Tokyo: Return to Tokyo and Shibuya Food Tour
Final breakfast at Tensui Saryo
After another delicious breakfast, we checked out and boarded a taxi to Hakone-Yumoto Station (箱根湯本駅) 🗾. This station is on the Hakone Tozan Line (箱根登山鉄道線), which runs from Odawara to Gora, so we could have taken the train, but with the luggage, the taxi was a little easier.
The station is also the terminus for the Romancecar (ロマンスカー), Odakyu Electric Railway’s brand name for its limited express services operating between Tokyo and tourist destinations southwest of the city, including the mountain resorts of Hakone and Gotemba (near Mount Fuji), as well as coastal destinations including Odawara and Enoshima. Introduced in 1957 with the 3000 series SE trainset, the service set a world speed record of 145 kilometres per hour (90 mph) on a narrow-gauge railway. This achievement was influential to the design and creation of the country’s high-speed rail network, the Shinkansen.
The name comes from romance seats, two-person seats without separating armrests, when one-person seats were the norm. The train has large windows and provides a smooth ride with limited stops to Shinjuku Station (新宿駅) 🗾 in Tokyo.
From Shinjuku Station, we walked 4-5 blocks to the Keio Plaza Hotel (京王プラザホテル) 🗾, but we could not check in yet because it was too early. We left our luggage for safekeeping and went in search of a lunch option.
We found ourselves at Sangokuichi Shinjuku Nishiguchi (三国一 西口店) 🗾 for an Udon lunch: quite tasty. We did not want to have a really big lunch because a guided food tour through Shibuya was scheduled for the evening. We went back to the hotel, where we could now check in.
When we came to our room, we found a bellhop cart with our luggage already delivered in two “packages.” At first, we were a little puzzled, but we quickly discovered they contained the items we had sent with luggage forwarding from Hiroshima four days earlier. So, that service worked out well and saved us from having to worry about taking that to Hakone with us.
Food tour
After taking a nap at the hotel, my wife woke up feeling unwell, so she decided not to go on the food tour. It was just me and my son Max. This meant we had to find our way through nearby Shinjuku Station (新宿駅) 🗾 to take the Yamanote Line (JY) (山手線) for three stops to {% items ERROR=”Unknown item key ‘shinuya_station’ in ‘stations’” %}. There we met our tour’s guid at Hachikō Square.
Hachikō Square is named after an Akita dog by that name. Hachikō was an Akita dog in 1920s Tokyo, famous for his extraordinary loyalty. After his owner, Professor Ueno, died suddenly in 1925, Hachikō returned to Shibuya Station daily for nearly 10 years to wait for his return, becoming a national symbol of devotion and a beloved statue.
The food tour was supposed to be with two guides (Arigato Travel) and up to 8 people; due to late cancellations, we ended up being the only two they guided. One guide was from Israel, having lived in Japan for quite a few years and speaking Japanese quite well, the other was a young lady from an Eastern European country (I don’t remember which), with a little less experience.
We were taken to several places to eat different foods. Each time, some of the history and other details of the food or the location were given.
One place of particular note was Sushizanmai (すしざんまい 渋谷東急本店前店) 🗾. This chain is known for its owner, Kiyoshi Kimura, paying a record price for a giant bluefin tuna. He has done it more than once, as recently as paying a record US$3.24 million (¥510 million) for a single bluefin tuna (Hon Maguro) at Tokyo’s famed New Year fish auction, breaking his previous record of $2.1 million (¥333.6 million) in 2019.
We ended the tour at a store beneath Shibuya Station, where we sampled desserts. We said goodbye to our guides and headed back to Shinjuku Station on the subway. We stopped at a Lawson’s to buy some food for mom, and that was it for the day.