Western Tokyo Metro

Today was the day to brave Meiji Jingu and Ikebukuro. After a morning run that culminated in observing the morning service at Sensouji, which includes drumming, chanting, and more incense than anyone should inhale in a week, we hopped on the Yamanote line to the other side of town.

Tokyo is in full swing gearing up for the 2020 olympics. There is more building construction going on than we have ever seen. I remember the road construction in Ueno took the better part of 5 years to complete. It looks like they are adding train platforms, building huge new structures all over the city, and throwing a lot of manpower at it. There are already souvenir shops in all of the major shopping areas (Sumi has a T-shirt, of course). There is no way we will visit Tokyo next summer. You could not pay us enough to deal with that circus.

First up today was Meiji Jingu shrine. We love coming back here every year just to walk around, people watch, and see the shrine and whatever exhibit it currently has. One of their permanent exhibits is a collection of bonsai (not banzai! Go back and watch the original The Karate Kid), some over 300 years old.

Beautiful trees on a tiny scale

The grounds of Meiji are still under renovation, but the main area is open

After Meiji, we jumped back on the Yamanote and took it up to Ikebukuro so we could visit Sunshine City. Another of Sumi's favorite stores, Tokyu Hands, was first up. Nothing remarkable to mention about it, really, but someone had a neat idea

Numbered stairs

There are eight floors in Tokyu Hands. For those of us who prefer to climb stairs over elevators, some very smart person knew that stair counting is a thing, and helpfully numbered many of the stairs to assist us in our journey. Don't look at me like that, I *know* you've stair-counted too.

We took a look around the basement shops that house all the "cute" stuff, then went up to the main Pokémon store for a look around to feed Sumi's addiction.

Did you know the company numbers all of their Pokémon chronologically? I didn't. They have a promotion going on where they have small stuffed versions of the first 251 (yes, 251) Pokémon. At ¥1100 a pop, I am not wondering *if* but *how many* Pokémon otaku have "invested" $2761 in collecting all of them.

We somehow made it out of there without a single one. I consider that a win.

The last order of business was a visit to Yellow Submarine, one of the more complete board game stores in Tokyo. I picked up two Hisashi Hayashi games that are not available in the U.S., Sail to India, which has been out of print for years, and Shobai, a brand new game without an American publisher yet. With that, we headed back to Asakusa. Sumi took another trip to Sensouji while I worked on this here blog, then we walked over to Ichiran for one last hakata ramen meal

What makes ramen awesome? 3 cloves of garlic, 1 cup of green onions, and 2 Tbsp of hot chili sauce, that's what!

After that...flavorful meal, we needed to cleanse our palate and finish up the night with a light dessert.

Did I say light? I meant calorific

Check out the last few crepe options above. Tuna, pizza, lettuce, and cream cheese crepe? Who DOES that? How can that POSSIBLY sound like a good idea? The chocolate, banana, and custard crepe, however, was delicious.