Tokyo Trip 2 : Day 4 & 5

Tokyo trip 2

Sat 02.November - Sun.17.November.2019

DAY 4 Wednesday, 06. November

We spent the whole day in Odaiba, the artificial island that connects to central Tokyo by the famous landmark Rainbow Bridge. Odaiba was one of the places I really wanted to visit on our first trip, but which we ultimately had to skip unfortunately. We planned our days a bit better this time and Odaiba was definitely a place we wouldn't skip for a second time!

We had to switch trains halfway there, and of course, it took us two tries to find the right station that would take us directly to Odaiba. It took about 30-40 minutes to get to Odaiba from Asakusabashi, where our hotel was. The fun thing is, the train track makes a loop above the water just before connecting to the Rainbow Bridge. 

There are several shopping malls on the island, but we only visited two; the Decks and Venus Fort. The Decks mall was right in front of us, where we got off the train, so it was a natural choice to go there. We visited the Daiso, a 100 yen shop there, and on our way out, we briefly sat down close to a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop. From where we were sitting, we could see the poster of their menu. We were talking about the different flavors we saw there, and perhaps I was pointing at the menu when all of a sudden one of the clerks from Baskin Robbins walked up to us and offered us a free sample (a spoon sized bite) of an ice cream that was new to their menu. After that, we really didn't have much of a choice, we had to buy some ice cream from there! I bought us both a cone each and I unfortunately forgot to write down what flavor I picked! All I remember that it was really good and colorful!

After the ice cream break, we went to the beach. The day was beautiful and sunny, perfect for a day at the beach! Although we didn't spend that long time there. I did waddle in water for a little while, even if the water temperature wasn't exactly warm anymore. I'm on a beach in November, there's no way I wasn't going to dip my feet in the ocean!

For this day, I had dragged along my bigger camera, while I otherwise just relied on my phone to take pictures. While we were still at the beach, I photographed some birds, which is another weird(?) hobby of mine.

We walked along the beach, until we saw the Statue of Liberty replica and headed in that direction. Naturally, there was a crowd around the statue, everybody wanting to take a picture, and of course I joined the party.

Our next destination was DiverCity Tokyo Plaza, while walking there we passed the distinctly looking Fuji TV Building. I think there's a One Piece café there and an observation deck, if I don't remember all wrong.

The main attraction on Odaiba for me to see was the life-sized RX-0 Unicorn Gundam robot statue, which is at the plaza in front of the DiverCity mall. Obviously, it was a very popular place. There's a giant robot standing there, how can you not take any pictures of it?! I'll admit, I have never watched an episode of a Gundam anime (any of them) in my entire life, but I still recognize the awesomeness of a 19.7 metres tall robot right in front of me.

Behind the statue was a small Trailer shop, I didn't take a look inside, but I did buy a miniature version of the statue from a Gachapon machine right outside the shop. Slightly opposite from the trailer was the official Gundam Cafe that also included a gift shop. I did check out the shop, and was tempted to buy  some of the items, but I ultimately didn't buy anything.

From the plaza we continued on to the Venus Fort shopping mall. I don't know what back entrance we took, but we ended up in an exhibition hall for old cars and the whole area  was decorated to look as old as the cars. I'm no car enthusiast, but I can't complain, it was free!

We found a new 100 yen shop, Seria,we hadn't encountered before. Visiting Seria turned out to be quite fun, because I found a few products with Finnish words printed on them. And a flower pattern that was strikingly similar to Marimekko's Unikko pattern. Hmm.

To my pleasant surprise, we also found a wonderfully weird Village Vanguard shop. I'm not sure if it's classified as a book store, but they do have a very varied  selection of goods, like other than books and comics. They had a quite a good selection of merchandise for western series too!

I also paid a visit to the Kiddy Land toy store. The shop was rather small and had a disappointingly small selection. I was about to leave without buying anything, until I saw some Star Wars stuff in a bargain bin. I gave them my money.

We went into a Family Mart convenience store to buy us some snacks, I tried some fish shaped pastry with vanilla custard filling. It was good! It was about time we call it a day and were considering getting back to Asakusabashi. But! We couldn't possibly leave Odaiba before rounding back to DiverCity plaza to witness the "awakening" of the Gundam statue!

The statue lights up and makes sounds, while a projection of Gundam anime clips shows up on the wall behind it and a Gundam theme song plays in the background. Wouldn't you know it, there were a lot more people gathered around the statue now. Everyone pointing their camera at the statue, myself included. Oh, what a magical moment that was.

This was definitely one of my favorite days in Tokyo. The weather was perfect and the views were beautiful and a lot of fun experiences!

