Day 39 (Mar 7) Part 1 - Yoyogi Park Food Festival

Location: Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan
Weather: 14 degrees + sunny
Author: Amy

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, Chris and I decided to go get our new keitais (mobile phones). We went to Softbank in Shibuya as they had English speaking staff. But I forgot to bring my passport so only Chrissie got her new phone. It turned out to be cheaper to get a contract rather than pre-paid. And if we both get Softbank phones, it is free for us to call each other from 1am to 9pm and also free to sms. Great huh? Plus, the phone is supposedly usable in Australia as well.

However, later that night, I saw another friend's keitai from Docomo and I really liked it! And he is on roughly the same plan so I am wondering if I should go for Docomo... We'll see...

Want to see Chrissie's new phone?

Chrissie's new phone

Interior of the phone

Very pretty screen. The phone also comes in gold, white and black

Japanese style! We're going to have to learn how to use these... Luckily the phone has an English menu.

We met up with a Chinese-Hawaiian friend and visited Yoyogi Park together. There was a food festival that weekend and stalls selling all types of food from all over Japan.

Lots of people there as you can see!

Chris and me. Ryan took the pic for us.

A yakitori stall. I'm wary of these cause Japanese love chicken liver/kidney and I always end up buying them by mistake

Yaki-manju (grilled and basted red bean bun)

Yaki-soba (still one of my alltime favourites)

Deep-fried squid. Very tender.

Beef croquette. A lot of potato, not that much meat.

Dango. A favourite Japanese snack.

A bbq fish stall

Soba yaki mochi

We checked out this stall which had a pretty long queue. It was selling awa-manju (Steamed bun with red bean filling and some sort of powdery flour dough on the outside).

Chris patiently waiting

Making the awa-manju. The wooden tray is then put on a steamer and the manjus are steamed.

The manjus come out steaming hot so they need to cool it down sufficiently to wrap it and sell it. Hence the long queue.

Kuri-manju. While waiting, Chris took the opportunity to sample some of the other manjus.

It was quite funny to see obasans and ojiisans crowding and pushing Chrissie around when the free samples were offered. She was seriously being jostled around while aunties and uncles reached around her to try the other manjus.

Another type of manju. The inside yellow bit is a bit like lotus paste

And finally!! The awa-manju!

Awa-manju. Red bean on the inside, powdery flour dough on the outside.

I still wanted to try other stuff so I tried soup gyoza. It was very hot and I burned my tongue. Would have been great on a really cold day but it was just nice that day.

Soup gyoza (meat dumpling)

Steamed bun

After Yoyogi Park, we parted ways with Ryan and met up with some other friends for dinner at a Korean restaurant. See Part 2!