Snack Review: まるでバナナパン

This bread has the "real taste" of banana, and it's almost like eating a banana only much better and less healthy! ^^ The outide is very smooth, as if it is coating with something the way melon bread is coated. Besides being smooth, the outside is very cute and cleaver with it's banana spots! And as you can see by the picture the inside is very soft, and formed in soft little layer. The texture is very pleasant, almost like you are eating a dessert of some kind. In the middle is the best part, cream! A very banana flavored cream lies in the center and adds more sweetness to the bread.
I am a big fan of anything banana flavored so I made a bee-line right to this when I saw it on the shelf at the conbini. I was definitely not disappointed by this bread (it's one of the best I've ever had), and I'm sure you will feel the same! Please try it if you can.

= Quick Facts =
Name: まるでバナナパン (banana pan)
Source: Lawson?
Amount: 1
Rating:★★★★★

Day 13 - Tokyo and Ikebukuro

Day 12 - Asakusa, Odaiba, Yokohama

Day 11 - Akihabara

Day 10 - Yokohama

Today we went to Yokohama, I was pretty excited to go back to Yokohama since that's where I live last year and as such it holds a special place in my heart despite the bad memories. We took the train from Shimbashi and it's about a 25 minute ride. It gets quite packed at peak hours so avoid them if you can, or grab a seat. When we arrived we quickly left the station via the west exit (I think), Yokohama station is the most busy, hectic station I have seen even during off hours. It's kinda a long hike from the station to Minato Mirai but we did it!

On the way to Minato Mirai we walked past stores and fields. Sadly we kinda took a long way around and we were both sweating in the heat and strong sun. We stopped at Sun Kus and I got a grape and calpis drink, it didn't help too much. We went the rest of the way to the Landmark Tower and Queen's Square, and stopped for a bit of looking around. I visited Passport and FrancFranc in the Landmark tower but didn't get anything, the shopping in the Landmark Tower is kinda richy. They had a pokemon store but I didn't feel confident enough to go in.

Arcade at Cosmoworld

We then made our way to World Porter's, passing on Queen's square this time. We walked through Cosmo World, it was fun seeing the rides and shops that hadn't changed. Of course I took a bunch of pics of the ferris wheel but me and Shouma didn't get on because I guess that's only for couples.

World Porter's just just across the bridge from Cosmoworld and the shopping is more middle to low end, thus my kind of shopping. I got a lucky bag from 3COiNs there, and it had some cute stuff in it. There were tons of cute girls clothing, but not any really cute bags. Shouma got a bracelet like the kind he lost with an ex at a love hotel. And then he looked around a sporting good shop until he got hungry. We were finally going to eat at the cake buffet today so we had to head back to the station and downtown Yokohama.

Ultraman overlooking visitors

The walk back to the station was kinda miserable as we were both tired of walking, sweaty and hungry. We stopped at the Queen's Square but since the ladie's room had a long line we kept going. Then we stopped at a bookstore with a Starbucks in it, ladie's room for me and coffee for Shouma. We decided to avoid the station so we walked around it, taking more time, but way less people. The Sweets Paradise cake buffet is in the Vivre building if you happen to be near by.

Inside Sweets Paradise

I heard of people having to wait 30 minutes or so to get in, but we got there around 2:40 and there wasn't a line, there were plenty of spare seats. We bought the tickets and had 60 minutes to eat all we could. Shouma didn't want to eat cake so he could eat salad, pasta, sandwiches, rice and curry. But really the cake is number one. There's a lot of different kinds of shortcakes, but also some chocolate cakes and cheese cakes. I ate as much as I could, way more then the Japanese ladies, but not as much as I though my American stomach could handle. One time when I was getting cake I knocked a pair of tongs onto another cake and there was much bowing as the staff handed the soiled tongs back to the kitchen. Such a small thing became a big embarrassment in Japan haha.

The cake line up.

Walking past Donki

I waited a bit for Shouma to smoke outside the Vivre building, having to eat at such a girly place full of girly food was a huge stress to him I guess. We were both still tired, and now bloated so we decided to head back to the hotel. I wish I could have spent some time in downtown Yokohama, it's pretty lively, but I spent the rest of my night being sick in the hotel haha.

Day 9 - Harajuku and Akihabara

Today was a day I wanted to get some shopping done! So I picked out some stores I wanted to visit in Harajuku, I had been wanting to go to the Daiso in Harajuku since I went to the one in Seattle. I also wanted to go to UNIQLO UT and buy some shirts. When we arrived in Harajuku the weather was a bit cloudy and there were not so many people as the weekend so it felt much more comfortable.


The basement of the Daiso Harajuku The first place we went to was the Daiso since that is near the beginning of Takeashita st. First thing you saw when you entered was a halloween display, but I couldn't find anything that was so special or something I couldn't get in America. There were also personal care items, phone straps/keychains and other misc sort of things. The second floor had all the cute character goods, partry goods, snacks and stationary. The third floor had house goods, crafts and organizational items. Then we went all the way back down to the basement where they have kitchen and bathroom goods. I got 3 towels, 2 phone straps, black q-tips, an onigiri bento, hime forks and hi-chew candy to name a few.

As we exited Daiso there was some light rain but nothing too heavy, we passed by the Marion and Angel Hearts crepe stands where everyone gets a crepe, but not me. j-j We then took a side road off of Takeshita street and made our way to UT. UT is pretty cool, they have 2 floors of men's shirts and 1 of ladies. They still had the big manga campaigne going on and I got a Lum shirt plus 2 others, and Shouma of course got a surfing shirt >< haha. We also went to the Northface store right next to UT, a favorite brand of Shouma's and he paid premium price for a small case.