DAY 5 Thursday, 07. November

We were going to Nakano Broadway! We should have been able to get straight to Nakano from our closest station without having to switch trains. However, one of the train tracks was out of commission today, because...... well, as the TV screen displaying information so discreetly put it; the train was out of use for today because they were cleaning human remains off the tracks! 

Wow. That's just horrible. Still, you have to appreciate the straight answer that leaves no doubt over why the train isn't moving. Macabre as it is.

..... So yeah, we had to make a switch between trains to get to Nakano.

We got there quite early, not all of the shops were even open yet. Me and mom went our separate ways after we decided a  time a couple hours from now when we would meet up again at the entrance. That way, we can both explore the place at our own pace.

The Broadway mall is so huge I can't even explore the whole place in one day. Therefore, I knew we would probably come back here some other day. So if I saw something that I liked, but was unsure if I wanted to spend my money on it. I'll just take note of the thing and the next time we'd return, if the thing was still there, I'd buy it. Unfortunately, that comes with a risk that somebody else buys it before I could, but that's life!

I admit, I may have gone a bit overboard with my Doujinshi buying spree on this trip. Something just "clicked" this time and I was able to find all the series I was looking for without having to ask for help. I feel so proud, yet so ashamed. ;D

I literally spent all my time at the Mandarake shop until it was time for me to go meet my mom at the entrance. We decide to take a break from the mall and went for a little sightseeing in the small streets around the mall. We came across this life-sized  Ashita no Joe statue outside this one ..... establishment (I have no idea what was inside).

I was really fun wandering the streets, finding all these unforeseen details. I can't explain it, I just thought the small streets were really photogenic. 

We eventually found the Life supermarket, this place had a little seating area where you could eat those lunch boxes they sell at the store. So that's what we did. After recharging some energy after a good meal, we went back to the Broadway mall for a little while longer. 

calm before the storm

When it came time for us to get back to our hotel, the train track "problem" had been fixed, so we were able to take a direct train to Asakusabashi. I don't know, maybe the "problem" from earlier had messed up people's schedules or something. The train was so packed full with people, by the time we got to our station we barely made it out the train in time. I know this is a regular occurrence in Japan, but I'm surprised how seldom we actually experienced it, like only twice during the whole trip.

 to be continued....

Tokyo Trip 2 : Day 2 & 3

Tokyo trip 2

Sat 02.November - Sun.17.November.2019

DAY 2 Monday, 04. November

Since we went to bed early the previous evening, naturally we also woke up early. We got up around 06.00 am. As I was eating my breakfast, I turned on the TV, and funny enough, found  the exact same program running I remember well from last year, the show about the train station cat. What a nice way to start off the day.

We decided for the first couple of days to stick to what we know, i.e. visiting places we already knew.  We wanted to go to one of our favorite places from our previous visit, Okachimachi. We headed out after breakfast and familirized ourselves with the surrounding area of the hotel. Then we discovered the road that would take us directly to Akihabara. While we were walking , I had to stop multiple times to photograph some "street art" stickers, just because I thought they were funny or really nicely drawn. I guess not everybody likes them, but I think they are neat. 

Since we were out so early, most of the streets were empty and no stores were open yet.  One store was open, though,the Don Quijote, and I believe it's open 24/7. We  went inside to look around. There was a long queue outside the store, my best guess is that they were waiting for some event in the AKB48 Theater or for the pachinko parlor to open. 

Inside Don Quijote, downstairs in the "lobby" area they had a lot of Gachapons. One machine that caught my interest was a custom Hanko making machine. To my understanding, a Hanko is a name stamp/seal the Japanese people use instead of handwritten signatures. At the moment it looked kind of a neat thing to have, so I bought one. The machine had an English language option so it was simple to use. You'd type in your name and then the machine would translate it into Japanese. A Hanko should always be with one's last name, but since my last name is very long and has the Swedish Å in it, I chose to use my first name, to keep it simple. There was a limited selection of fonts you could choose from. Lastly, you got to pick the material for the stamp. Depending on which material you chose determines the cost of the Hanko. I chose a nice pearlescent white. It took about 15 minutes for the machine to carve out the stamp. My Hanko stamp cost me 1000 yen, mainly because I didn't choose the cheapest material, but something from the mid-price range.

When we finally got inside the actual store, we didn't buy much because the day was still early, and I didn't want to get stuck carrying too much stuff for the rest of the day. We mainly just browsed and I took mental notes of things I might want to buy later. So all I bought this time was a box of our favorite kind of strawberry Mochi.

