{"id":12027,"date":"2026-11-11T05:50:49","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T13:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=12027"},"modified":"2026-11-11T06:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T14:18:20","slug":"japan-fall-2026-day-22-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=12027","title":{"rendered":"Japan Fall 2026: Day 22 (Tokyo)"},"content":{"rendered":"

My last full day in Tokyo! I knew I was meeting an old co-worker for dinner but I had no idea what to do with the rest of the day. First, however, is breakfast.<\/p>\n

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Then I decided to find the place that Koizumi Yakumo (nee Lafcadio Hearn) died. There\u2019s a small \u201cGreek” park nearby as well with placards and a bust but it was mostly populated by a couple of people who needed a place to smoke. Did I mention I had to make it through a seedier area of Shinjuku to get there?<\/p>\n

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Then it was off to Nogata, where some of my favorite YouTubers (TabiEats) live. They\u2019ve showed videos of their neighbohood and I wanted to see it live. Plus its a nice day and I had no idea what to do. It\u2019s a mile or so from Nakano station so I decided to walk it (and check all the Family Marts along the way for \u201cTokyo\u201d colored socks.)<\/p>\n

I got to the first of my pinned spots, a coffee shop on the edge of the shopping district near Nogata Station and I saw a guy with an \u201cOregon\u201d sweatshirt. Turns out he\u2019s from Vantucky and visiting!<\/p>\n

I kept wandering around, and the coffee shop I wanted to try with Hawaiian food was closed!) The second Family Mart I checked in the neighborhood had Tokyo colored socks! This is the about the eighth Family Mart (at least) I checked today and I figured I\u2019d never find them. I\u2019ve been to so many different Family Marts on this trip and struck out in Okayama, Yamaguchi, Hyogo, Toyama, and Niigata Prefectures. I just got Osaka and now Tokyo.<\/p>\n

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I went back to the first coffee shop on the edge of Nogata to have lunch and then it was back to the hotel room to stash the socks. I wasn\u2019t going to lose them (at least not today)! By the way, Coffeechrome is very good and the omurice was tasty. Check out the salad. Kale and lotus root!<\/p>\n

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I decided to get to Kichijoji a little early but honestly my feet are starting to feel like they want a break. I went to the romantic lake (ha). And also saw some unique sights.<\/p>\n

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And yeah, an LL Bean store! I checked it out because I just buy things from the catalog without seeing them in person. My closet is still full of LL Bean button-down shirts that I wore to work. I should’ve bought a canvas tote with customized Japanese stitching.<\/p>\n

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I also saw this sign for The Orginal Pancake House with lots of pictures of pasta outside. Then I looked in the window and the poster said \u201cPortland, Oregon, SW 25th\u201d or something like that. I don\u2019t remember the exact street on the poster but I\u2019m sure this is the store from SW Barbur. However, I did see a sweatshirt yesterday from the Portland Yachting Club and I\u2019m pretty sure PYC is the Portland Yacht Club so I figured it was a fake. Maybe it\u2019s the other Portland.<\/p>\n

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And the Shakey\u2019s in Omote-Sando is gone but I saw one in Kichijoji!<\/p>\n

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I spent about an hour in a coffee shop killing time until I met Suzuki-san at 6pm. He wanted tonkatsu! Well, I like tonkatsu enough to have it again. I also had a beef korokke (which I ate half of before I remembered to take a picture). He also got me that shrimp which was very tasty. This is a Katsukura in the Kichijoji Tokyu! The tonkatsu store we couldn\u2019t go to in Shinjuku because of remodelling is also a Katsukura. It was great.<\/p>\n

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After that we had \u201ccoffee\u201d (lemon squash for me, hot cocoa for Suzuki-san) and I got back at 10:19, later than my bedtime on most of my nights here. He doesn\u2019t get out much and we always enjoy reminiscing. He also told me that the new prime minister is the worst and is Japan\u2019s Trump. Yeesh. At least he told me the news station I watch online from Osaka is the left-leaning one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My last full day in Tokyo! I knew I was meeting an old co-worker for dinner but I had no idea what to do with the rest of the day. First, however, is breakfast. Then I decided to find the place that Koizumi Yakumo (nee Lafcadio Hearn) died. There\u2019s a small \u201cGreek” park nearby as well with placards and a bust but it was mostly populated by a couple of people who needed a place to smoke. Did I mention I had to make it through a seedier area of Shinjuku to get there? Then it was off to Nogata, where some of my favorite YouTubers (TabiEats) live. They\u2019ve showed … Continue reading Japan Fall 2026: Day 22 (Tokyo)<\/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-12027","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\/12027","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=12027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12029,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions\/12029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}