Cherry Blossoms & Bar-Hopping in one of Tokyo's Trendiest Neighborhoods

Spring has finally sprung in Tokyo. Tokyo has been in the cherry blossom mood for quite a while now, but due to some unforeseen bad weather, it's only this week that the cherry blossoms have finally blossomed. So today I'm going to be going on a hanami aka cherry blossom viewing and izakaya bar hopping tour led by an amazing local guide and friend of mine. Oh, before we go, don't forget to subscribe for more Japan adventures. Now let's go. To celebrate Japan's favorite season, ByFood is hosting its biggest campaign yet. Only from now until April 26, 2024, you can get 20% off any food experience on ByFood.com so you can save on your next Michelin meal or food tour. The code is BYFOOD20 and go get it right now. Don't miss out. Today I am in Kichijoji, which has long been ranked as one of the most desirable places to live in Tokyo as it's got nature, great food, second-hand shops for vintage shopping. And today I'm going to be shown around by a local tour guide friend of mine. He's right here. This is Alejandro. Nice to see you too. This is actually part two, kind of, of my joining a Kichijoji tour of yours because we did this a long time ago on our channel when we were first starting out and it was a lot of fun. We're going to do part two because my memories are a little hazy of that night. Is there going to be more drinking today as well? There definitely will, but I prepared some stuff for us tonight to help you with, you know, maybe the hangovers or not getting too drunk, whichever. Okay, okay. You'll see what I have in store for us. All right, I'm excited. I say first thing first is we go towards Inokashira Park because we're going to do a little special edition of the tour. Sounds good. Park drinking. I like it because you can do that in Japan. All right, let's go. Which way? That way. That way? Inokashira Park has some of the best cherry blossom views and I think it's more unique compared to, like, other parks in Tokyo. So you can look right here and you have such an amazing view to see. People just stand here, take pictures. It's also kind of cool with all the little swan boats because you can rent them out as well. I've heard there's a curse. Yes, there's an urban myth, an urban legend that if you go on it with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you guys will break up after. Yeah, this is a very common urban legend in Tokyo. So I think the key is to go on with a friend. I think that's okay. Parent-child should be fine. 100%. Supposedly, if you go here on a date, that will end badly for you. Yes. This is an amazing spot, actually. You can see the lake and all of the cherry blossoms. Oh, wow. Okay, so we'll sit here. Let's have a seat. And enjoy the blossoms. And then also, too, I got us a little anti-hangover drink. Oh, great. Usually, when we start the tour, I always like to have people try this little anti-hangover drink. Okay. So I brought one for you and one for me. Because we're going to be doing some heavy drinking today, I assume. Yes, we will. Okay. So these are it right here. Amazing. So this is yours. Thank you. I've had this one before, actually. It's a turmeric drink. This is another brand called Repalizé. Repalizé, okay. All right, so give it a little shake. Okay, shake it up. That way you get all the juices mixed and everything. Okay. And then we can open it up. All right, bottoms up. Kampai! Let's see how many times we say kampai today. Because I know we're going to be drinking. We're going to be doing a lot of drinking and a lot of kampai. All right, we'll see. We'll see. Count how many times we say it. Here we go. And I brought out some drinks to go along with that theme as well. Because hanami is essentially all about drinking alcohol while viewing the cherry blossom. Exactly. Good. Okay, so we have our... Let's try our drinks. Kampai! Here we go. So we're enjoying our drinks here. But I can't help but notice that they came out of this adorable and amazing LED bag that you have. What is this? So this bag is where... This is how people find me when I do the tours. So when I send out an email or I tell people, hey, I'll be wearing this bag, look for me. And you know, at night, later on, you'll see later how it's going to stick out more. It just glows. Yeah. And I have it set on different settings for like Shin Chan, Pokemon, Doraemon, everything. So I can change to different characters. Do you have any tips for people who want to come to Tokyo and get a good hanami experience? My first tip for sure is check the weather forecast along with the cherry blossom forecast. Ah, that's good. Because you can get a good idea of like how the weather is going to be. If it's going to be sunny, it's going to be rainy, cloudy, whichever. Because if it rains, you're not going to be able to do hanami. Once you see the weather, how everything is, if everything looks good, come very early to rent a spot out. So yes, you know, go find a place that you want to go to, especially if you're going to do hanami in Shibuya or Shinjuku, near those popular places, you know, be prepared. Like you got to go in either six, seven, eight in the morning. That early? Usually in those places. There are so many people with their tarps. So like this is basically hanami. You know, we're pretty familiar with it, but for everyone that doesn't know it back home, you know, you get your tarp, you sit down, you drink, you eat. Everyone's very friendly, you know, birds passing by. Lots of birds. But yeah, you just see everyone just hanging out, having some drinks, eating snacks, everything. Relaxing, playing games as well, apparently, in the modern way. Definitely. So this is a good way to just have hanami and have