Day 1: Hello Tokyo!

Our flight takes about 13 hours and we arrived at Narita Airport Terminal 1 around mid afternoon.  Local temperature is above 32 degrees with high humidity. I felt the heat the first second stepped out of the aircraft.  After we picked up our luggage and went through customs, we went to the JR East Travel Service Center located in B1/F to purchase the Ne'x Package.  We boarded the next Narita Express train and headed to Shinjuku. 

At around 6:00 p.m., we arrived at Shinjuku and checked-in to the hotel.  After taking a short break, we walked over to Takashimaya (高島屋) around 7:00 p.m. to take a look at the food department.  We entered from the Tokyu Hands’ entrance and saw tons of people shopping there.  The volume of shoppers was abnormal at that time of the day since the closing hour was supposed to be 8:00 p.m.. This was explained later when I saw a sign that stated Tokyu Hands was having some sort of a big "Thank you Sale" and extended its hours of operation to 9:00 p.m. between Aug 25 to Aug 31.  We didn't bother squeezing ourselves inside but instead went straight down the escalators to get to the basement floor.

Takashimaya is a big department store; I first visited the supermarket located on one side of the floor, and then went to the other side which has all the cooked food counters. I saw the bakery, the ice cream counter, tempura bento stalls, beef bento stalls, Eel Bento stalls, various type of Sushi counters, Japanese dessert counters, French style dessert pastries, Japanese tea leaf counters, coffee beans counters, seafood crackers stalls and more. There are so many varieties that I can't remember them all.  I recall they all look so pretty and I suddenly had decision-making difficulties.  We finally brought a pack of fresh Daifuku-Mochi (大福餅) with lots of whole beans over the Mochi and a box of deep fried fresh scallops.  These are actually reserved later for snacks.  After saying the famous phrase: "I will be back!” we left Takashimaya.

We walked back to the Southern Terrance, which has a bridge connected to the 2nd floor of My Lord (小田急新宿ミロード), a 9-story building containing all types of small shops and restaurants.  We had dinner there at Ramen Santoka (山頭火) which is located on the 7th floor.  This restaurant’s specialty is Asahikawa Ramen from Hokkaido (北海道旭川拉麵).  This time, instead of ordering a soup ramen, I ordered the dipping style noodle (つけ麺).  Unlike ramen in soup, it used a thicker type of noodle served separately from a bowl of concentrated soup.  You need to dip the noodles into the soup as you eat them.  In general, the noodle are very chewy and the dipping soup has a very full and rich taste (may be a bit salty to some people).  However, it does get quite filling after eating half of the noodles and my desire to continue eating the rest disappeared.  Compared to another ramen restaurant, Ichiran (一蘭拉麵), when I visited Roppongi, I preferred Ichiran's soup ramen much more than Santoka.

つけ麺 from Ramen Santoka ((山頭火)

After dinner, we walked around My Lord and visited few shops there.  Originally I had planned to visit Lumine 1 which is located besides My Lord, but we really needed a good night sleep after a long flight, so we decided to head back to the hotel.  On our way back, we picked up few bottles of iced tea and egg custard dessert cups from Family Mart.  The taller bottle is a seasonal / limited edition and I loved it's strong taste.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in my local supermarket. The egg custard cup with a transparent cover tastes the best among other ones I brought.

 

Reference Link:
Takashimaya Shinjuku (高島屋)
Tokyu Hands Shinjuku
My Lord Shinjuku (小田急新宿ミロード)
Ramen Santoka (山頭火)