Japan 2019: Tokyo Tower, Starbucks Reserve Roastery, Sensoji Temple & Tokyo Skytree
DAY 3
Hey everyone we are back with another post! This is day 2 of my second trip to Japan. We have a jam packed second day - some things I’ve already experienced when I first when to Japan (if you go back to see my Japan 2018 posts) but we had to bring our mom to see these landmarks!
You might notice there was a day skipped - that was when typhoon Hagibis was expected to hit Japan, so we stayed inside the day to keep safe. Luckily from where we were, nothing really happened but unfortunately areas near the water were hit pretty hard..
But onto the adventure
TOKYO TOWER & ZOJOJI TEMPLE
It was such a gorgeous day outside - the skies were so bright and blue and the weather was amazing! First things first, we stopped by Zojoji Temple and Tokyo Tower early in the morning. I recommend you go to Zojoji Temple first because you’ll get to experience what might be your first temple and you’ll have great views of it with Tokyo Tower in the back. Also, Tokyo Tower is less than a 10 minute walk from this temple, so it’s a great way to hit 2 spots at once.
I’m not sure why my moms mentality is if you aren’t physically in the photo, then you can’t really prove to people that you were there… So I gave in and she tried to take a few photos of me (lol) - I don’t like taking photos of myself.
STARBUCKS RESERVE ROASTERY
From Tokyo Tower, we took the train for about an hour to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Meguro city. At this point, it was still early and they didn’t open until the afternoon because I think they happened to stock that day or something - can’t quite remember. We were hungry at this point because we still had a couple hours before it opened, so we stopped by a random cafe for some food.
Auxbacchanales was really close to the Starbucks so we just grabbed a few pastries to keep us from fainting as we waited for it to open you know (lol)? I wouldn’t say this place is anything special, quite pricey but expected for a cafe.
The unique thing about Starbucks Reserve Roasteries is that they sell specialty drinks that you can’t buy at regular Starbucks stores. They even serve alcoholic drinks on the 3rd floor - which I wanted to try but I ate and drank too many other things I didn’t have the stomach for it.
It was so cool seeing all these interesting machines. You saw beans being roasted in these giant barrels and coffee beans travelling across the store in see through tubes (which you can sort of see on the right side of the right image just above).
The citrus lavender sage tea was just alright, it wasn’t anything special. Not really citrus-y in my opinion and not overly floral from the lavender. Nice and refreshing though.
I’m going to stay off by saying the tiramisu was AMAZING. It was so creamy and decadent… sweet but strong espresso/coffee flavour to it. Paired really nicely with my cappuccino.
You’ll notice the cards they hand out with every drink - its just a bit of information about the blend of your drink.
Overall, 10/10 experience at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery. If you enjoy Starbucks and or good cafe food/drinks, I recommend you go here. But if you don’t, it’s a bit out of the way… so. But if you’ve been to one of these, please let me know your experience! If you’ve tried any of the alcoholic drinks, please let me know what you thought about them and what drink you recommend! I’d love to go back and try something if I ever get the chance to visit another.
ASAKUSA
This area in Asakusa is really well known: for tons of visitors, food and things to buy. I’d probably steer away from buying any souvenirs from here because they tend to be overpriced and you can probably purchase cheaper and or better things from other places.
Nakamise Dori
There is one main street with small streets branching off and smaller alleys/streets branching off of those - so there is definitely a lot of see in this area! A lot of these places unfortunately don’t have names to them and you can’t really find them on Google Maps and I didn’t vlog so I can’t personally show you where they are - sorry.
In a place with lots of street food, you can’t be afraid to try new foods - so walk around and try any food you find interesting! One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot eat and walk at the same time. You’ll notice that streets in Japan are really clean and that’s because if you don’t eat and walk 1) there won’t be any food that drops to the ground and 2) there aren’t any wrappers/garbage from the food either. Plus, I believe that Japanese people find it unmannerly to walk and eat (correct me if I’m wrong), so just stand and finish eating before you walk!
The minced beef patty is really well known, there is usually a really long line - it isn’t too expensive either. I would say it was just OK… it was kind of flavourless to me and had random large chunks of onions which I didn’t really like. I would be careful eating this though, it’s extremely hot.
The fried chicken on the right, which was from another stall, was good! Unlike the beef, this one was full of flavour and it was juicy. One strange thing I found about this chicken place is that you purchase it by the gram (i.e every 100 g is lets say $5).
Shrimp tempura & pork katsu bento box
You might know dango as the tri-coloured balls (that one honestly was better than this one) but this one is covered with a sweet salty soy sauce glaze. It might sound a little strange but it’s actually pretty tasty. This particular one wasn’t that great but the one I had in Osaka in Dotonbouri was really good! There are a few salty options but its mainly sweet, so I’m sure you’ll find a flavour you like.
Since I was still hungry, I decided to stop for something with a little more substance (lol). So I stopped by this bento stall and ordered the deep fried pork cutlet and shrimp tempura bento. I think this was about $15 and it was really filling. The pork itself is kind of dry but it same with a teriyaki sauce that you can use to drench that piece of pork. Filling but wasn’t anything special.
Sensoji Temple
If you’ve followed my journey from 2018, you’ll know I’ve been to Sensoji temple around this time of day too but this time not as late, so there was a lot more people there. I don’t have much to say here - you can find out your fortune, buy charms and bathe in the incense smoke they burn.
TOKYO SKYTREE
There is a lot of shopping to do at Tokyo Skytree, so you can easily spend a whole day there honestly. Though this would be my second time coming - again, so my mom gets a chance to see it - so we didn’t really do much. We walked around the shops a bit and looked at the tower from the bottom. I didn’t go up the tower this time either but I can just imagine the AMAZING night skyline.
Tokyo Skytree looks so tall from the bottom, it kind of looks curved, no?
We happened to see this strange cloud formation and the moon sort of looks like a rainbow - so I snapped a picture.
This wraps up day 3 of Japan 2019. There was a lot packed in one day. We tried to pack as much as we could, obviously we wanted to experience as much as we could while we were here. I hope you enjoyed following me, there is a lot more to come, so don’t you worry! Hope you’ll continue following along my journey. I’m curious to know what foods you tried in the Asakusa area that you would recommend or if there’s anything you would want to try - let me know! Thanks
-Thomas