day 10 in tokyo: ramen street, character street and whiskey at tokyo station, teddy bear ice cream and afuri ramen

(Tokyo, Japan).  On our last full day in Tokyo, we had very little on our agenda.  The list was simple - (i) eat ramen at Rokurinsha - the famous dipping ramen joint located on Ramen Street in Tokyo Station, (ii) buy some Yamazaki Whiskey, (iii) get a cute teddy bear ice cream and Japanese Ice Ouca in Ebisu and (iv) meet up with an artist friend for happy hour.

After another breakfast in bed of rice balls (mmmm... I miss them dearly), I arranged - with the help of the concierge at the Westin Tokyo - to have our  larger pieces of luggage delivered to our next hotel in Kyoto.  I believe the service is called Takuhaibin - and is an amazingly convenient and reliable door to door service.   I'll write a more thorough blog about it next week but if you plan on taking the bullet train and don't want to have a ton of luggage with you, consider having your luggage delivered.   

Once the luggage was taken cared of, we took the subway to Tokyo Station - which is an immense maze of a station with hordes of people.  Although our main goals at the station were for ramen and whiskey, it was actually good that we were at the station a day before we were expecting to take the bullet train, just so we could sort of familiarize ourselves with the station.  (It turned out not to be necessary since our hotel was actually closer to the Shinagawa Station on the bullet train route.  Luckily our concierge told us not to travel all the way to Tokyo Station to catch the bullet train, but instead to catch it at the smaller and less crowded Shinagawa Station.  This lucky tip saved us an extra 40 minutes in travel and frustration!)

We followed the numerous signs to find Ramen Street, but we quickly got distracted by the amazing shops on Character Street.  Cuteness overload! I couldn't resist the adorable stickers and stationery.  Fortunately I'm a quick shopper and before long we found ourselves in line for ramen.  The restaurant wasn't even open yet for lunch but there was already a long line.  I tried to peer into the restaurant to see how many tables there were.  Answer - not that many.  By the time we were seated, we were starving - especially after getting a glimpse of the heaping bowls of noodles and sauce.  (See review here.)

I was so full at the end of the meal that my husband basically had to roll me out of there.  Only our next goal of whiskey kept me going.  I had read that there was a famous liquor store - Liquors Hasegawa - that had an amazing inventory of Japanese whiskey.  During our entire trip, we kept an eye out for our favorite - Yamazaki 18, but to no avail.  Everyone told us it was sold out.  We couldn't even find the Yamazaki 12, other than miniature bottles.  This liquor store was our last hope.

But alas, they also did not have the Yamazaki 18.  Apparently it was sold out in retail shops throughout Japan.  So sad....  But fortunately the shop did have a limited edition Yamazaki 25 so we had to get that.  The shop clerk also recommended another local whiskey maker - Mars - and we ended up with another limited edition bottle - the "Lucky Cat" which was inspired by the maker's cat.  While I'm glad Japanese whiskey is finally getting its well-deserved recognition, it's really annoying that I can't buy them as easily (or as cheaply) as before.

Victorious we returned to the hotel to rest and rub our bellies.  

Reinvigorated we met our artist friend at the Ebisu Beer Hall and had a great time talking and snacking on bar bites (fried chicken and grilled squid).  

But all that snacking did not keep me from wanting my teddy bear ice cream at Japanese Ice Ouca.  Look how cute it is!  How can anyone resist???

As if we didn't have enough ramen today, we had to try chicken ramen at Afuri for our last dinner in Tokyo.  Good, but I definitely still prefer tonkatsu ramen (Ippudo was awesome) or the dipping ramen at Rokurinsha.

On our last night in our hotel room - which had been our home for 9 nights - we sipped our whiskey nightcaps while we gazed upon the beautiful lights of Tokyo.  Westin Tokyo was so kind to us during our stay.  I was almost sad to leave.

Tomorrow - Kyoto!