Mokuyobi in Tokyo and OMG Omakase!

Thursday morning, Linda felt pretty good after perhaps overdoing it on Wednesday.  So, in the morning, we set out with 2 destinations in mind.  First up was Takeshita Street, known to be a kind of funky shopping street.  Two Metro trains and Google Maps got us there easily.  

At the Metro exit we walked by a popular donut shop but we passed on the donuts.

Takeshita Street was indeed funky.  There were many shops, most notably many crepe shops, capsule toy shops, and mini-pig cafes.

After walking the length of Takeshita Street, we were going to walk the 1.5K to our next destination, the Shibuya Scramble Crossing.  As we started walking, the wind picked up dramatically.  It was right in our faces.  A note on the winds - The Oceania Riviera was supposed to arrive in Tokyo this morning.  But, due to the forecast of high winds, they skipped the previous port and arrived in Tokyo last evening.  Anyway, due to the wind we did a quick adjustment and took a train to Shibuya.  That turned out to be a good thing because Linda was starting to feel achy.  The crossing has five crosswalks which all receive the walk sign at the same time.  So, it is a scramble.

After scrambling across, we walked a bit on one of the intersecting streets.

It was then lunch time and Linda needed to sit a bit so, believe it or not, we opted for a Starbucks that provided an overhead view of the scramble.

After that it was time to catch the Metro back to our hotel for a well-deserved rest.  Linda had done over three miles at that point.  And we did need to rest up for our omakase dinner!

Before going to dinner, we had wine in the executive lounge where we got a nice view of Mount Fuji as the sunset.

Then it was time to go to Sushi MIKAYO which is located in the basement of the Hilton building.  It was AMAZING!  The meal consisted of 25 courses that took 1-1/2 hours to complete.  Omakase, according to Google Translate, means 'leave it to us' and that's what you do - leave to the chef to prepare what he wants to prepare.  There was what you might consider normal fish - salmon, mackerel, oyster, squid, and tuna (although we had both lean tuna and fatty tuna).  And then there was the more exotic stuff - baby eels, baby squid, puffer fish, ice fish, abalone, sea urchin.  Linda was a champ and ate everything but the squid and oyster.  We had a young chef who was very precise in his preparation for each course.  It was interesting to watch him prepare the fish by first slicing pieces then carefully scoring each piece to make it easier to eat.  The flavors of every course were terrific.  Here's just a photo sampling of the experience.

And here she is eating the sea urchin - and she said it was delicious!

And, finally, it was time for dessert.

After maybe about course number ten, we were wondering how much more we could eat.  But, somehow, it was no problem making it to the end.  At the risk of repeating myself, it was an amazing experience and a great way to end our stay in Tokyo before getting on the ship.

Peace, blessing and omakase,

Linda and Larry