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Japan Day 2: Tokyo & Travel to Saga

Searching for breakfast

After constant rain since our arrival, we were happy to wake up to more of a drizzle this morning. Coffee & breakfast was our mission before catching an afternoon train to the South Island of Kyushu.

Unfortunately, our mission turned out to be a bit more complicated than expected. For whatever reason, many breakfast places in the Ginza area of Tokyo do not open until 1100. With a 1230 train, we didn’t feel like we would be able to squeeze in a sit down restaurant, so we ended up getting a bunch of snacks from 7/11 instead.

I will say, the 7/11’s and Lawson’s here have lots of grocery-store level food with clear labels that we translated using Google Translate Lens. If you’re looking for an ingredients list, they are usually in the top row of the box of writing, so you can zoom in on that with your camera to make it easier to read.

Here’s a list of places that did NOT have gf/veg options:

• Starbucks Reserve Store (Ginza Marronnier-dori street)
• Cafe & Deli Ginza SOLEIL+

We did find one place that was promising and open before 11, but unfortunately there was a 1-hour wait list, so it didn’t work out for us. However, it looked really tasty, so if you’re in the neighborhood, I’d recommend checking out bills Ginza, an Australian restaurant.

Coffee

Though not a one-stop excursion, we had better luck with coffee. We started off at Glitch, a recommendation from an American we ran into the day prior. Unfortunately for us, there was a massive line outside the shop that was time-prohibitive. But if that’s any indication of the quality of the coffee, it must be excellent!

While wandering around looking for breakfast, we came across Teron Coffee & Bar Ginza, which was a wonderful experience (review pending). There is certainly no shortage of excellent coffee in Japan!

Ultimately, we planned to try a place that advertised gluten free ramen at the train station. Our plans were foiled by a mile-long lineup that was preclusive to us catching our train. So, we found a mediocre stand up sushi bar, in a desperate act compromised our vegetarian nature for fish, and went on to catch our train.

Shinkansen

If you know me, you probably know that I am a huge train geek – and this train is sure one to geek out about. Using electricity to propel an aerodynamic set of cars at speeds of up to 300 km/h, we soared through southern Japan, from Tokyo to Hakata on the South Island of Kyushu. In a rush to get tickets, we got the “green car” thinking that was some sort of environment preserving fee, but was in fact a first class ticket in a car with fewer passengers, extra leg room, and heated seats that recline farther back than they probably should. I spent most of the 5-hour train ride looking up high speed train facts and staring at the Japanese countryside. The cherry-blossom scattered hills and nearby ocean were a delight to take in the entire ride.

Canal City

For dinner in Hakata, we followed some Google recommendations to Canal City, a massive mall with a combination of outdoor fountains and indoor cavities among retail shops. Though the mall itself was an excellent experience, we had a bit of an unusual experience for dinner at Ramen Hidechan (review pending). They do have two gluten free options – cabbage soup and tofu noodle soup. We ordered one of each. Though somehow, lost in translation, we ended up with “gnarly” broth that we later discovered was pork-fat laden. After an unintentional affirmation of our choice to be vegetarian, we ended our meals and proceeded to try to find something to cleanse our palate.

100% Gluten Free Churros

We were absolutely delighted to find a gluten free churro shop on the main floor of Canal City. Danny’s Churros (review pending) offers 5 flavours of churros that can be made into custom arrangements and powdered in colours of choice. They are all made fresh to order and wrapped individually for a special touch. We opted to go for the mini set of 5 to try all the flavours, which were all excellent!

If you are celiac in Hakata, definitely stop by this 100% GF facility to treat yourself to the rare find of GF churros.

After we finished our dessert and cleansed our palates from the accidental pork ingestion with heavenly churros, we made our way back to the train station to complete our trip with a 1-hour train to Saga. We made it to our lovely hotel The New Otani without difficulty, and slept almost immediately.