Day 14, the second last day of our Japan trip, we have scheduled for a visit to Fujiko F Fujio museum then Akihabara and lastly, the Michelin-starred eel restaurant in Bunkyo. Doraemon is a pretty well-known manga character we grew up with, and mostly everyone in Indonesia would know, right? Whether or not the younger generations these days aware of this awesome cartoon, I don’t know. Anyway, when I mentioned Doraemon to my friends who grew up in Sydney, they had no idea at all. Seriously, Doraemon rocks with his amazing pocket and all the futuristic gadgets! If you could have one item from Doraemon, what would that be? I would love the magic anywhere door that will take me literally anywhere I wish 🙂 What could be better than that, eh?
Day 14
The day started with a train ride to Mukogaoka-Yuen station and approximately 15 minutes walk to the museum which is located in Kawasaki area. Alternatively, you could get off at Noborito Station and take the shuttle bus which runs every 10 minutes for ¥210. Interesting fact at Mukogaoka-Yuen station: they play Doaremon theme song as trains about to close its doors.
We got to the museum before its opening time, in fact we were the first to arrive. The staffs directed us to wait in line outside the entrance door that they opened exactly on time. As we walked in, we exchanged our prepaid tickets with the audio guides. By the way, they do not sell entrance tickets on site – so the best way to get tickets would be through one of the Loppi machines at any Lawson stores; or, alternatively any online sources. The audio guides will give commentary to various items on the museum when you input the item numbers, this was super handy!
Because the museum is based on Fujiko F Fujio, you will find various art works of his apart from just Doraemon. On the first level, which unfortunately taking pictures is prohibited, displays many of his original art works. Also, the professor’s life story from being a kid until married with kids also on the display photos and explained through the audio guide.
On the next level, there is a manga corner, and playground for kids with large size of various figures of Fujiko’s works. There is also screen show which you can get in once only per visit. The outside park is beautiful with many characters of Fuji F Fuji’s creation. Generally, if you grew up with Doraemon and P-Man, this is such a nostalgic place. It brought you right back to your childhood adoring those characters 🙂
What we ate on Day 14
We bought some dorayaki from convenience stores for breakfast – again kicking myself for not taking any pictures of these.
At Fujiko F Fujio museum, we had these for lunch:
We also tried their dorayaki, these are filled with red bean paste. Honestly, we both love the convenience store version with butter and maple syrup filling.
For dinner, we went to Unagi Hashimoto – highly anticipated eel restaurant that hubby had wanted to come long before our trip. We just walked in here when we got there, they was just opened for dinner. Luckily we came early, otherwise we would not able to get a meal here at all without making a reservation ahead. The kind old lady told us in Japanese that we had around 45 minutes for the meal, because they were fully booked for the night starting 6 pm. At first, we thought she meant we should come back at 6 pm – I really wished we know Japanese a bit better in such situations 😀
Anyway, our dinner here was really good! I personally do not really fond of eel, but ones I had here did not have any fishiness, it was tasty and tender. The eel was flavoursome without being too salty or overpowering soy sauce taste, it just really well balanced meal. We highly recommend this restaurant for eel lovers!
And that was it for our Day 14.
Fujiko F Fujio Museum
2 Chome-8-1 Nagao, Tama Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture 214-0023, Japan
Phone: +81 570-055-245
Unagi Hashimoto
2 Chome-5-7 Suido, Bunkyō, Tokyo 112-0005, Japan