I ♥ Tokyo!!!!!!!!

I have less than a month in Japan! It's crazy! There are things to look forward to, but I'm going to miss some things too, especially Tokyo! Tokyo is by far my favorite place in Japan. So, I need to spend a lot of time there before I leave! :) I went there this past weekend. I did what I typically do, which is wandering around, shopping, and eating. So there's not too much need to talk about what I did. But here are some pictures and videos.

This guy is a member of the popular boy band Arashi. Arashi does a lot of ads for Nintendo, but this one was especially amusing. A grown man is advertising Nintendogs, lol.

Whenever I go out the east exit of Ikebukuro Station I always head straight or to the right. This time I went to the left and just a little bit down the way is an Auntie Anne's! I had no idea that these existed in Japan. I had just eaten lunch so I was able to resist the temptation. Plus, I'll be in America soon enough. I should eat Japanese food now that I wont be able to get back in America.

The Bic Camera in Ikebukuro is very interesting!

I still need to eat a super cute parfait before I leave. These are definitely cute! I need to have one!

It's very common for people to be out on the streets handing out advertising flyers. Often they are handing out packs of tissues with ads on them. I often take the tissues, but even then most people ignore them. However, this guy was very successful! He even did backflips! Though unfortunately I didn't get that on video. :(

That is the Tokyo Sky Tree under construction. There seems to be a lot of obsession with it. There's already a lot of merchandise featuring the Sky Tree.

I stopped in a Starbucks in Ginza for a while. It was a really nice Starbucks and was super busy! I had to wait almost ten minutes for a seat. I had Sakura Cake and a Sakura Latte. The cake was good, but not amazing (though still very cute!), but the latte was sooooooooo good! I bought a tumbler (pink with Sakura on it!) so the drink was free. :) The lighting wasn't very good for getting a picture of the tumbler, but maybe I'll take one later.

I love Ginza at night! :)

And I love Shibuya even more!

store window in Shibuya

I came across a random street performer concert in Shibuya. In Shibuya I've seen many musicians, but this was the first time I had seen so many fans. The girls (and a guy) even knew dance moves!

As I was heading back to the subway station, I saw more street performers.

The next morning I saw the Tokyo Marathon. Many people were running in costumes! Maybe I should have cropped the pictures to focus on the costumes, but I'm lazy. Anyways, do you see the man in a dress?

She found her twin!

Minnie Mouse was a fairly popular costume, among both women and men!

I have no idea...

carrying Hello Kitty to the finish line

Wow... I wonder if this guy finished the race. That looks like it would be difficult to even walk in.

After watching the marathon for a few minutes, I ate breakfast at And On And. The name is really odd, but it's very good! It's like an upscale version of Mr. Donut (it's the same company). I had a raspberry mocha and apple cinnamon roll (well, actually a doughnut without the hole).

This was a dress in LaForet, a mall in Harajuku. Most of the stuff there is super cute, but super expensive. I didn't spend much time on most of the floors, but the basement was fun to browse. It was filled with Lolita stores!

Harajuku was crowded like usual.

dogs in Shibuya

Earlier I said something about wanting to eat a lot of Japanese food before I leave. However, I started really wanting McDonald's, so I gave in. Though I did get some things that you can only get in Japan, such as Shake Shake Chicken and sweet corn. Plus, I got the Happy Set which came with a cute Jewel Pet toy! :)

cute lolita girl in Shibuya

Shibuya

This sign was really funny!

It was a really great weekend and I'm glad I went. On Friday evening I was still kind of debating on whether or not I should go because my allergies were terrible. I didn't want to be miserable in Tokyo. But luckily, my allergies improved in Tokyo and didn't really bother me. Now that I'm back in Toi they are coming back a little bit, but not as bad as before (at least at the moment).

Augh! I'm going to miss Tokyo! :(

Tokyo Weekend

My plane from Hokkaido arrived at Haneda Airport early Saturday afternoon. From there it was only a short monorail ride into Tokyo. The first place I headed for was Ueno. After eating a quick lunch at a bakery in the station I went to Yamashiroya, which is the large toy store I went to last month for the first time.

This time I saw all the floors and it is super awesome. I wish I had found out about this store earlier! 

They have a lot of weird stuff there, including virus plushies!

They even have a Hitler action figure! So weird!

I ended up buying just a key chain. It's of the sign for Ikebukuro Station. When you press the key chain, it plays the Yamanote Line song for Ikebukuro Station. 

