Tokyo trip 2
Sat 02.November - Sun.17.November.2019
DAY 6 Friday, 08. November
On this day we went to Ikebukuro, a part of Tokyo we completely skipped on our first trip over because we didn't have the time. Honestly though, we spent most of our time in the stores, so unfortunately we only saw very little of what Ikebukuro has to offer.
After arriving in Ikebukuro, the first thing we heard was a couple speaking Finnish right outside the station. Unexpected Finnish #1!
We went to the Sunshine City mall, and I lost track of how long we were there. While walking to the mall, we went past a Pachinko parlour and there was a picture of Gennosuke, from the anime Basilisk right there on the wall. I don't watch a lot of anime, but Basilisk is one of the few that I've seen, it's from 2005, so I guess it would be considered as an old series by now. IDK, I was just kind of surprised to see it there. This was the only time I encountered anything Basilisk anime on our vacations in Tokyo.
Finally at the mall, we just wandered around checking out what stores there were. We saw a tiny Sanrio shop, a smallish Disney store and the "Ehkä Söpö" fashion store. It's funny because the name is Finnish, "ehkä söpö" means "maybe cute" in English.
There was a tiny Moomin cafe in the mall and we were considering having a bite there, but we ended up choosing a place called Dipper Dan instead. Neither of us had eaten crepes before, so it was about time. We both picked the same, a crepe filled with vanilla ice cream, brownie pieces and chocolate sauce. Soo good! As I was biting into my crepe, I accidentally inhaled some of that powdered sugar on top and had a coughing fit. Luckily I had a bottle of water with me, so it didn't go on for too long. Still, how embarrassing.
After that...... incident, we moved along to the main event, the Pokemon Mega Center! The store had a slightly different selection than the DX center, but also much of the same stuff. I managed to find that Zubat plush I regretted not buying last year. Not a big haul, I bought like five items from the store. There was a lot more of those big Pokemon statue sprinkled around the store compared to the DX. We spend some extra time here, because we were trying to find some Pikachu stuff that would be suitable for a young child. My mom had promised a co-worker of hers she'd bring her some Pikachu items for her Pikachu crazed grandchild. I think we settled with a dinner set, with some candies added in. Later, I also donated a Pikachu figure I got from a Gachapon machine into the mix.
After the Pokemon center, I went to check out the local Mandarake, while my mom went to Tokyu Hands, and we agreed to meet up later. I went straight for the Doujinshi shelves! Again, I felt so proud that I was able to find the series I was looking for without having to ask for help. I might have overspent a little, I left the shop with 22 new Doujins in my collection! Maybe I regret it a little, maybe I don't. I was done with Mandarake a lot sooner than I expected, so I headed to Tokyu Hands to find my mom.
We were about to head back to our hotel when we realized the train would pass by the Tokyo Dome are, where the Moomin cafe is. So, we thought we'd go by there and buy some goodies from their bakery.
We picked something salty and sweet to eat. As we went to the register, we noticed the cafe side was almost empty, so we asked if we could eat our bakery goods there. They said it was okay if we ordered some drinks first, so we did. Mom got herself a regular black coffee and I ordered something that I hoped would be hot cocoa, but turns out I ordered some ice latte. I don't even like coffee at all, but I drank it anyway. I got to choose which character I wanted on my drink and I went with the Hattifattener just for fun, because we bought some strawberry cream filled Hattifattener pastries from the bakery.
The cafe was almost empty of customers, but we were there late in the evening now and not during lunch time like the last time, so it's understandable. We didn't bother with the cafe last year because the place was packed with people, but now since there were so few people around, it was fun to take a good look at the interior design of the cafe. In the table next to us, there were two guys sitting there and they were speaking Finnish! Unexpected Finnish #2!
After we finished eating, I headed over to the shop area, to see if they still had some of those Moomin mugs I failed to buy last year. And they did! It was hard to choose which one I wanted, but I eventually picked one with Snufkin. And it was the last one they had in stock at the moment. I might have ended up spending over 5000 yen at their shop again, but disappointingly, this year they didn't give out a free gift like they did last year.
From the cafe, we stuck around in the Dome area for a while, taking in some familiar sights. There was Christmas lighting everywhere and it was really beautiful. The last thing I did before heading back to the hotel, I briefly visited the Awesome Store in the LaQua mall, to see if they still had some of those bags of wild popcorn flavours and they did! It was not the same, but a new flavour called Miracle Berry. They also had these small bags of chips with freaking cool designs on them. I couldn't resist buying a few of those as well.
