The neighborhood just outside the Sanrio store |
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| I LOVE Sanrio so i pretty much hyperventilate when i saw all that cuteness |
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| My Melody is so so cute, i think i love her even more than i love Hello Kitty! |
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| KYAAAA Gudetama gachapon! |
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| Look at what hunny got |
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| Sanrio cosme, too cute to be true. Tried to be strong, ended up picking a lip balm up anyway... |
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| Gahhh |
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| Was tempted to get a bag but i already bought a few bags in this trip and the price is quite scary *LOL* |
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| My fave section, so pink!!! And Cinnamoroll AWWWW |
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| Ended up getting that pink boots (that imma wear back to Japan *teehee* and matching gloves) |
I finally was able to tore myself off the store with pretty minimum damage and continue our quest for Ichiran.
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| Passed by Animate |
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| With serious row after row of gachapon. Naturally we had to stop and get a few >.< |
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| Japanese vending machines never cease to amaze me, even the most basic one |
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| Adzuki soup, YUM! |
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| I just thought that this restaurant is so vintage looking and attractive |
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| Ichiran Ramen Ikebukuro |
As soon as you stepped into the ramen shop, you'd feel suffocated because of the number of people stuffed into the very small waiting area >.<.
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| As they are ALWAYS busy (when we were there, there were a lot of Chinese tourists. Told ya it's famous among tourists) they have this board with blinking lights to indicate which booth is vacated and if it's your number then you can enter the inner part of the shop. The booth is individual and if you come in groups it'd wise to split into twos other wise you'd be stuck in the waiting room all night long waiting for a row to be vacated at the same time >.< |
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| Most ramen shops are automated to save time |
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| What's super special about Ichiran ramen is that you can customize your ramen in details! You can pick the richness level, how you want your noodle cooked, etc |
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| This is how the inner part of the shop looks like, with slim alleys (there are two and completely separated) and individual booths. Hunny is pretty big but not THAT big, he could still sit comfortably but i imagine it'd be quite uncomfortable for someone bigger than him (#Undecided's hubby comes in mind) |
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| My booth with a window in front of it, which is always drawn unless they're delivering your food or when you're ordering more food |
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| On my left |
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| And right hehehe |
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| I snapped this pic hurriedly when the curtain was drawn, inside is the worker's area and you can see the opposite alley of booth too |
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| There's an individual water tap in each booth |
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| Japanese love Kae-Dama, it is basically a refill on your noodle only (don't ask for more broth please, then you need to order an entire new bowl okay). I also heard that lots of Japanese would finish their broth with white rice. Wow. |
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| My ramen, which was okay... Still better than any ramen that i ever had in Indonesia-but i had (MUCH) better one nearby our hotel (will tell you about it in a little bit)-which is just a random, modest ramen shop. That's why most patrons to Ichiran are tourists who got into the hype while most Japanese... they probably have their own neighborhood fave ramen |
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| What's up with the many many rolls of tissues??? |
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| LOL, if the prizes are like this in Indonesia... They'd probably close the arcade down |
Silv and i managed to do some very last minute mad shopping at Smir Nasli because they're having 70% off or something! Japanese shop keepers are so nice, they kept bowing and serving us with a huge smile on their faces even though the other shops around us were already closing! They didn't even try to rush us but instead showed us more nice stuffs!
Afterwards it was getting very late so we went back to our hotel.
Oh, here's some random drinks we had while we were in Japan.
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| Can't remember how it tasted like, but nothing tasted bad in Japan. Seriously |
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| I drank yogurt everyday because i love yogurt and it helps my digestive system *teehee* |
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| I know i already showed you the white ichigo in previous post, but i forgot to show you that it comes in individual plastic case like this! |
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| Nothing beats Indonesian coffees for me, but these are pretty good! Imma make them my daily coffee again in our upcoming trip *happy* |
Now let me share with you this modest ramen shop nearby our hotel which i believe serves the best ramen in the world! Now i even feel like we need to go back to Kamata just for this ramen! FYI we went back to this ramen shop twice within 3 days because it's just too darn good!
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| The interior, eh.. hello Lily! |
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| LOLOLOL at hunny's hair! |
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| Best ramen in the world! FYI the portion is HUGE, there's just no way in hell that i (who can eat like a horse) can finish this by myself so we split it |
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| He's seriously hilarious. We miss your ramen, Mr. Ramen! |
In our last night in Japan, we overcompensate with buying every food that we wanted to try (or re-try hahaha) because who knows when's the next time we're having authentic Japanese food in Japan right (actually it turns out to be much faster than we thought *LOL*). So we went back to the ramen shop, and then we still went to :
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| Mister Donut for some fuwa fuwa donuts |
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| Turns out i forgot to take a pic of the donut themselves. Pfffft. Look at the KYUTE Rilakumma jar |
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| Then we still da baos some curries |
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| Which we had last at our hotel. It was YUM, so yum that i couldn't stop eating it even though i felt like my tum almost burst already |
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| And we had sushi too (yes, all that in one night WTF) |
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| It's a random neighborhood sushi shop in Kamata (which is a suburb) and the locals stared at us (who are obviously gaijins) and they looked amused when we took pictures of everything we eat. Btw, i have a Japanese friend who told me that Indonesian is a lot more narcissistic and attached to our phone (and social media-obsessed) than Japanese so maybe they don't snap pic of every single food they have like we do >.< |
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| Everything was super fresh and yummy. I'm a HUGE authentic sushi lover (i hate all those fusion bullshit T.T) so i was in heavennn |
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| Unagi that melts in your mouth... FYI, i don't even usually eat unagi! |
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| OMG the tobikoooo, so overflowing! The ratio between tobiko and rice is the total opposite with Indonesia's. Btw, i love tobiko like crazy but i noticed lately whenever i have tobiko in Indonesia, i am left with itchy mouth afterwards. This didn't happen in Japan tho |
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| This was Ok and Silv's, look super scary to me >.<, is that raw egg yolk... |
Lily had a Shirako sushi (it's basically is errr... Cod fish's sperm sushi :D), she was chewing for the longest time and when i asked her how it tasted she could only answered "Creamy" LOL. She swore it's yummy tho (she told me this latter on, when we met up again in Jakarta), dunno... Might give it a try in the future. Or not. I am simply not an adventurous person when it comes to food.
Oh well, imma stop this food porn galore now before i feel even more hangry! Will be blogging about Yokohama next, stay tuned!
#Pink
1 comments
Itu kari jepangnya ngingetin sama menu kari AW hehe
ReplyDeleteWah barangnya lucu2 ya, surga buat cewek yg suka pernak pernik kyk gtu :D