Skip to main content

Dinosaurs and a chain of restaurants


As Shinjuku gradually drifts into whatever passes for sleep in this ever partying town so must I. In sadness at leaving Japan.

Today was food, shopping and a dose of dinosaurs.

The hunt for breakfast was a frustrating one. Alex wanted the Vie De France bakery, but that lead us wandering both East and West Shinjuku and ending up eating burgers at First Kitchen.

We caught the Yamanote Line to Ueno's National Museum of Nature and Science. A special "Dinosaur Expo" of magnificent skeletons and fossil on display was our first destination.







The main part of the museum had an excellent display of the history of the universe and life on Earth from the Big Bang to civilisation. Meteorites to hominid skulls and satellites.



Unfortunately the rest of the museum really required a tablet with English translations that, in our round about entrance, we hadn't hired. Also, B and Alex were very hungry so we hurried through much of the rest of the museum.

There were interesting displays on mechanical computers, an old scanning television and a Mitsubishi Zero aircraft. You can also peer at a piece of comet dust from the Japanese probe to comet Itoigawa.









Ueno Park was rich and green now that the cherry trees had finished blossoming. Some youth played a game of baseball. One shot saw the ball get stuck in a tree.




We walked to Ameyoko Street in search of food. B insisted on a sushi bar, but none of us like the raw tuna. With Alex still hungry we found ourselves in Ringer Hut, a champo chain, eating gyoza.




Akihabara was next, to get model railway supplies from Yodobashi Akita. And a stop at Vie De France.

We had spotted a number of interesting stops along the Chuo Line. The kind of local places I wrote about.

We caught a train to Musashi-Koganei. There B went shopping at a Ito-Yokado, a low end department store. I was feeling very tired and quite ill. Fortunately, there was a place to sit.




In the surrounding area we found a small supermarket that had exactly what we were looking for: 80C jelly. It was dinner time and a couple of floors up was a Saizeriya, a cheap "Italian" family restaurant. I said we should try a family restaurant and here was a chance.

The servings were generous and the food nice. B and I actually had "hamburgers," which means the meat patty done Japanese style.




On the way back we stopped at Kichioji. I'd found a large Loft store there, but as we passed through the covered arcade we discovered a drug store selling Shiseido Kuruya body wash, very hard to find.



Loft was full of things we didn't need until we saw them. Bought lots of stationery for Alex and some Star Wars stuff.

Kichioji looked great. Must return one day.

Back in Shinjuku one last chain restaurant, Cafe Gusto, for dessert. Whenever we want dessert we can't find it. Every other time the displays are everywhere, tempting us.






And so we walked back through the late night crowds of Shinjuku, under the bright neon lights. So sad to be leaving.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It'

A selection of jams

We're home now. The last two days of our Brisbane trip involved a lot of driving but not always much movement. On Wednesday we arranged to met Sis and her family at Robina Town Centre, a massive shopping mall. That meant a drive down towards the Gold Coast along the same motorway we'd driven up along. What should have taken an hour took twice that due to the holiday traffic along the 3 and 4 lane road. Lots of people taking the turn-offs to three of the "Worlds" (Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Dreamworld).  The Town Centre hosts Artvo , a trick photography gallery where you use perspectives to make subjects look like they are part of the artwork. It was surprisingly fun, despite the aversion of we males to being the subjects of photos. Afterwards we had a long chat over lunch, which was sourced from a variety of eateries. I had roti and chicken curry from Roti and Buns . Passable, though the curry was more laksa like. We later took Sis to Daiso and she and her h