Ah…
There is nothing better than an echire croissant… these are the best. The small of butter in the area is divine!



Travel related posts
There is nothing better than an echire croissant… these are the best. The small of butter in the area is divine!



I just love Japanese style breakfast… thanks for finding this for today Kym!

Watching Japanese movies, TV and anime often there there shots of train crossings.. so on our ride to breakfast this was perfect timing…
… additionally if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like cycling through Yoyogi Park… here is the view from the cycle path..
While wandering the shops I saw this sign… ‘throwket’ seems to be the perfect spring/autumn accessory.
I do love you Japan. Apologies to the store for taking a photo when I should not have 🙇♀️

We met up with our Tokyo friends near Tsukiji station, and happened across the Analogue Market. It featured records, cassettes tapes (yes you read that right), and a variety of second hand products, from kitchen wares, fabric, children toys, handmade ceramics… and of course food vans. While they did look appealing as we had planned to eat sushi… we kept on walking.






We wandered around to the Tsukiji outside market until we found a sushi place which looked good. The old Tsukiji Market moved to Toyasu… but the outer market still remains and there are large number of people visiting to experience some of the best seafood in the world (okay I’m probably biased).








… then we went to a croissant place called Tony Bake, from Sapporo, but is only in Tokyo for 100 days. Luckily our friends son is a karate competitor with their son… so an order was placed in advance, as the shop is open until they sell out each day.
We took them to a park, grabbed a coffee from Blue Bottle (in Toyasu) and enjoyed in the nearest park… and yes it was damn good .. but I really didn’t expect it to be anything but good!






After wandering around their local shopping place… we decided to look at the view of Mt Fuji from the 36th floor of a hotel. The weather today was around 19 degrees… and windy.. but the view was fantastic! 🗻


Dinner was had at a local beef restaurant… where the beef is cooked in an oven at 400 degrees and placed on a hot plate. It comes delivered to the table with the paper around the plate, and they pour sauce over the top in front of you it sizzles, and you hold up a large napkin to stop it from getting you in the face. It was a great experience and very tasty.
Afterwards we all enjoyed a tasty dessert… and Kym and Gaku’s are the ones with the message on the plate with he cartoon characters- かわいい 😍






It really was a fabulous day, and great to spend it with our long time friends. We appreciated the time spent with us (our very bad Japanese) and we hope to see you again!
Walked 17,231 steps
It’s always good to have a plan B – especially as today it is Cultural Day in Japan, which is a public holiday and opening times vary.










We are now on the Romancercar train back to Tokyo.. we followed our friends lead and turned the seat around. It was worth it so we could have a view of Mt Fuji as we ate our bento. Everyone wants to see Mt Fuji!








When art expresses your feelings at the beginning of the holiday when you want to do it all… but start to talk about the next trip – and your on day one..

Saturday morning we met up with longtime Tokyo friends and headed to Hakone, which is just over 1.5 hours by train outside of Tokyo.
First challenge – getting from one side of Shinjuku train station to another… not the easiest station to navigate to get to the meeting spot. Unlike previous times it didn’t take too long and we were able to met up buy bento for the train and get to the platform to take photos of the Romancecar train.


The name comes from the arms rests being omitted in between the seats… which was radical at the time of creation back in 1957. The cars also have large windows enabling passengers great views of the scenery. The train offers a fabulous opportunity to sit back enjoy passing of greater Tokyo as you head to Hakone and eat bento!









