Japan Day Fourteen – Art and Pancakes

We wanted to have a quieter beginning of our day, so we went to the Sompo Museum of Art in Shinjuku. Afterwards, we successfully navigated through Shinjuku Station to explore Takeshita Street.

The Magic North and Sunflowers

Sompo Museum opened as the world’s first high-rise art museum and is close to the Shinjuku Station. Admission was a modest ¥1,600 (~NZD$17) and allowed us to view the exhibition “the magic north”.

It was a wonderful experience and quiet start to our day. We learned a lot about turn of the 19th century Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish art, and there weren’t many people viewing the galleries at the time.

The Sompo Museum is also host of one of Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers. It was incredible being able to see this famous painting in real life. The photos just can’t do it justice.

An Aussie Experience

Now that we had the energy, we wanted to explore more. It has been on Chris’s list to try Japanese fluffy “soufflé” pancakes. Today was the day we were going to make this experience happen! The only thing was, we had to find the pancake parlour in Shinjuku station.

The thought of having to go through Shinjuku station after yesterday’s experience actually brought tears to our eyes. We weren’t prepared for the torment and after about 20 minutes of trying to find what side of the station we needed to be on, we decided that it may not have been the best decision.

After giving up on ever trying to find the parlour in the station, we reasoned that we should be able to find a soufflé pancake place near our next planned location, Takeshita Street.

Takeshita Street is part of Harajuku and is known for its youth culture. We didn’t see too many people dressed up around here but it was absolutely an experience! Moments before our marriage was going to end (through our hunger), we found a place that did soufflé pancakes – Bills.

This is where we were delighted by “Great Aussie Breakfast” and “Flat White” on the menu. How wonderful! After having the pancakes and a poke bowl, it wasn’t until we saw that there was Aesop in the bathroom that it dawned on us that this might be a true Australian cafe restaurant. Sure enough, it is!

After our lunch we walked around Takeshita Street and saw some amazing things:

• There was a cat on a guy’s shoulder. We were so excited, we didn’t get a photo but because of this, he let us pat his cute and fluffy shoulder buddy.
• There were so many animal cafes. In the short street we saw: cat cafes, otter cafes, miniature pig cafes, a cafe that had a variety of animals (hedgehogs, chinchillas, guinea pigs) and one that had a fox.
• There were a lot of vintage clothing stores, as Y2K fashion is very popular right now.

Another “rest day” that resulted in over 15,000 steps! the only thing left to do was to get some essentials from the Uniqlo Flagship in Ginza, then we can fly home and see our own fur babies.