January 3, 2024

The pattern continued of awaking to a hotel buffet breakfast. This one obviously had a distinctive Japanese flavor with Miso soup on the buffet and a new favorite – banana juice.

When traveling you remember all sorts of stuff you heard before….like the fact that Japanese have celebrate New Years for several days in the New Years Festival.

We decided to set off to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden but it was closed due to New Years. We walked over to the parks around the National Stadium but most of it was closed (construction and such). So just a set of strike outs.

We did find the happiest Sushi chef for lunch at Sushi Zanmai.

That evening we had some better luck checking out Shibuya.

We started at the scramble crossing and did it twice as we oriented ourselves. We saw the statue of Hachikō. We wandered some more and eventually found the Godzilla head that is attached to a hotel lobby.

We closed the night with a Ramen dinner. Lots of restaurants have lines here because they are small. This was no exception. However it was funny that once we got through the line outside, we were greeted with an inside line.

It was good and you ate in these little stalls. Turns out if you want the Ichiran experience you can order it for home.

To close the evening we ended up crossing two other less famous scramble crossings for about 5 crossings in one evening….a real success!