Travel Diary #2: Central Japan Day 2 (2/2)

Part 2 of Central Japan Day 2 continues at Sushi Yachiyo in Tokyo for DIY Sushi Making.

The restaurant itself is located at the basement. As we arrived, we were told by the chefs to wash our hands before making our own sushi. After washing our hands, we wore the hat, left-hand glove and apron and were ready to make our own sushi.

Hat, glove for our left hand and the apron. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

Sushi ingredients were prepared to make our own sushi.

5 different sushi have already been done by the sushi chef – unagi, sweet beancurd skin, prawn, scallop and cuttlefish (?). The other 5 have to be made by ourselves – salmon, salmon roe, egg, tuna and cucumber. I never treated that sushi making as easy because just by dipping our hands in water and taking a small serving of rice, I already knew my lunch was going to be ruined in my hands. The rice stuck all over my right hand! Damn it!

The sushi chef taught us one step at a time at making different kinds of sushi. Although I struggled at lot, I finished doing all 5 kinds of sushi.  The egg, salmon, tuna and salmon roe were the ones I believe I did the best whereas for the cucumber one, I thought I was going to do kappa maki but turned out to be temaki as the chef to roll the seaweed like a cone.

My DIY sushi! All looked great except for the Temaki. Despite that, the sushi chef and the waitress gave me good compliments about my sushi.

10 different types of sushi were not the only lunch for the day. There were salad with chicken karaage, noodles and green tea to complete the wonderful meal.

As we were eating our lunch, a certificate was given to each of us as completion of the DIY sushi making course. Does it mean that with the certificate, I can open up a sushi restaurant and become a sushi chef?

We continued our journey to Shinjuku, Tokyo for free and easy. We visited the Shinjuku JR station and underground shopping center. It’s like the shopping center in underground MRT but Shinjuku made me “WOW” as compared to Singapore. It was one of the largest and busiest station in Japan and with so many exits, it’s very easy for us to lose the way.

Inside the underground JR station, there is UNIQLO and outside there’s a directory but…

I thought UNIQLO only sells clothes. Since when did they start selling PCs, beauty products and electronics as well? As I look down the directory, I saw the word “BICQLO” instead of “UNIQLO”. I knew the logo of UNIQLO but I was tricked by the 1^st 2 letters. I thought it would be amazing to see UNIQLO has its own building.

[About BICQLO: BICQLO is a combination of BIC Camera and UNIQLO, selling both home appliances and fashion apparels in one big department store in Shinjuku. It is the only store in Japan as in other areas, you could only see it separately. BICQLO in Shinjuku has altogether 9 storeys and 4 basements. Apart from these 2 retailers, you could also visit GU (another fashion apparel aka UNIQLO’s sister) on the 7^th storey, futsal field at the top and many more.]

The entrance of BICQLO

We bought some at the pharmacy on the 1^st floor and clothes on the 2^nd floor (but they put it as the 1^st floor even though I climbed up the escalator). After shopping, we went back to the place where we were supposed to meet our tour guide and tour leader outside FamilyMart (Previously I thought it was Family Mart). While waiting, we bought drinks inside the Mart. This time, I tried something different. It was Salt & Lemon and it tasted so sour! At least, that drink helps to prevent heatstroke.

Salt & Lemon drink on the right.

We leave Shinjuku and moved on to stay at an onsen hotel named Fujinoboukaen Hotel where we can see Mount Fuji. We slept inside a tatami room for the first time.

The entrance of the hotel

Beautiful flowers outside the hotel

Tatami for the night

I changed into Yukata and wore the slippers for the onsen after checking in. I felt excited as it’s a great opportunity to experience onsen in Japan for the first time. Pictures of the onsen? Cameras aren’t allowed inside the onsen. Sorry! I could say the temperature of the onsen was around 45 degrees and I almost could not take it. 10 to 15 minutes inside the onsen is enough for a person.

Yukata as a replacement photo for the onsen

Slippers to enter the onsen

After the first onsen experience, we had our buffet dinner at the 9^th storey and a large sashimi fishing boat with 11 different types of sashimi were served on our table! It’s fresh and delicious!

Buffet dinner was not the end. At the 3^rd floor onsen area, there’s free ice cream for us to take which was initially supposed to be after our onsen but never mind. There were 4 different flavors – Mango, orange, grape and soda. As orange and grape were nowhere to be seen, we took mango and soda ice cream. Mine was the soda flavor.

Soda ice cream

Day 2 ended at the onsen hotel.

To be continued for Day 3.