We were able to swing taking only one train for 30 min to reach Shibuya. It should be mentioned here that after last nights fiasco of searching high and low for food it was decided that we would try something new. Kyle could make all decisions on places to eat for the day!
Upon our arrival we found ourselves being herded into a very large mall (9 floors). Usually there are a few floors dedicated to restaurants or at least floors that are half made up of restaurants. After a failed attempt to make it to the right floor, an elevator ride, and another escalator climb we were on the right track. As we were making our way up to the 7th floor for restaurants we realized that we were in a very chic mall, for women. When we finally did reach the right floor we walked around a bit as none of the restaurants would be opening until 11 am.
**I am not sure if we have mentioned this yet but every single restaurant here has displays or at least signs of what they serve. This typically consists of several plastic models of the dishes they serve or picture displays of some sort. These also display the price of the items. This makes it very easy to choose whether or not you would like to eat at certain restaurants. The best part is that there is no pressure, you can stand there and look as long as you want and you are not being awkward or intrusive in anyway.
We have both been craving a good burger so the goal of the day was to locate one. The cheeseburgers here are much different than what we have come to expect from home. Portions are much smaller here and the preparation and fixins are very...unique. After perusing all of the displays we found a restaurant that we found agreeable even though it was a little more than we would like to pay. As we were waiting for the restaurant to open I was looking through my notes and found that we were in the wrong place. If we stayed in line we were going to missing out on a golden opportunity!
What was our quest?
After finding our way out of the mall we found ourselves slightly lost due to lack of English on the maps we located. By comparing three different maps that we had in our possession we were able to start heading the right way. After a short period we started coming upon these horrible atrocities that people like to call "hills". We were definitely getting a full lower body work out as we made the walk to our destination. After much complaining about the lumpiness of the place we found what we thought to be the correct building.
We easily found an English floor guide (map) and made our way to the correct floor. Or so we thought. When we stepped off of the escalator we stepped into some sort of cooking class in full swing. There did not seem to be any way around it and very quickly a polite young woman came running, literally running, towards us to help. She could see that we were definitely lost. We attempted to explain what we were looking for by pointing to the English description of the restaurant. She tried as hard as she could but I do not think she understood every word so she again literally ran off and found a colleague. They both ran back and the new young lady spoke fairly fluent English and gave us great directions.
Even though we entered the correct building and went straight up, we wound up in another building somehow. With our excellent instructions we found our final destination in no time:
The Resident Evil Restaurant
Japan has an interesting tradition of creating these type of themed restaurants with the foreknowledge that they will be short lived. This restaurant opened in July of this year and will only be open for a year. We had to check it out! We were very worried about getting in because we had heard that you have to make special reservations because there is a show. They will also let you in to order a-la-carte sans the show however so that was what we were hoping for.
As we walked up we noticed that there was not a line and there were not very many people around. We were pretty excited because we figured that we may actually have a chance! When we walked in the hostess, wearing a button up shirt tied at the bottom, short shorts, and combat boots greeted us with an enthusiastic salute. She showed us what our menu options were to make sure that we wanted to eat there and we gave her our enthusiastic nods in return. Upon our acceptance she called for the waitress who rushed out wearing the same attire to give us our salute before leading us into the seating area.
When we entered we realized that we were only one of less than a handful of people there. We got a nice table and were able to take photos of the decor at liberty:
The menu contained all Resident Evil (known as Bio Hazard in the rest of the world) themed items. We choose a yummy dish of rice and steak with beer.
**They do not have diet coke here...or diet anything for that matter. It is either Coke, Coke Zero, Juice, or Flavored Water. We came to this recognition at this restaurant as they did not have Coke Zero and we did not want Pomegranate Ginger ale or Aloe and Grape flavored drink.
As we were sitting there only one other couple came up bringing us up to a whopping 5! Guess Thursdays at 11:30am aren't the biggest crowd times. When we first sat down we thought it was funny that the music diverged so much from what we thought the atmosphere should be. This is especially since the music was so old and mostly terrible. It was a raging party with all of the hits of the late 80's such as:
Chrissy had a sudden moment of clarity when she realized that on of the songs was not by N'Sync or the Backstreet Boys but in fact it was from the New Kids on the Block. Oh Japan...
**You are done eating, now what? Only one time since we have been here have we been brought a check. Whenever you are done eating you just stand up and the waitress or waiter comes over, every yells "Arigato Gozaimasu". You are then brought to the counter where the cashier tallies or is provided with the details of your meal.
Well, we were done eating but Kyle wanted to see if it was okay for us to take the coasters and the place-mats because they were super cool. Our waitress was no where to be found however so we just sort of sat there until we saw here again. When we saw her we stood up and she came over. We got her approval to swipe the goodies from the table and we asked where to pay. She looked surprised and informed us that it is "Show Time". HECK YES!!!!!! We get to see the show! Having some idea of what to expect based on what we have seen of other dinner shows here we were very excited. We were not disappointed!
We were waiting with bated breath when the only male waiter went over to the wall across from us and started flipping switches to get the show started. The Tyrant (the big guy behind the glass) started getting all uppity and ready to break out. Our awesome hostess, our waitress, and the waiter were now all heavily armed with very realistic weapons! They were able to shoot at the tyrant with their cap guns and get it to chill, at which point we all got high fives from all of them!!!! The tyrant suddenly started getting all beastly again. They tried to battle it but apparently really needed some additional estrogen to help so they grabbed Chrissy and the only other female in the restaurant and had them hold the guns and shoot at the tyrant. They defeated it and everyone got another round of high fives!
The best part was the victory dance provided by the staff to the Spice Girls current mega hit, "Spice Up Your Life"!!!!!!
Wow, not sure how that could have been topped. After the show we were all smiles as we headed out. We got salutes from the whole staff and found our way back out into the city.
Coming up in part 2: an Olympic Park and a creeper shopping trip!
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