Considered one of the three most popular areas in Tokyo, the streets of Aoyama/Omotesando are lined with fashionable shops, cafes and hip beauty salons. There are plenty of restaurants as well, ranging from sushi joints to expensive French and Turkish eateries. Today, with the beautiful Akiko, a passionate vegeterian, I ventured to a classy macrobiotic restaurant called Hanada Rosso. Hanada Rosso has a policy which states: "Non-meat, non-milk, non-egg, non-chemical". Akiko and I both ordered the same dish -- the Tempe-Burger, in other words a tofu burger (1050 yen). Not only was it delicious, but it left me with a peculiar feeling of satisfaction after eating it -- a kind of purity, a sense of clarity, a macrobiotic high! I felt satisfied but not full at all. Perhaps it was because this food was spiritual food, free of harmful chemicals, lovingly prepared, with no bad dead animal karma to go along with it. Or perhaps it was because of the Korean Shizandra berry smart drug I had ingested just before the date, or maybe it was just because I was so glad to see Akiko again, after all our time apart!

Vegetarians visiting Japan often complain about the lack of vegetarian food available in the country. John Howley maintains a list of Japanese vegetarian restaurants on his website, including only 20 establishments for the Greater Tokyo area -- a city of 20 million people. So, that it is roughly one vegetarian restaurant for every million people. Despite its reputation for being a light meat-eating nation, there is usually a certain amount of meat mixed into every meal in Japan -- not as much as in the West, perhaps, but meat is present in almost every dish here. For vegetarians like my Akiko, this can make life a misery. However, there are vegetarian restaurants around, and if you are in Tokyo, I would recommend a visit to the Hanada Rosso. As well as a delicious range of main courses, the menu features organic beer and wine, soy shakes and organic coffee. The restaurant is located on the second floor of the Sleeve Building, 6-11-1 South Aoyama. The telephone number is 03-3406-1264.

Having enjoyed a memorable hour or two at Hanada Rosso, playing some personality quiz games together, it was time to hit the streets, and look at the surrounding attractions. We first hit the nearby Idee interior design shop, with its ample Scandinavian and European displays, where looking out the window, I caught sight of a particularly wierd building in the distance -- a strange organic octagonal green structure. Akiko announced it was the new Prada showroom, which has become famous for its innovative design. Although neither of us are brand label clones (far from it, in fact), we decided to make a beeline to the hivelike Prada showroom.

According to the records: In 1972, Yasuhiro Hamano launched the transformation of Aoyama into a world-class fashion zone, with Omotesando as the main axis. This was intended to rival Tokyo's other traditional shopping focus, the golden streets of Ginza. Since then, Tokyo's particular version of Milan's Via Montenapoleone has attracted a range of international brand names, with Prada being the latest addition. In my opinion it is not so much a showroom as a work of art. Designed by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the building rises from the street like a kaleidoscope, covered with bulbous windows. Once inside, those bulbous windows start to distort your senses, making it seem both very big and very small, both at the same time! In fact, "kaleidoscopic" is the best way to describe this building. Things always seem to shapeshift when you are inside it. While the outside is green crystal, the interior is a kind of stark white/pearl color which is both soft (in the carpet sense) and futuristic, reminiscent of a UFO. Strange, anemone-like TV sets hang from stalks from the ceilings, broadcasting visual rubbish. Stairs lead to deep-set lounge recesses, with windows affording views of nearby landmarks, such as Roppongi Hills. It is all very cool, and I couldn't resist snapping off some photos on my keitai phone, even though I was reprimanded for it. According to this architectural review: "the 6-storey high, 5-sided polyhedral Prada Aoyama with a pointed top stands out like a Krypton crystal that has just landed from outer space. The façade comprises of a diamond-shape grid filled with hundreds of glass panels in 4 different types. There is the usual flat and transparent glass, the etched glass for modesty in the changing rooms, bulging convex glass that seems to project the interior of the shop out onto the street and sucked-in concave glass that seemingly draws the passer-by on the street into the shop itself. Together, these modular elements which form a compact architectural universe that gives an unexpected and multidimensional shopping experience." This is definitely a place to check out, when you are in Tokyo.