{"id":10846,"date":"2023-11-11T23:01:45","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T07:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10846"},"modified":"2023-11-12T03:21:20","modified_gmt":"2023-11-12T11:21:20","slug":"japan-2023-day-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=10846","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2023: Day 11 (updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATED not that anyone would notice.<\/p>\n

I might update this later, but it\u2019s mid-afternoon and I\u2019m chilling in the hotel room. It\u2019s cold and rainy and I\u2019ve done the main thing I wanted to do today: laundry. I also went to Toki, a restaurant I go to at least once a year. But first, I went around the corner to the fancy Hotel Vischio because my sister said they had a coffee shop, and they did! The coffee was strong and the breakfast set was tasty.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Lots of SE Asians there, or at least they sounded like SE Asians to me. After that, I went back to the hotel and grabbed my laundry bag and headed to the Laundry Robot Lab.<\/p>\n

Remember how I said I bought a massage gun and it worked wonders last night? Well, I\u2019m still a huge mess and it took quite some time to walk the 12 minutes to the laundry. It\u2019s worse today, I think, but I just know its kind of bad. But I made it.<\/p>\n

The laundromat was clean and there were tables with chairs where you could wait. I think this is a nicer neighborhood. Lots of people were coming in to use the dryer since it was a cold day and I guess rain was in the forecast. Carrot Weather failed me and it\u2019s rainier than they said. You know what makes it a Laundry Robot Lab? Just that there\u2019s a machine where you can pay with credit cards, Suica cards, etc. (It\u2019s the one at the end of the row of washers.) I watched one guy try card after card without much luck. It took him about five minutes to get it right. I didn\u2019t help because he was much younger than me and should know about these things much more than I do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

The taller washers were washer\/dryer combos and I used the one with the \u201cAttack\u201d detergent. I finally asked a woman what that meant and she just said it was a brand of laundry detergent, probably fancier than the industrial one in the rest of the washers. No one else came in to use the washers but all the dryers were in use. You can see the big dryer to the right of the picture. There were six more stacked dryers. You could use coins but no one did. You just use that blue machine and tell it which washer, washer\/dryer, or dryer you want to use and it does the rest.<\/p>\n

I made it back to the hotel about noon and they said they\u2019d already cleaned my room. I sat around for about an hour. Then I went looking for food. The lines were long again, but nothing like yesterday. The weather was much nicer earlier in the day yesterday. Somehow I decided it was time to get Famichicki and it was just a breaded cutlet. Tasted like real chicken and was better than one you\u2019d get from the freezer section in the US but it was still just a breaded piece of chicken.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I also got some karaage and all of it had to be microwaved because the heat lamps didn\u2019t do much. One salt flavored and two soy sauce flavored.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I also had a milk tea that was ridiculously sweet.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I handled this all with one hand while I took pictures with the other. I was also holding an umbrella. And everything was kind of slippery. How? Well, the Famichicki comes in a bag that you tear in the middle so you can hold just the bottom part without getting your hands greasy.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

And then it was time to get into the long line at Toki to get the same dessert I get every year. The past few times I\u2019ve gone Toki hasn\u2019t been that busy but this year there\u2019s lines. Good for them. And I got matcha shiratama as I do most years.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

And since I got two big checklist items taken care of and it\u2019s cold and rainy plus since my back hurts, I decided it was time to head back to my tiny hotel room to chill at least until dinner. And dinner might be Wendy\u2019s because for it\u2019s just around the block and for some reason it sounds good. But I might also take another run at Baqet as well. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the best news, I finally got ahold of a rolfer and I\u2019m seeing them tomorrow morning! Wish me luck!<\/p>\n

UPDATE (just dinner, really).<\/p>\n

I think two people read this blog and they should\u2019ve been asleep by the time I posted the first time, so I\u2019m not sure why I mention the update.<\/p>\n

Ah indecision. I thought I should go to the steamed veggie place because I ate like crap at lunchtime. Fried chicken and then wagashi is not a complete diet. And whatever horrors I\u2019m putting in my body at home seems to have way more fiber than what I\u2019m eating in Japan, if you catch my drift. But I noticed there was no line at Grill Ron. The last two days at lunch there\u2019s a huge line, and today I asked one of the people working there and they said it\u2019s was on a YouTube video. I kept walking to the steamed veggie place and I ended up back at Grill Ron. At this point all the chairs were taken so I was supposed to stand in line across the way.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

They give you a menu while you\u2019re waiting and take your order before you go in. There\u2019s only three four-tops (Japanese four tops which are pretty small), three two-tops, and three counter seats although I can\u2019t imagine three people could sit at the counter. The menu was pretty simple, several different sets of \u201cmixed fry\u201d and some other things I didn\u2019t really look at (like omurice). I got the \u201cC\u201d set with 100% beef hamburger. Came with some miso soup as well. The order came pretty soon after I sat down inside.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

It was pretty good. Everything was just a little better than expected. The shrimp was prefectly crispy, the burger was good, the cream crab croquette was tasty. Not spectacular, just exactly what you\u2019d want. I guess that and the small seating area are what causes the line. I\u2019d say try it if you can, and honestly if everyone just eats and goes the line moves pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

After that I just headed back to the hotel. I got some 7Eleven fizzy water and some more chocolate. Here\u2019s a picture of that.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

I like those chocolates because you can eat a few at a time. They\u2019re really tasty too. This year I\u2019ve been getting the almond with the puffed rice in the chocolate, which I\u2019ve never seen before. I often get them with just macadamia nuts. They\u2019re very tasty. The fizzy water is a cheaper version of WIlkinson which they don\u2019t seem to sell near this hotel. I think Wilkinson is better, but they\u2019re both better than LaCroix.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s it for the day. Here\u2019s hoping that the massage person can help me with my hip pain!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED not that anyone would notice. I might update this later, but it\u2019s mid-afternoon and I\u2019m chilling in the hotel room. It\u2019s cold and rainy and I\u2019ve done the main thing I wanted to do today: laundry. I also went to Toki, a restaurant I go to at least once a year. But first, I went around the corner to the fancy Hotel Vischio because my sister said they had a coffee shop, and they did! The coffee was strong and the breakfast set was tasty. Lots of SE Asians there, or at least they sounded like SE Asians to me. After that, I went back to the hotel and … Continue reading Japan 2023: Day 11 (updated)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10846"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10852,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10846\/revisions\/10852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}