fun. Yeah, and even meet new people sometimes. People are really friendly, usually during hanami, so you can make friends. Also, like, another fun tip I like to tell people too is that an easy icebreaker, no matter where you go, just say kanpai. If that's the easiest icebreaker, just say kanpai. Everyone will just be like, oh yeah, let's do it. You know, kanpai. Nice! Arigatou gozaimasu! Arigatou gozaimasu, tanoshinde kudasai! Thank you! This looks kind of familiar. Yeah, actually, we came here last time. This is Harmonica Yokocho. You know, we were drinking here, but tonight we'll be going to other bars that we didn't get to go to last time. Awesome. There are actually over 100 bars in this area. This is, I want to show you the map of Harmonica Yokocho. This number means there are 105 different shops in this area. During the day, there's a bunch of other shops that are open until 5pm, but then after 5pm is when all the izakayas and bars open up. So do you know why exactly it's called Harmonica Yokocho? Because I always wondered. So according to the locals, what they've told me is if you look on the inside of this alleyway, it kind of looks like the inside of a harmonica lined up together. So our first stop will be right here. This is one of my favorite izakayas to go to. This is Tachinomi Irodori. This is so cute. I love the pink curtains. Very pinkish. And you're going to meet the owner right now. That's her favorite color. So let's check it out. Come on in. Welcome. So typically, whenever I take folks here to Harmonica, you have the menus like that right there. Okay. All in Japanese. No English at all. You need Google Translate or you have to know some basic Japanese. That's typically what a lot of these bars are going to be like here. But I have a custom menu that I made in English for us, for my tours only. These are like all my top drinks for this specific izakaya. For me, I think what you might like would be the sudachi sour. That's like one of mama's favorite drinks she likes to make here. Sudachi sour is really good. When I have a lot of male guests come to Japan, I always like to also have them try the denki brawn, which is like a blend of like whiskey, white wine, brandy kind of mixed together. Have it on the rocks. Very easy. Very sweet. I can order the denki brawn. You can order sudachi. Yeah. We can do it and we can trade. Okay. Sounds good. So sudachi, Japanese citrus lime. Right. So it's not as sour as limes and lemon. It has more of a sweeter taste to it. So they usually use shochu for the base for the drink. Okay. Yeah. And it has a little bit of soda as well. So put that all together and that's what makes it sour. Okay. So let's give it a try. And I don't know if you know in Japan, but there's no such thing as tipping here. But instead of tipping with money, you can actually buy the staff a drink and they could drink with you. It's kind of a way of showing your appreciation. That's awesome. Okay. That is so refreshing. Right. That's so good. It's sweet with just a little hint of that citrusy sourness, but it's not super, super sour. I would love to drink this in the summertime as well. Perfect summer drink. It's a good summer drink for sure. Thanks for introducing such great drinks and such a great little bar. I've been coming to Harmonica Yokocho for about eight, nine years. Oh, wow. The whole time since I've been here. Okay. But I've been coming here for the last two, two and a half years. Love how you get so close with all of the locals in the Yokocho. Everybody seems to know him. We're walking down, everybody's like, hi. That's so cool. She's a DJ. I met her a few times too. You did? I love this place. Thanks for the great recommendation. You're welcome. Well, we still got a couple more spots to go to. Can't wait. There you go. Can't wait to see what's next. All right. Well, cheers. All right. So where to next? Now we're going to go just around the corner right over here. There's another izakaya on the second floor. Oh, the second floor. It's actually kind of new. I cannot wait. Let's go take a look. Let's go. So let's go to the second floor. So you gotta go up the stairs. Oh, thank you. All right. Let's take a look. Oh, the interior is very not what I expected. So cool. Welcome, welcome. Hello. Nice to meet you. You speak English. What is your name? My name is Sho. This name is Kumobanare. And we just opened here last April. So the menu looks really good. This one stands out to me, the coffee shochu. But if you want something more unique, similar, the Okinawa is good too. Real name is Okinawa Sandomari. And what is Sandomari? It means three steps. The first step is this is the Okinawa shochu called Sampan. And the second step is the water. And one more step is the coffee. And we use this Nescafe. It's a real style of the Okinawa culture. A lot of people like this drink right here. The Kumogakure salad. Basically the way it's like a shiso mint leaf juice. It's a little bit sweeter. It's very refreshing. It's really easy to drink. A lot of people like the drink and that's their house special here. Okay, I'm gonna get the Kumogakure. And then maybe I'll try a sip of your Okinawa. Okay. This looks so good. Look at that color. Oh, that's like way more purple than I was expecting. I cannot wait to try this. I'll get my Okinawa. Okinawa. All right, let's bring this to our seats. And enjoy. