I've written about some places we visited in our trip to Japan. Here is another one and I translated some words and phrases in Nihonggo from what I learned from my lessons in Duolingo 😀

We visited a lot of places in our recent trip to Tokyo. Before going back to our country, we dropped by Ameya Yokocho which means Candy Store Alley since candies were traditionally sold there. Our goal is to buy "pasalubong" in Tagalog or "Omiyage" (おみやげ) in Nihonggo to bring home to our friends and relatives. Omiyage means souvenir but this is a loose translation because we bought consumables like chocolates and cup noodles which are popular in Japan. From Gotanno station we alighted in Ueno station and walked a bit...or actually a lot. We usually walk a lot in Japan to take in the sights.

There are a lot of items you can buy here from food stuffs to vitamins like Collagen.

The narrow alley is very crowded and teeming with people. Amazingly, it's still pretty clean as usual in Tokyo.

Here you can find claw and gacha coin machines which are very popular in Japan. You can spend a lot of coins without noticing it.

We found some unique strawberries or "ichigo" (いちご). I haven't seen white and pink strawberries before.

There were a lot of dining options in the area but it's still too early for lunch so we opted for snacks. There were a lot of crepe varieties to choose from. We picked the one with strawberries.

We roamed around the area until lunch time then we walked in the direction of Akihabara which is famous for electronic products. In this case, it's not the destination but the journey that matters to us. We saw a lot of sights as we took the long walk from Ameya Yokocho to Akihabara.

Stairs leading to Ueno Park but we didn't go there that day.

Just as we crossed the street we realised it's already time for lunch so we took a detour and decided to try the famous Kobe beef. [ゆうめいな こうべうし]

When I saw the menu I realised we made a mistake. The prices were outrageous. [とても高いです!]

Thankfully, there was a cheaper option. We picked the set meal or teishoku [ていしょく].

Lunch is served. Itadakimasu! 🙏

Outside the restaurant is a nice view overlooking the street so I took some photos.

After lunch it was time to walk again. Akihabara, here come!

While walking, I saw some relics that seemed to still be operational in Japan, a payphone and a mailbox.

We saw some ladies in cosplay handing out leaflets. These are pretty common in Japan.

There are rows of gacha coin machines to the right where you can get your favorite collectibles.

Finally we reached Akihabara area but we did not buy anything from there.

After spending some time roaming around we took the train from Akihabara station to head home.

It was a long walk but due to the cold weather I did not sweat and didn't notice I was tired. It was only when we reached home that I felt my legs are killing me. It was a fun and enjoyable day even though I regretted the expensive lunch. 😅

Thank you very much, see you soon! [ありがとうございます, じゃあね!]