Day 9 - Harajuku and Akihabara

Today was a day I wanted to get some shopping done! So I picked out some stores I wanted to visit in Harajuku, I had been wanting to go to the Daiso in Harajuku since I went to the one in Seattle. I also wanted to go to UNIQLO UT and buy some shirts. When we arrived in Harajuku the weather was a bit cloudy and there were not so many people as the weekend so it felt much more comfortable.


The basement of the Daiso Harajuku The first place we went to was the Daiso since that is near the beginning of Takeashita st. First thing you saw when you entered was a halloween display, but I couldn't find anything that was so special or something I couldn't get in America. There were also personal care items, phone straps/keychains and other misc sort of things. The second floor had all the cute character goods, partry goods, snacks and stationary. The third floor had house goods, crafts and organizational items. Then we went all the way back down to the basement where they have kitchen and bathroom goods. I got 3 towels, 2 phone straps, black q-tips, an onigiri bento, hime forks and hi-chew candy to name a few.

As we exited Daiso there was some light rain but nothing too heavy, we passed by the Marion and Angel Hearts crepe stands where everyone gets a crepe, but not me. j-j We then took a side road off of Takeshita street and made our way to UT. UT is pretty cool, they have 2 floors of men's shirts and 1 of ladies. They still had the big manga campaigne going on and I got a Lum shirt plus 2 others, and Shouma of course got a surfing shirt >< haha. We also went to the Northface store right next to UT, a favorite brand of Shouma's and he paid premium price for a small case.




Laforet having some sort of Avril exhibit

By the time we has exited the Northface store the rain had really started up, we turned the corner and walked down to the Kiddyland store, which was just as cute as I remember^A^ but with 1/3 the people which was wonderful. I felt like I could actually move this time. It's still rather small and cramped in there, but I went to every floor except the Snoopy floor and the baby/toddler toys floor. I bought an a green polka dot umbrella with a rabbit handle there for about 500Y. And I used it as soon as we left the store! hehe.

I had originally planned to try and get to the cake buffet today since I had already put it off, but as we passed a restaraunt Shouma exclaimed how he wish he could have sushi. I was like, well if you want to we can since I never had sushi in Japan before, and he was like no, you want the cake buffet we don't have to have kaiten sushi. So then I just said, hey I never had cake buffet but I never had kaiten sushi and it's something I had always wanted to do since last year.

And so we went in out of the rain and gloom. It had a nice comfy atmosphere and chefs preparing the sushi by hand, which was nice as I have heard some used forms or machines. Shouma put some green tea in my cup and I could add very hot water to it by a spigot coming out of the counter. There we lots of sushi going by as well as edamame, seaweed salad and desserts. I saw raw horse, but I thought best to avoid haha. Shouma picked out the sushi for us and I tried everything except the one with lots of mayo and veggies on top.

I tried this Uzura sushi and it nearly killed me, the natto didn't really bother me much, I would have liked to taste it by itself. But the raw quail egg taste just explodes in a bad way in your mouth. It's so salty and gooey its really quite wrong haha. I also tried squid and didn't care for the texture at all, or the taste much either. I ordered 3 desserts to get the taste out of my mouth and they were all very yummy hehe. The bill was about 3300Y.

After that we decided to head to Akihabara and skip Ginza, Shouma wanted to look at cameras again, but this time at Yodobashi.

Inside Yodobashi Camera

Just a few gashapon on the toy floor

Maids or cosplayers?

We exited Yodobashi from the wrong exit, we came in the entrance/exit that comes directly out of Akihabara station. So we went back towards Yodobashi and Shouma spotted something he really likes - Choco Cro crossiants. If you look really closely you can see their orange logo in the window, their shop is part of the Yodobashi building. We got 3 chocolate and 2 strawberry for 840Y and just as Shouma said they were some of the best sweets I ever had...

Day 5 - Harajuku, Shibuya, Ginza

Today I had plans to meet up with a friend to walk around Harajuku with, however we ended waiting in different spots and missed each other completely. The heat was very bad, but still there were many people hanging out in Harajuku. I hung around the station for about 25 minutes before I turned around and decided to head to Ginza.

Some harajuku fashion

Before I got to Ginza, Shouma took me around Shibuya for a little while. When we first came out of the station it was bewildering as I realized at was at the Hachiko crossing that is so famous in movies and photographs. So after I stared dumbfounded a bit, I took a couple pictures and the light quickly changed. Then people were going every which way, in front of you across, around and there were also bicylces zig zaggin through. I wish I could have talken a photo or video like other people, but photos and videos just don't capture the feeling right. Especially if you have been waiting to see it, it's something very different for anything else. Well after I crossed I walked to Center Gai.

Famous image of Shibuya

Walking down Center Gai was very interesting as well, there were girls and guys dressed very Shibuya kei everywhere, hip hop music blasting and men shouting to get people into their stores. It was rather narrow and a but shabby but also very exciting. Shouma dicided to eat at Lotteria and just wandered over, so I quickly took a pic of the exterior before someone ran me over from behind. I got inside and I saw a Center guy!

Center Gai

Center guy inside Lotteria

I got the gourmet cheeseburger, it was really small but just like everyone says - amazing. The meat is tender and the cheese is real cheese. It's really good for a fastfood burger, but it is expensive as well. I had a melon soda to drink with it and fries with butter and soy sauce flavor. After we finished eating we headed back to Shibuya Station and got on a train to Ginza. I wanted to go to Tokyu hands, and the one in Ginza is closest to my hotel. You can really tell you are in the fancy part of town as soon as you get out of Ginza station. Everyone is impeccably dressed in designer wear, and the shops look so polished and have many attendants. Well Tokyu Hands in Ginza, or Ginza Hands as it's so called was small compared to others so I didn't find much to buy.

A street in Ginza

After Ginza Hands we went shopping at the Bic Camera in Yurakucho, and that was crazy busy! Especially the first floor, where all the new phones are and the aisles are narrow and everyone is trying to get up to the next floor. It was fun to look around but I felt pretty sad that I didn't have enough money to get something. The Laptops and cameras are so amazing and far ahead of what we have in America! After that we went to a Starbucks, I got a matcha frappachino and we drank our drinks at the Imperial Palace Gardens again hehe.

We went back to the hotel and rested until about 8 pm when we went out ot have dinner at an Izakaya near the hotel. It was very fun, the interior was a traditional wood and there were a good amount of people inside. There was a group of oyaji and they were very noisy. We ordered salmon fried rice, gyoza, yakitori, salad, ochazuke, tamagoyaki and I had black sesame ice cream. Of course afterwards we visited some conbini and went back to the hotel and to bed.

The Izakaya

Yakitori

Shouma buying some vending machine drinks