Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Tokyo - Shibuya, Shinjuku, and a Storm in Ikebukuro


We started the next day, the 21st, off in Shibuya. After stopping in Starbucks so that Jonathan could eat some breakfast (he slept too late for the hotel breakfast) we spent some time in Loft where I bought some more cute stickers. I'm not sure but it seemed like they had fewer cute stickers than they used to have. They still had some really cute ones though!




After that we split up and I headed to Shinjuku to go to Shinjuku Marui One which has a lot of lolita stores. I had what seemed like good directions to get there from the station but it made a reference to a sign on a building that was no longer there or I just couldn't find. Luckily I had a map and after a few minutes I was able to figure out which direction to go.

Unfortunately when I arrived at the building it was closed! Sad! :( Such bad timing because it seemed like it was just that one day. All the other Marui One malls I saw that day were also closed.

On the way back to the station I passed by Bikkuro, an unusual combination of Bic Camera (an electronics store) and Uniqlo. I went in to see if they had the Marie shirt in my size. They had two left and one of them was a small! Yay! So my trip to Shinjuku wasn't completely wasted.


Next I went to Koenji to visit a store called Spank. It was located in a covered arcade area.


I knew the store wasn't big, but it was even smaller than I thought. It was a really neat store and was like stepping into my childhood, but I only stayed a few minutes. I was the only one there and I hate being the only person in a small store.


I'm not sure if I was allowed to take pictures, but I snuck this picture in a corner. There was a Magic Nursery Pet! I had one of those as a kid and it was one of my favorite stuffed animals. They were selling this one for over 7,000 yen! The prices there were pretty ridiculous. If you're Japanese the stuff is more unique though I guess. I can find stuff like this at yard sales and flea markets.

The store was adorable and neat, but I don't think it was worth going out of my way. It's too bad it's not in an area that I visit often, like Harajuku or something.

Here's a website with better pictures of Spank:  TokyoFashion

I headed back to Shibuya and went in a few random stores including a cute cosmetics and accessory shop called Its'demo. They had some Disney themed stuff, including nail polish with Mickey Mouse shaped glitter They were only about 500 yen I think. I should have gotten one.



I eventually made it to Shibuya 109. There were some girls outside dressed up as miko (shrine maidens) passing out something.


I was most excited about visiting Cecil McBee, but it was closed for renovations! There's one in Hamamatsu, but the one in Shibuya 109 is better. It wasn't a big deal though because there are plenty of other cute stores there. I really like Ruby Rose which I think is on the 6th floor.


I really liked those cute earrings but wanted to shop around a bit more before buying anything.

Shibuya 109 only has stores aimed at girls, so you see hardly and men in there. I feel like maybe I saw a few more than usual, but maybe only about a dozen men compared to hundreds of women. All of them were with a girl though except for one. It was an older man dressed in a business suit and wearing a BIG pearl necklace. So. Weird.

When I left Shibuya 109 it was raining pretty hard. I ran to a nearby Family Mart and bought an umbrella. I then went to Tower Records to look at K-pop. When I left there it wasn't raining anymore. I had bought that umbrella for almost no reason. I went to Tsutaya for a little bit and then went back to Shibuya 109 to buy the umbrella earrings before meeting up with Jonathan.


We met somewhat near the Hachiko statue. While waiting I saw an all-girl brass band. They were handing out fliers for something.

We went to La Jolla for dinner which I had read online was a good Mexican restaurant, which is very hard to find in Japan. It was a bit pricey, but really good. We both got the Maya Chimichanga which had chicken and vegetables and rice. It's too bad it didn't come with any refried beans, but it was filling so I didn't really need them.

We got chips and salsa, which weren't free or unlimited, and the salsa was really good and fresh. It's too bad that it wasn't unlimited though.


After dinner Jonathan we went to Shinjuku because Jonathan wanted to go there and go to Yodobashi Camera. I haven't spent a lot of time in Shinjuku because I usually just seem to get lost just trying to get out of the station (It's the busiest train station in the world had has over 200 exits. That's not an exaggeration. Craziness.) and can't find many places I want to go even though there's a ton of stuff there. I'm liking it more now and want to go back to the shopping mall connected to the station we passed through. I really want to try one of these macarons even though they're 270 yen a piece!



It's so cute and fancy looking!




We went in Yodobashi Camera and Jonathan found what he had looked for at another location earlier in the day. It was the Pikachu car! He bought it for me. Yay! He had hoped to buy it earlier in the day and surprise me with it, but I was still happy. It's just so cute! I was surprised that there was a toy version!


Then we went back to Ikebukuro. By the time we arrived it was raining really hard. So I guess buying that umbrella earlier hadn't been a waste!


We stopped in Baskin Robins and I got chocolate cheesecake ice cream. Mmmmm! :)

By the time we finished our ice cream it was actually storming. Lightning and thunder! We went through an underpass under the railway tracks and it started to flood down there. It was raining so much in a short amount of time.




Here's a video of the rain and flooding.


We stopped at a Family Mart on our way back to the hotel. I was amused by the Red Bull display, lol. It's hard to see but the cans were in buckets of rice that was supposed to look like sand.


They had Monsters Inc. pork buns which were kind of neat.


It was neat to see a storm in Tokyo. I'm glad it was at the end of the day and didn't happen earlier in the day. I don't like walking around in the rain all day and feeling wet and gross. The umbrella earrings I bought earlier in the day matched the storm, haha!

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