Day 16

 Day 16 was exciting! I went back to Kappabashi to visit the fake food workshop. The store is adorned with tons of fake food available for purchase. Some of the items were even functional. The workshop started with a 9 minute tutorial video that explained to us process of making each piece of food. Until I watched the video, I didn't know that the replicas we'd be making were made out of wax. The video started with the shrimp tempura, continued to the vegetable tempura, and ended with a head of lettuce. At this point I've gotten excited cause the process looks fun. We went upstairs to the workshop area and were given aprons to put on. The was a table of shrimp, pumpkin, lotus root, pepper, mushroom, and sweet potato. We were instructed to grab a piece of shrimp and one vegetable. The wax was poured and manipulated into different shapes and density to create the texture on tempura and lettuce. We had our wax figures packaged and were told to keep them in our carryon bags and room temperature since they are fragile and sensitive to heat. When we got back to the hostel, we put down our bags and went to grab some food at the first ramen shop we visited in Japan. We ended up interviewing the owner and his wife and had a great time. After we headed to don quixote for last minute souvenirs. I hate the tax free bags since they take up so much space and he cashier gave me free toilet paper as a gift for my large purchase which confused me.