From Don Quijote, we walked along the main street until we got to Okachimachi. This was one of my favorite places because there are so many great stores close to each other. We spent the day almost exactly like our first time here. We went to Daiso, the 100 Yen shop, to our delight the store had expanded! The candy store from last year was gone, so now Daiso shared the whole top floor with the Cafe. My main great find from Daiso was a Gudetama themed case for my newly acquired Hanko stamp! Following Daiso, we went briefly into a Sega Game Station building, these places had usually a good selection of Gachapon machines. I got four capsules from here, Dragonball, Pokemon and some random cute animal figures.

Next up was Hobby Off, the store where they sell used toys and figures. I didn't buy as much as I did last year, but I did make some great finds. I bought a small lot of Moomin figures and of course I got a few Pokemon ones as well. From Hobby Off, we went to the Yamashiroya toy store, still as loud as ever. I mostly bought me some Pokemon and Moomin items. By the time I got out of the store it had already turned dark outside. Me and my mom had gone our separate ways, so when the time came to start heading back to the hotel, we couldn't find each other. I was waiting for her outside the shop while she was looking for me inside the store. I did try to call her a few times, but because the store is so loud she didn't hear the phone ring. Eventually, we almost crashed into each other at the store's entrance. 

We went by the Life supermarket before settling in for the evening at the hotel. On our first trip to Tokyo, I remember I was so disappointed that there was only one channel that would broadcast anime, and only on Tuesday evenings. I don't know, maybe this hotel had a different set of channels, because now, every evening I could always find a channel with anime or something else more interesting to watch than those weird talk shows/news. 

****

DAY 3 Tuesday, 05. November

Today was the day we were going to the Pokemon Cafe! Our reservation was at 01 pm, so we weren't in no rush. From our hotel we walked to our closest train station and went to Akihabara, where we switched to the Yamanote line which then took us to Tokyo central station. Couldn't help but notice the ads on the walls  for the new games Pokemon Sword & Shield.  Somehow, we managed to take the wrong exit again and emerged from the station at an unfamiliar place. We had taken the exit at the complete opposite side of where we wanted to be. We didn't want to go back into the station and possibly get lost again so instead we decided to just walk around the building. That took some time, because the station is huge, but we finally found a familiar place once we got around it.

On the square outside the station they had this..... thingy counting down the days the Tokyo Olympic games 2020. Well, looking back at it now, that unfortunately didn't happen. Thanks to Covid-19.

We spent our time in a nearby Tokyu Hands store, until it was time to start walking to the Pokemon Cafe. There were  far less people in line compared to our last visit. This time, we got seated close to a corner table. Once I flipped my paper placemat I was disappointed that I got Electrode, the one my mom got last year! By now the cafe had added the Gen 2 Pokemon to their selection, which means there are 256 Pokemon to choose from. What are the chances that we get the same Pokemon twice in a row? 

Since we both ordered drinks, we got to "play the game" and win free coasters. We had better luck with the coasters than the placemats. Mom got Scizor and I got Umbreon, both are very cool Pokemon, I couldn't have wished for anything better!

As for the drinks, mom got an Ice coffee that came with a Pikachu's tail shaped cookie and I got the Mew Marshmallow Drink. On their website the Mew drink is described like so; "cranberry yogurt drink with strawberry flavored marshmallows". Well, they got the yogurt part right. I wrote down in my journal " tastes like really watered down yogurt with plain marshmallows". So nope, I didn't live up to my expectations. Yes, the drink was cute to look at, but I wouldn't order it again just for the sake of it.

We both ordered the Pikachu plate as our main meal, and it was pretty good! I can't even  think of anything bad to say really! As for the desserts, I got the Slowpoke bowl of mess and mom got the Jigglypuff cheesecake.  Again, the website describes the Slowpoke also as a cheesecake, but I'm having a really hard time stretching my imagination that far.  If I were trying to describe it would be something more like "a soaked sponge cake resting on top of a puddle of slime". Okay, that sounds pretty bad. I guess the "slime" was some sort of jello.  I don't know, the texture of this dessert was just unappealing to me, but it tasted good I guess.

After a while, there was the short show with one of the mascots coming out to do their short routine of greeting people and posing for people to take pictures.

Before leaving the cafe, I took a look around the small shop and the new slightly changed decor, which now heavily included the new Pokemons from the games Sword & Shield that were coming out the following week.

After finishing up at the cafe we walked over to the Pokemon Center Tokyo DX store. Maybe I was just me, but I thought they had a better selection last year. Nevertheless, I of course didn't leave the store empty handed.

From the Pokemon store we walked back to Tokyo Station, where I spent my time roaming the character street, visiting the Jump and Moomin shop. I also paid a visit to the station's Pokemon store and was happy to find they had some plushies in stock the DX store didn't.

I lost the track of time for how long we were at the station, but from there we headed via  Akihabara straight to the hotel. Only briefly detouring to buy some Gachapons at the Akihabara station.

to be continued....