Today I had some business at Waseda University, so I headed over there. The area around Takadanobaba Station, in front of Waseda University, is famous as a place where countless well-known ramen shops compete with one another. I walked into the one that looked the least intimidating.
Saitamaya is a franchise branch of a ramen shop that’s famous in Saitama.
I ordered the 500-yen Hakata ramen.
The toppings are ordinary, but the broth is better than average. It’s the clean Nagahama ramen style.
The noodles are great too
Very tasty for 500 yen.
Pickled ginger
It’s called beni shoga.. This one wasn’t so great. It tastes kind of cheap.
Free extra noodles
Maybe because it’s right by a university and caters to students, you can add noodles or rice for free, so I chose extra noodles. It seems like they give you more than the noodles that were in the bowl to begin with. For 500 yen I ate really well and left stuffed.
Drained down to the last drop of broth
A satisfying meal. Ramen was originally food for ordinary people, but these days it feels like too many high-end ramen places have opened. Places like this have to stick around for ramen to stay popular. They say the shop’s mainstay is the 650-yen tsukemen, so I’ll have to give it a try next time.
Walking a little further after leaving, I spotted Ippudo, the famous Hakata tonkotsu ramen shop. It was packed full. This neighborhood is crammed with famous ramen shops, yet it had the most people of them all. It’s the same Hakata ramen, but I guess the creamy flavor suits young Tokyo palates better than the clean taste of the original Nagahama style.
Here are some spring flower photos I took while walking around.
They’ll be falling soon..
Vertical shots are really hard. Carrying a vertical grip around is a real pain, too. (You can’t even attach a vertical grip to my camera.) I take them now and then, but I rarely get a shot I’m happy with. I’ll have to crop them well later, at least.
Cherry blossoms blooming everywhere you look – that’s spring in Japan.
Even the cherry blossoms in the little neighborhood park are worth a look.
Lots of elderly folks were out for a stroll.
Once the cherry blossoms fall, it’ll soon be the season of fresh green leaves.
Flowers in the shopping street
When summer comes, I should shoot mostly portraits rather than flowers.
My heart is heavy, but spring still comes.
Going to a university neighborhood after a long time, I found college students really are young.. But I’m not envious. At that age all I did was study ^_^ If someone told me to go back, I absolutely wouldn’t.