A day in Nezu, Bunkyo, Tokyo

While in Tokyo, I frequented a cafe and made friends with a gal who works there. T. had spent a few years in Australia as an international student, so we had lots to chat about. In the second week of September, she had a few hard-earned days of vacation and was kind enough to spend one of those days introducing me to her hometown Nezu (根津).

On another note, I made it to the middle of September in my photo backlog. Will post about a quick and gastronomically satisfying trip to Taipei soon ^.^

Anyway, T. and I met up at Nezu Station and she suggested a kamameshi restaurant. I had zero objections as I love kamameshi. Turned out the place also serves yakitori. What's better than having one of your favorite foods? Why, it's having two of your favorite foods, of course! 

It was a pretty nice place and the food was tasty!

We ordered some tebasaki yakitori (wings on a stick!) to go with out kamameshi lunch set.

Then T. took me to a popular local taiyaki shop. We had that for dessert before heading over to Nezu Shrine, which I'll post in a separate post.

For the remainder of this post, I'll fast-forward to Amezaiku Yoshihara. Amezaiku is the Japanese art of crafting candies, with history dating back to the Heian period (794–1185). According to T., Amezaiku Yoshihara was the most expensive candy shop she'd ever been to in her whole life, and I had no idea why until we came inside.

No wonder these were expensive candies--they were made then and there by the owner himself! I was so absorbed in watching him make that beautiful white crane that I totally forgot to film him doing it. Still kicking myself for that! 

And yes, he made every single one of the items there in the store. Turned out this shop was rather famous, having been written up in the New York Times, Atlas Obscura, and various other news outlets. Here's another detailed article from Tofugu.

No, I didn't buy those animal-shaped candies, because I probably won't eat any of them and I wanted something I would eat. So I bought this small packet of hard taffy candy in assorted flavors instead. They were actually really yummy and I regret not buying more to bring home. Oh well, next time. And next time may be I'll buy an animal-shaped candy too.

Pretty flowers spotted in the same neighborhood.