Ya-pa-pa Ya-pa-pa: PART ONE

So today I finally took the plunge and went on my great quest for Okonomiyaki. I'll admit that dorkdom is behind my quest for it. Okonomiyaki is a dish I first heard about in the Anime "Ranma 1/2." One of the main characters, Ukyo, is an Okonomiyaki maker/martial artist. Her main weapon is a giant spatula. It's been in my mind for a few years now, and I figured since I know of it's existence I'd go check it out. As all good quests need a comrades, this was plotted with Abby the Evil. Plotting this was a bit more difficult than it should be, as there was an email delay, so we didn't know if we'd actually go at the same time. Anyways, on with the story.
Today's quest took us to Ebisu. I used the JR to get there again. Very cool that I'm getting to learn the JR system. The route I took can also be used to get to Shinjuku, Harajuka, Ikebukuro, and Akihabara. Neato. As you can guess, I got off the JR at Ebisu Station. This was actually a much more impressive station than a lot of the others. Ebisu is a very nice area, and the station reflect that fact. Inside the station, there was a groovy mall filled with way overpriced foodstuffs. I didn't take a picture, but there was a random bagel shop. I'll head back there next time. I waited around a half hour for Abby, then decided to go on my way to the Okonomiyaki restaurant. To get there, I went on a randomly placed moving sidewalk concourse known as the skywalk. This quickly took me from Ebisu station, the main destination, Yebisu Garden. I'll admit, I was rather impressed by Yebisu Garden Place. It was really well done, even by Tokyo standards, with some cool buildings. The place was a child of the neat beer industry of Japan. Yummo once again. I really liked the nice outdoor scene they had there. More on that later.
I went up into Yebisu Garden Tower to the 38th floor where the restaurant, Chibo, was located. From the 38th, there was an awesome view of the Tokyo Skyline! Suddenly, in silly Japanglish style speech, I heard a loud "Luck-ee!" And behold Abby appeared! Somehow we managed to locate each other! YAY! We took some time to admire the awesome view of the Tokyo skyline and then headed in for our Okonomiyaki lunch!

From the start, we knew things would be...interesting. At this restaurant, we were required to remove our shoes (which is always fun when you're wearing boots) and we were shown to our seats. Throughout the whole thing, they were playing the "oh, it's the gaijin" game with us. Poorly. Easily seen through, we could tell the difference in the service. But then, what can you do? Legally. At least the food, when it finally came, was delicious! Here are some pictures!


So yeah, yummy stuff. I'm going to cut this short as the internet is being bitchy right now. In the next episode, fun in in yebisu garden place, and shinjuku!