I liked Haikan's ramen better than Toki, but both are decent. Music is slightly loud in toki and it may be hard to hear your wife but it's a fun vibe. Haikan is slightly better for a date imo if yall want to be able to take things at a relaxed pace. Haikan is also close to 930 club if yall wanna catch a show afterward. Both Haikan and Toki have really good cocktails!

Haikan and Daikaya are both owned by the same people right? Is Daikaya any better than Haikan? Im open to what yall think. Ps if you do Daikaya OP, they don't take reservations last time I checked. Their attached izakaya restaurant (upstairs) DOES take reservations and has other tasty goodies.

Making it at home could be a fun couples activity if nothing sparks your interest? c:

I'll be honest with you, my boyfriend is a Japanese man from LA that goes to Japan every few years... and his take on Toki / Haikan was "it scratches the itch but I'm not wowed". My friend that grew up here adores Haikan. YMMV.

I hate it but what I think I hate even more is when your college friends become influencers and try to sell stuff to you 🤮

The only social media thing I like right now is "defluencing" i.e the people that say "x, y, and z are overhyped and not worth your money"

Thirding this, I live in a C.C apartment (13 floors I think) and the only thing I hear is my neighbors closing their door to the hallway if I happen to be in my living room (about 8 ft from my door). Neighbors have never complained about my occasional need to do laundry in the early AM. I have never heard my neighbors talking nor their laundry machines. I might hear someone elses' shower from my shower in terms of water traveling through the pipes, but that's it (besides aforementioned door-closing).

Some leases explicitly state you should have high-traffic areas of your apartment's bare wood floor covered with rugs - those buildings may also be quieter.

P.S, older buildings may lack individual meters for apartments in which case your electricity bill could be based upon square footage. Those buildings can be frustrating if your management company decides to choose an expensive energy provider. So I do not recommend Crystal Place or any building owned by Equity Residential despite the quiet unless you're ready to spend 200$+ on electricity. Be aggressive with asking those buildings how utilities are calculated and don't repeat my mistake lol.

Definitely socks to echo other peoples' sentiment here.

Pre-paid phone minutes cards, because a fair number of people have phones but not necessarily a consistent plan.

Tooth brush, tooth paste, soap, deodorant, dry shampoo (will need to discern on your end if the gift bag is being given to someone with long hair or not), space blanket (the silver kind you unfold). If there are any grocery stores near you that you think those people would frequent, perhaps gift cards to that grocery store.

If you have a YMCA / gym near you (< 1 mile away) that sells one day passes that don't expire for a long time, perhaps you could buy some of those to give out and then people would have access to showers? That's something we could do for people in the midwest, not sure what the rules are like out here.

I have a massive phobia of rats / mice and will forever own cats (that receive regular rabies vaccines) for that reason

Not to be weird but can we come over?? This is cool AF

I moved here from Minneapolis and still miss it- have a lovely visit y'all ☺️