The Fast and the Furious - Hung Over

As you can imagine, we were pretty hung over on Sunday. We started our day at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. We met up with Yukiko for coffee. It was rainy and it was getting late so, we decided to go to the famous temple in Asakusa, Senso-ji.

Senso-ji’s southern entrace has a huge gate with a gigantic red paper lantern. After you enter through the gate, the long walkway leading towards the temple is packed with colorful souvenir shops. Within the grounds of the temple, there’s a beautiful pagoda, a really big bronze incense pot and some statues and other buildings.

Asakusa is an old area of Tokyo with many old shops and restaurants. We walked around the back streets for an hour and stopped in a restaurant for some comfort food, sukiyaki. We hung out for a couple of hours eating and drinking saki and beer.

Afterwards, Yukiko took us to a famous bar called, Kamiya that has been around since 1880. They brew their own special alcohol called “denkibran” (electric brandy). It was really strong and felt warm in your chest for a long time after you sipped it.

I was still tired from the previous night, but Julian decided to pop out for a couple of drinks. He explored a lot of places and found this really cool area in Shinjuku called “Golden Gai” filled with a jumble of 200 dive bars each the size of my closet. I was really happy for him, because he often tells me that the one thing he misses is the dive bars of Phoenix. Yes, we are still pinning for the Mecca, Bikini, and Emerald Lounges. More about “Golden Gai” in a later blog.