Went down to Calgary to visit family for the weekend and had a great time walking around Kensington and along the Bow River. The streets were packed with folks out enjoying the sun and clear skies on Saturday and Sunday. If I had known Beakerhead was on this weekend, I might have tried to purchase tickets to attend the science and art even on Saturday night at Prince's Island. As it turned out I went to a pretty good BBQ on Saturday evening, so no complaints.
I hadn't been down to Kensington for many months and visited a Japanese lifestyle store that opened on 10 Street recently. The shop is called nanao kimono and it has a little bit of everything you would want for Japanese furnishings, gifts, and other goods. They had some nice stationary, pottery, lunch boxes, furoshiki cloths you can make into handbags, and much more. Friendly staff and a nice shop made for a fun browsing and shopping experience. I bought a Godzilla mug with a Hokusai theme to it and we also picked up some ceramic plates and ramen bowls. Japanese culture seems to make inroads everywhere, especially for food. Nearby was the Ikemen ramen restaurant too that I've only visited once and I thought it was pretty good that time.
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| Not too far away was the decent Ikemen ramen restaurant. |
I play Pokemon Go too so walking up and down 10 Street and Kensington Road gives you lots of gyms and pokestops to hit. Walking along the river we visited the Peace Bridge which was full of people, and a small film crew doing some kind of skateboard shoot. People were out in force to enjoy the good weather. Lots of electric scooters too right now as they were just introduced to Calgary and Edmonton. I kind of wish that Edmonton had a nicer pathway system along the river that connected to a lively district, but that is a work in progress. The pathway and park down by the Peace Bridge were impressively finished.
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| Peace Bridge. A very cool bridge. |
There was a gym in the middle of the Peace Bridge where I lucked into a Mewtwo raid. I didn't catch a Shiny Mewtwo, but it was a fun raid battle with 12 other folks. I caught mine!
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| Mewtwo raid in the middle of the Peace Bridge. And yes, there were a fair number of Tauros around on Saturday. |
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| My Tyranitar takes a bite out of Mewtwo. |
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| View down the river from the bridge. The whole thing lights up really good at night. |
On Sunday, we went to eat at Tokyo Market, an crowd friendly izakaya over on Centre Street. It is in an old building that used to have a pharmacy and other shops that are long gone, but it is nice to see the building full of people eating and enjoying themselves. We went for lunch and it was fairly busy, picking up more customers as we ate. The ambience of the restaurant was neat, with lots of rustic woodwork -
like in an old Japanese diner - and the Japanese cultural decor was
really nifty. Tokyo Market has a system where you basically select the items you want to eat on a menu with a marker then take it to the cashier to order and pay. It works pretty good - kind of like a small restaurant in Japan where you order from a machine. There were lots of $5 and $6 plates of food to order and the quality was great for the price. We had yakitori, ramen, curry rice, takoyaki, and it was all pretty good. The ramen was fairly good, with the soup being fairly tasty, the noodles firm, and a good amount of topping for a $7 bowl. You can have your ramen here and your yakitori too without breaking the bank! I'd visit this place again without hesitation.
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| Menu - no oden available though. |
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| I like the decor and the giant sumo lounge sword. |
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| The restaurant has a whole wall of snacks you can buy from and some reasonably priced sushi to go. |
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| Three kinds of yakitori. Lamb, chicken, and pork belly. The lamb was really tasty, but our pork belly was a little dry. |
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| My Shoyu ramen with beef brisket and pork and egg. It was quite creamy for a shoyu, but tasted pretty good with the ingredients. I'm never going to complain about a $7 bowl of ramen - good taste at a good price. |
Afterwards, we hit up a Chinese supermarket. There is Lambda Grocery and 100 Tops market up by 16th Avenue, a few blocks north of Tokyo Market. Bought some Japanese sweets and some canned coffee there to enjoy later! All too soon, it was time to head back north to get to work on Monday.
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| Lots of canned coffee! |
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| Japanese chocolate variety pack. |
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| I picked up some plum candy and a coffee. |
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| One of the ramen bowls we bought at nanao kimono. |
That's all for now. Have a great day!
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