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Tokyo Day 3: What Luck! Two great eats in one day (pg 4)

Monday, April 21st, 2008

IMG_0407
Originally uploaded by silverlantern

After our adventure, we went to a legendary ramen place that was reputed by the internet to have the best ramen in the world, Taishoken on Higashi Ikebukuro in Asakusa. There is a rather interesting history regarding the store too if you care to google it.

Seems like the day was made for us to get lost. We saw the place initially, a little store with a red banner in front and a few people waiting in line to enter, when we got out of the station, but we turned and went down another street instead. After asking a worker working on the telephone pole, who pointed in the direction we came from did we realize our mistake. We returned, got in line and observed as the customer in front of us paid for his meal using the ticket machine. Then it was our turn, we faced the vending machine, it was all in Japanese and not a picture in sight. After standing there for a few minutes with the line growing ever longer behind us (to my surprise, everyone patiently waited without even giving us dirty looks, harass, or try to cut in front of us), eventually one of the cooks came out and started speaking in Chinese. Whew, a language I know. He told us what each of the items were and went back in. We quickly bought our tickets and then stood outside not knowing what to do next.

The store was packed, should we go in, or wait for someone to call us? I peeked in and the cook waved us in. We waited quietly lined up along the wall watching the eaters slurping their noodle away. Looks and smells so good. Turnover was exceptionally fast. Soon some tables cleared and we gave the cooks our ticket. We paired up and sat separately from the group, no matter, we were there to slurp and go. Within minutes, each of us had a huge piping hot bowl of awesome ramen. The noodle was fresh, the broth, outstanding. For days afterward, Jae and Di the ramen lovers still dreamt of it.

Sidebar: Knowing a few key phrases
I’ve often read that it’s good to know a few key phrases when traveling to a foreign country. That is true, but I find that knowing polite phrases like thank you and excuse me and important words like bathroom is much more useful than knowing ones like Where is x? or How to get there? Because, knowing how to ask doesn’t mean you will understand the answer.

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