Midweek Tokyo Vacation: Shibuya, Ramen Alley, Ueno

Day 3 of our mini-vacation!  We started off at The City Bakery.  We were a little earlier than the day before and ended up with an Egg Benedict each. Success!  It was a perfectly poached egg served on a whole, unsliced English muffin.  It was pretty delicious although the ham/bacon was a little thicker than I like on my perfect version of Egg Benedict but seriously, a minor quibble!

Next, we headed to Shibuya where SMS dropped off film and showed off various cool skyscrapers.  He wanted to take me to the Nikon showroom but it was closed for the Japanese holiday, which had been the day before.  National Foundation Day, Feb 11 for those who want to keep track.  

After Shibuya, we headed to Tokyo Station and went to Ramen Alley (Yaesu South Exit).  SMS' favorite is Honda, so we sat down and tucked into a delicious bowl of soup before heading to Ueno Station to the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum located in Ueno Park.

We saw the Neo-Impressionism Exhibit that was spectacular.  Seriously, it's one of my favorite art exhibitions I've seen.  It was really well-curated and the chronologic sequence and flow and evolution of the style was clearly conveyed.  I like Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, the later of whom had several works displayed from 1884-early 1900s and the progression into an early Fauvism was apparent. I would like to go back one more time before it closes but we'll see.  There's so much to do in Japan!

CW from Top Left: Shibuya, Reflecting Globe outside Museum, Arisugawa Park

After the museum, we headed back to Hiro-o to pick up the car so we could go back to the film shop and pick up SMS' epic Mt Fuji print.  Before we got into the car, we took a brief stroll in my favorite nearby park, Arisugawa.  Although it's currently not in its prettiest season, it was still very pleasant.

We picked up SMS's print (it is FANTASTIC!) and headed out to dinner.  We ended up going to Pizza & Pancake in Zushi after unsuccessfully trying to go to Cactus Burrito (it was closed).

And that was our trip!  It was so much fun and so wonderful to explore Tokyo with SMS.  We saw new neighborhoods and had so many new adventures together, it felt very epic!