Back at the hotel, I watched some TV for the rest of the evening. There was again a show where they followed a cat around, and an episode of Spongebob Squarepants and to my delight, Stephen King's IT chapter 1 was also on. The movie is quite long, but I watched it until the end, just because I wanted to hear what every character sound like dubbed in Japanese.
*****
DAY 7 Saturday, 09. November
I watched an episode of Peanuts and Ultraman in the morning before heading out. I haven't watched Peanuts since the 90s, obviously this was a newer series, but it looks really. I wouldn't mind watching more of it!
Today's destination was the Kappabashi Utensils Street in Asakusa. A street with around 170 stores for kitchen &food related items. Like kitchen knives, cookware, tableware, kitchen equipment, baking supplies, anything! Seems maybe a bit random, but I read about it somewhere that this is the place to come to if you want buy some of those fake foods you can find in restaurant windows. I wasn't actually planning on buying a dish of plastic food, I just thought a store like that would be fun to see in person.
Of course we stopped to take some pictures with the statues, before continuing on. We found the Sumida river and Komagata bridge, where there was a great view of the Tokyo Skytree and the Asahi Beer Hall a.k.a. "golden turd". We also stopped here for some photo opportunities.
From the bank of the Sumida river, it was a straightforward walk down to Kappabashi. On our way there, we did pick up some drinks from vending machines conveniently placed along the way. I also found this Gachapon machine, that had ceramic cat figures inside. Never saw something like that before. The machine was almost empty, only four capsules were left. I bought two of them with all the coins I had on me. I'm still bummed I couldn't get all of them!
We walked the street from one end to the other and then walked back on the opposite side. We didn't actually go inside that many stores, there was plenty to look at on the outside(like that nightmare fuel panda bus).
Eventually we did find two of those fake food stores and had a look around. God damn they look good! The actual dish sized samples were expensive, but they did have more affordable ones too, like fridge magnets and keychains. I kind of wanted to buy an ice cream cone, but somehow I controlled myself and actually didn't buy anything.
After seeing what we came for, we wandered some side street for a while. We saw a lot more temple looking buildings than anywhere else we've been in Tokyo. Somehow, the Skytree was always within our view, so we figured it can't be that far off, let's go there!
On our way to the Skytree, we walked passed the Nakamise Shopping Street and also saw the gate (the giant lantern) to the Senso-ji temple. This place was packed full with people, tourists and locals alike, so we got out of there very quickly. A little further ahead, there were these couple of girls that had real live owls with them, collecting donations for an animal shelter (hopefully that's the truth). You don't see that every day.
Slowly, we crept closer to our destination. Google Maps says it was only about a 30 minute walk, but it sure felt longer! Neither of us is very good with heights, so we stayed on the ground level. Besides, there's an entry fee to the higher decks, so we skipped it. Yeah, we're lame, we're at the base of the world's tallest tower and we don't even dare to go up to see the views.
No surprises here, the ground level of Skytree is basically a shopping mall. There was a pop-up Godzilla shop, or at least it looked like one. They had a big Godzilla statue for you to pose and take pictures with!
Skytree has its own Pokemon Center, so obviously that's where I went. I was cool to see the Pokemon statues specific to this store (Rayquaza!), but otherwise, I didn't really find anything I wanted that I hadn't already gotten from some previous Pokemon store. I didn't buy anything from there, or from any store in the Skytree for that matter.
We wandered around the place for some time. Skytree has its own Moomin Cafe, and I would have liked to see it, but we couldn't find it (or rather we were too tired to look for it).
It was already getting dark outside, when we decided it was time for us to leave. Luckily, there was a Life food store right next to the tower, where we went to get us something for dinner and then traveled back to the hotel. I had been playing Pokemon Go during the day and when we finally got to the hotel, I had only 14% battery left on my phone. I don't remember it ever being that low before!
There was an Aladdin musical on the TV that I watched briefly, before changing the channel to watch some Detective Conan and My Hero Academia instead.
Huh, besides those two cat figurines from the capsule machine, I didn't buy anything else today! Aside from food that is... feels weird.
to be continued....
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