The bus going from the Jigokudani Monkey Park to Nagano station isn’t super frequent, so after getting my fill of monkey business, I had a little bit of time to kill.
Enter: Enza Cafe, a small restaurant that specializes in ramen near the beginning of the monkey trail.
Remember that old SNL sketch from the ’90s where Chris Kattan played Antonio Banderas as the host of a talk show? And every time he tried to unbutton his shirt, the members of his band would plead with him to stop, because he was too sexy? Well that’s how I feel about Tokyo at this point. It needs to stop, because it’s clearly too sexy.
Remember when I mentioned that the eel at Hashimoto was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten? Well, I’ve got another dish to add to that list.
Tokyo is a magical place.
I love ramen, but apparently the ramen back home is garbage, because the bowl I had at Hayashi in the Shibuya district of Toyko was life-changing. It’s almost implausible how good it was. Like, did that really happen? Did I dream it?
I had a hell of a time getting from Narita airport to my Airbnb in Tokyo. I’m not sure exactly where I went wrong — I had the stops for each of my transfers written down, and it all seemed straightforward enough. But somehow it went horribly awry, and I found myself staring at the almost comically complex criss-crossing lines of the Tokyo metro, wondering where I even was, or where I needed to go.