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, well, let's try your drink. Kanpai! Yeah, cheers. Oh, that's good. It's not as strong as I thought it would be. Also, the shiso taste isn't as powerful as I thought it was. It's kind of subtle. And the one thing I like about shochu, that shochu, whenever you mix it with other like drink juices, whichever, it blends really well with the drink. You can't taste it as much as, say, like a vodka or tequila or anything like that. But you have, and it's like, you can't taste. So in a way, it's kind of dangerous. It is. If you have, if you drink too many of these, you will start feeling it after a while. It's good for people who don't like super sweet drinks. It's very easy to drink. Of course, there is one thing. If you want to make the drink stronger, there is a word where you can say to any bar you go to. And they'll actually be very impressed if you know this word. They'll be like, why do you know this? And the word is koime. Make it stronger. And they'll just do it like free of charge, just free. But request at your own risk. That's all I gotta say. Yes. But that's why we have those ukon hangover drinks. That's right. We're ready. We are ready. I'm ready for tomorrow. I can drink and I should be fine for tomorrow. Fingers crossed. Kanpai to that. Cheers to that. Kanpai. And this is the dim sum. It's called kumo shumai. And this is the shinjimushi. It's a dim sum too. What? I've never seen that one before. It's a meatball covered with rice. What? It's original dim sums. Oh, you try. All right. This looks amazing. Let's put the sauce on. Yep. This looks so good. Oh, I cannot wait to try both of these. This is honestly the biggest shumai I've ever seen in my life. Here we go. That really hits the spot. The perfect food to go with drinks. Exactly. This is so good. So I'm going to finish this up. But do we have another place to hit up next? We have one more place to go to. It's one of my favorite places to go for the tour. Okay. I cannot wait. Let's see what it is. See you guys at the next place. All right. So we are here at our last destination for the evening. This is a Hanbei. You might be familiar with it, but we were here last time. You're right. Yeah, we did. And the theme of Hanbei is a retro 50s themed Showa-style bar. Yes. All right. Let's go inside. Let's go. Here we are. I'm going to come on in. We're going to do a welcome to the blast from the past. Thank you. All right. It really is a blast from the past. I love this. Atmosphere here is so fun. Everybody's having such a fun time, clearly. And also, I just love the blast from the past artifacts that are everywhere. You can really just get a taste of history just sitting in this restaurant. There's a lot to see in this place. This is why I like coming here. So the way it works is basically it's a pre-set food order. Okay. But we also have an unlimited drink menu. What I include for the tour is unlimited alcohol drink here along with a full set food course. So good. I love unlimited drinking. Nomihodai in Japanese. Nomihodai. That's the word to know in Japan because there's a lot of all-you-can-drink options in izakayas in Japan. So this is also our special menu. It's a little bit updated from last time. Very cool. But you can also get nihonshu sake in a tea kettle or even beer in a tea kettle. The tea kettle is so creative. So maybe I'll try a matcha milk. Yeah, you can do that. And then I want to get a kettle of alcohol after that. I'll just get, I'll get the matcha oolong. Oh, matcha oolong. That's another matcha twist. All right. Let's matcha it up. The matcha milk, Star Wars milk. Okay. And this is my matcha oolong. It looks really mint green color. Let's kanpai. Cheers, kanpai. That's good. Good. We're going to drink a lot, so. We're drinking a lot today, clearly. But look at this. Oh my gosh. Loading up the table with alcohol. That's how you do it with Nomihodai. There you go. It smells amazing. The theme of this food is all 50 retro themes. So yeah, we're going to try a little bit of everything. And let's see how you like it. Love it. Yeah. All right. Let's try the butabara, the pork belly. Here we go. Very flavorful. There's a lot of salt. It's got this nice, like these little fatty bits on it, which gives a lot of flavor. It's kind of juicy, meaty. That's nice. It's a really good skewer. And next up, this is my favorite dish of them all. This is the chicken meatball, or we say sukune. And it has a little, it has a, it's dipped in their unique, like their own tare sauce. Let's try the sukune. That is really good. Yeah. I can see why that's your favorite. Definitely. All right. So what's about to happen next is, we just bought the staff some drinks here. Here, they do a little bit of a unique tradition. If you buy them a drink, they come, they kampai with you, and then they bang on the wall. And then it's their goal is to chug their drink in two seconds. You can buy one, two, three, however many drinks. We bought three drinks. Okay. Yeah. But it seems like there are other customers and guests that bought them drinks as well. So they're going to double up. They're going to double it up. Oh, wow. Okay. I cannot wait to see what's going to happen. Yoisa! That was so much fun. Thank you so much for the amazing tour, Alejandro. It's always a good time hanging out with you and just showing you the nightlife. If you guys want to join this tour, you can sign up in the links down below. And right now is the perfect time to do it because we actually have a very special deal for you guys where you get 20% off all experience bookings and restaurant reservations on buyfood.com. So make sure you do that and run, don't walk because this deal is only available until April 26th for the spring season. So anyway, I had so much fun today. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you. And if you guys enjoyed this video, make sure to give us a like, comment. What was your favorite place in this video today? And don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you guys very soon in another video. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye.