Yet another delay in posting. I hate starting all my posts apologizing, so I'll just leave it there.
On to the goods!
As you may know, my budget is tight! I have to make one and stick to it and I've been pretty good at this since starting my new job. However, I got the last 10% of my pension refund and couldn't resist the urge to buy a few things I've been eying. I got some vegan t-shirts on Cafe Press, I got the new Anti-Flag and Goldfinger CD, some makeup from Arbonne, and crap loads of stuff from Vegan Essentials. All of this my mom, will be sending me shortly, except the tees. My golden week (a bunch of national holidays in a row) was looking to be me staying home and twiddling my thumbs. Then Sarah suggested we go up to Tokyo. I figured why not. I made a budget of 500$ roughly for the trip and I even came home with extra! We only stayed 3 days and we crashed at our friend Sayaka's apartment. The shinkansen is expensive, so we spent about 250 of the budget just on that.
First, Cutie Pi was playing at a big show just outside Tokyo with 17 other ska bands. We went to that and it was awesome. I got to talk to a few band friends I haven't seen recently. I also saw a few bands I've never seen before. I also saw some really shit bands. I HATE Japanese girl ska and listening to Yum!Yum!Orange made me want to off myself. I couldn't even listen to a whole song. I went back to the lobby to talk. After the show we went back to Sayaka's and had some awesome girl talk! Can't wait to do that again.
But the highlight of the trip and main reason for going was the vegan eats! Tokyo has so many vegan restaurants. We narrowed our list down to about 10 and headed up to Tokyo with the maps and figured we'd go from there. And while we did our vegan tour of Tokyo we'd get some shopping down in between.
First we went to Deva Deva Cafe in Kichijoji. We chose this restaurant because neither of us had been to this area of Tokyo before. On the way to the restaurant, we stopped at Natural Mart, which is a chain of health food stores. There was so much stuff to buy that wouldn't have fit in my suitcase.
Sarah's avocado burger.
Sarah's reaction to said burger.
Sayaka and I both got pizzas, I also had a sparkling lemonade. Both were awesome! The atmosphere was cool, the company was great, and the food was cruelty free...what more can you ask for?
Before chowing down. After lunch, on our way back to the station, we stopped by Lush and got some animal fat-free (and god knows what else) soap and shampoo!
And no trip to Tokyo is complete without a trip to the world's busiest crosswalk in Shibuya. We did a little shopping at an English book store and a few shoe shops, I unfortunately, didn't find anything that fancied me. Well, I found some shoes, but learned that 8.5 or (25.5 in Japan) is monstrously huge and how dare I expect stores to carrying or even make shoes for such an ogre. Then we took a break in Starbucks.
Then we tried to find Roots Tank, apparently a reggae themed veggie bar/restaurant. When we finally found it, it was not open. Lame! But no need to worry, we were in Shibuya and just went to the next place on our list and boy are we glad we did. It was called the Vegan Healing Cafe. The restaurant was tiny, maybe enough for 10 people, but it was so cool. There were a bunch of books on Veganism in both English and Japanese.
From the outside.
And my favorite feature! I wonder if they kick anyone out who walks in wearing fur. Now, you may be asking yourself, who the hell goes to a vegan restaurant wearing fur!?!? I have the answer: Japanese people! Vegetarianism, especially macrobiotics are much more a fashion trend or a 'diet' here not a lifestyle. I have been to vegan restaurants and witnessed large numbers of people with leather bags and fur lined boots. I want to punch each and every one of them for ruining my meal.
There was also a big sign with a simple explanation of veganism. This place was cool! It really made no apologies for being more than a diet restaurant and I really respect that.
The menu was a bit small, but so was the kitchen, so that's probably all it could handle. I got tempeh sausages with a peanut sauce. Very flavorful and delicious. I started eating before taking this picture. I was just too excited.
This time we all got dessert. It was tough pickings. Sarah and I got the chocolate almond cake with soyatoo topping and Sayaka got the Frosted cake. Man, these were so good! Chocolate and almonds together are an amazing combination.
As we were leaving we posed next to the Peta truck parked out front. Not because we like Peta (cuz we don't), but because Fur is Dead!
There was also some really cool graffiti outside the restaurant.
And that completes Days 1 and 2.