Laforet having some sort of Avril exhibit

By the time we has exited the Northface store the rain had really started up, we turned the corner and walked down to the Kiddyland store, which was just as cute as I remember^A^ but with 1/3 the people which was wonderful. I felt like I could actually move this time. It's still rather small and cramped in there, but I went to every floor except the Snoopy floor and the baby/toddler toys floor. I bought an a green polka dot umbrella with a rabbit handle there for about 500Y. And I used it as soon as we left the store! hehe.

I had originally planned to try and get to the cake buffet today since I had already put it off, but as we passed a restaraunt Shouma exclaimed how he wish he could have sushi. I was like, well if you want to we can since I never had sushi in Japan before, and he was like no, you want the cake buffet we don't have to have kaiten sushi. So then I just said, hey I never had cake buffet but I never had kaiten sushi and it's something I had always wanted to do since last year.

And so we went in out of the rain and gloom. It had a nice comfy atmosphere and chefs preparing the sushi by hand, which was nice as I have heard some used forms or machines. Shouma put some green tea in my cup and I could add very hot water to it by a spigot coming out of the counter. There we lots of sushi going by as well as edamame, seaweed salad and desserts. I saw raw horse, but I thought best to avoid haha. Shouma picked out the sushi for us and I tried everything except the one with lots of mayo and veggies on top.

I tried this Uzura sushi and it nearly killed me, the natto didn't really bother me much, I would have liked to taste it by itself. But the raw quail egg taste just explodes in a bad way in your mouth. It's so salty and gooey its really quite wrong haha. I also tried squid and didn't care for the texture at all, or the taste much either. I ordered 3 desserts to get the taste out of my mouth and they were all very yummy hehe. The bill was about 3300Y.

After that we decided to head to Akihabara and skip Ginza, Shouma wanted to look at cameras again, but this time at Yodobashi.

Inside Yodobashi Camera

Just a few gashapon on the toy floor

Maids or cosplayers?

We exited Yodobashi from the wrong exit, we came in the entrance/exit that comes directly out of Akihabara station. So we went back towards Yodobashi and Shouma spotted something he really likes - Choco Cro crossiants. If you look really closely you can see their orange logo in the window, their shop is part of the Yodobashi building. We got 3 chocolate and 2 strawberry for 840Y and just as Shouma said they were some of the best sweets I ever had...

Day 8 - Shinagawa and Bic Camera

Last time I was in Japan I ate at TGI Fridays in Yokohama with Shouma. Being someone interested in america/american food he really liked Fridays and wanted to eat there again this time. I suggested we go back to the one in Yokohama but for personal reasons he didn't want to so we decided on the one in Shinagawa. I had never actually stayed in Shinagawa longer then it takes to transfer trains so I was looking forward to it. However our map pointed out besides restarants and the Shinagawa Prince complex there wasn't much to be done haha. Well we set out anyhow.

Shinagawa Station

When we arrived in Shinagawa Station we head left and walked all the way out of the station but couldn't see anything, and a map confirmed we went the wrong way haha. It seemed like there was a market of some sort going on down in the plaza below the exit but I didn't investigate. So we walked all the way back through the station and went out the right exit. All the restarants and hotels are across the street. We went to the Shinagawa prince hotel through this area of restarants and shops all around a plaza, it's hard to describe. I wanted to visit the sega arcade there and Shouma thought he knew where he was going but it just lead up past the theater, aquarium and into the residential backstreets.

Family Mart on a backstreet in Shinagawa

After our little tour of the neighborhood, which is always fun to see Japanese apartments and houses, we went back to where we started and decided just to find Fridays since we both were hungry at this point. Fridays is in a hotel next to the Shinagawa Prince. We went in and Shouma got an english menu because everyone thought he was a gaijin since he was with me. I noticed that same exact food in America cost atleast 200Y more here in Japan. The shotglass desserts were 480Y each, where as they are 2$ in America. I had a chicken quesadilla and Shouma had buffalo wings, a salad and steak with fries.

After ate we found the sega arcade and were quite disappointed, its very small! I wouldn't even call that an arcade it's just some games off to the side in a bowling alley. We played a racing game anyhow and Shouma gloated terribly when he beat me by literally one second. I wanted to bowl with Shouma but it was something like 20$ per game. And yeah I am poor. We left Shinagawa since there was nothing else there to do and we headed to Ginza.

Random plastic food display

Nice lights and fancy lady hehe

Shouma wanted to go back to the Bic Camera in Ginza to actually look at cameras. He decided a few months ago to be a photographer, but he had never actually owned a camera or knew what kinda of functions were good/important. So he spent a good long time looking at cameras, I wanted to excape and find some gashapon but he wanted me to explain which camera were good and bad. I like camera but I can't look that long! And then they ended not having any gashapon there (that I could find). After that we went back to the Imperial Palace grounds and lazed around some more.

At the Imperial Palace grounds I ate some ice cream out of a vending machince. First I tried vanilla ice cream inside some mochi rice. It's called mochi ice cream and that was pretty good as long as it didn't become too warm. The texture is better when its more cold. After I finished that one I went and bought a red bean ice cream monaka, and that was amazing for 150Y, I mean it really tasted good to me!

Ice cream vending machine at the Imperial Palace!