I’m going to try combining the highlights and the Instagram round-up for a given day into one post and see if that makes it easier to get caught up on this blogging thing!

So, here are some of the things we did on Friday, followed by the photos I posted that day:

• First of all, sleeping in the Caravan Tokyo was a little odd. It was quiet, despite being in the middle of the city, but it was so tiny it felt like we could barely turn around without tripping over each other. It’s an interesting experience, but I don’t think I could do it for more than 2 nights.
• In the morning we went to Dominique Ansel Bakery again, so we could try the June flavor of cronut – Passion Fruit with Lavender Ganache and Lemon Sugar.
• We went to the Nezu Museum. I knew it was a design museum and somehow I expected it to include more contemporary items than there turned out to be. There were several small exhibits, and some of them were really interesting (I especially loved the tea ceremony stuff). But the best feature of this place was definitely the garden. Beautiful and serene.
• We had lunch at a place called Muji Cafe & Meal. I love that Muji has restaurants here, even though they got a little confused by our order and basically didn’t give Jason any food (though, they also didn’t charge him for it).
• Then we went to Kabuki-Za, which is heralded as being the biggest kabuki theater in Japan. But I think it’s also one of the very few left. The show goes for an entire day, but you can buy same-day tickets for a single act, which lasts about 45 minutes. These seats are way, way in the back, but that was fine. It gave us a chance to experience a little bit of this type of performance, and 45 minutes was plenty for a show where we couldn’t understand what anyone was saying (there was some fantastic choreography, however).
• We then did some shopping – went to a huge 5-story toy store, got a snack at Mister Donut, and went to the world’s largest UNIQLO (12 floors!!). Then we had dinner at a nearby tonkatsu place.
• At about 8:30 we went back to Commune 246, where our Caravan is located. It was pretty lively, it being a Friday night and everything. There was a DJ, all the food stands were still serving, and tons of people there talking and drinking. I was curious to see if it was really going to shut down at 10. It went full blast right up until 10:00, then the music stopped, many of the lights went out and most people cleared out within 10 minutes. By 10:20, the only people left were the ones cleaning up the place. It was pretty impressive.

Walking tally: Fitbit says I walked 19k steps today, which is a little over 8 miles. That’s a total of over 61 miles of walking for the trip so far.

Here are the photos I posted to Instagram that day:

Commune 246 loves Portland

Ikura rice ball for breakfast!

At Dominique Ansel Bakery

Jasmine Flower Cake

Passion Fruit Cronuts

In Nezu Museum garden

In Nezu Museum garden

It’s a delivery company!

Melon soda at Muji Cafe

Fashionable Buddha outside A Bathing Ape store

Pon de Ring at Mister Donut

An artist’s rendition of Mickey Mouse at UNIQLO Ginza

And there are a lot more photos from this day in this set on flickr (with photos from June 1st & 2nd also).