After leaving Yamashiroya, I decided to explore the area a little bit. Just around the corner is an interesting area. It was filled with stands selling seafood and other food and stores selling random cheap clothes and other merchandise.

I saw a random candy booth. It was kind of like an auction. The one guy would throw a bunch of candy in a bag and then say a price and the first person to raise their hand got to buy the bag. At least I think that's how it worked.

After that I went to Ikebukuro. The Book Off store there is really good. I spent a lot of time looking at the CDs and video games and bought a couple of CDs.

They had a pretty big selection of Disney movies on VHS. I want to watch them! Haha, they even had some other things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It would be funny to watch it in Japanese!

 Then I spent a little bit of time in Sunshine City, which is a shopping complex in Ikebukuro.

 

This next picture was taken in Toys R Us. I'm confused why the random Japanese things are in the same aisle as high chairs.

 At one store I bought a cute tofu plushie. It's actually a cell phone holder.

  

 

I didn't have my purse with me so I just had a bunch of stuff in my pockets. When I was paying for tofu-chan I pulled a bunch of stuff out and sat it on the counter so that I could get to my money. Later, while I was still in the mall, I checked my pockets to make sure that I still had my locker key (I left my luggage in a locker in Ueno). I checked often because I had already lost a pair of gloves and a bag of souvenirs that weekend and didn't want to lose anything else. It's good that I checked then because it wasn't there!

I knew where I had left it though so I went back to the store and they had it. Whew! I can't believe I left it behind.

I left Sunshine City and went to Tokyu Hands which is right next door. They had cute cacti parfaits! If I was going to stay in Japan, I think I would want one

 Here's a random cute sign:

After Ikebukuro, I checked in at the capsule hotel. Then I headed over to the other side of Tokyo to visit Shibuya.

First, I ate dinner at Ichiran Ramen, a place I had read about on the internet.

I had to wait in line for maybe about 10-15 minutes. They had music playing in the stairwell outside (the restaurant is in a basement) and I thought it was just typical Japanese traditional music. Then I realized that it was a traditional sounding version of an Utada Hikaru song which was cool.

Once I entered the restaurant I was able to purchase a ticket from a vending machine. I handed it to a woman working there and she brought me a form to fill out. You get to pick a lot of things such as strength of sauce, spiciness, amount of garlic, noodle hardness, etc. I chose medium on everything except I added a little extra garlic. 

There was a sign that lit up to show which seats had just become available.

Ichiran Ramen has the typical ramen restaurant set-up (long counters), but there were dividers between each seat. It's not a place to go and be social. It's perfect for eating alone. Though actually I think most of the people I saw there were with other people.

Once your bowl of food arrives, they bow and then pull down a curtain. Then you are really secluded!

The ramen had a pork based broth (despite all the choices you don't have a choice of broth). I loved it!!!!!! Just the day before I had had my favorite ramen in Hokkaido, but this was even better!

I could really taste the garlic but it wasn't too strong and the spiciness was really good! It was so good that I finished a bowl of ramen for the second time! I need to go back there again (maybe multiple times) before I leave! I only have a month left in Japan (crazy!) so I don't have too much time! Maybe I should go to Tokyo tomorrow???? Haha.

When I left the restaurant I realized that I had lost a glove. They had been in my coat pockets, which was a mistake because that's how I lost the other pair. I didn't really care because they had been cheap gloves from a konbini and I wasn't going to need them anymore. It was just annoying that I had lost so much stuff in one weekend!

For desert I went to the Starbucks in Shibuya and got a dark chocolate chip Frappucino. I sat at a counter facing the Hachiko crossing.

 

 Here's a video:

I looked around Tsutaya for a while and listened to some CDs before heading back to my hotel around midnight. I was surprised I had been able to stay out that late because I only had about 4 hours of sleep the previous night. 

Near the entrance of the subway station I bought a cute cat cell phone charm from a gachapon machine (capsule toys). They were only 100 yen and I liked all of them! I went back the next day to get another one. I really liked the ones I got because I wanted a cute one and I also wanted the hissing one!

The next day I spent the majority of my time in Shibuya. First I ate breakfast at McDonald's and then browsed Tower Records for a while. Then I did a little clothing shopping and bought a cute shirt and purse. :)

Later I wandered in a direction I hadn't been before and came across a Don Quijote store. It's a well-known store in Japan and I had wanted to visit one because I had heard that it's extremely random and I love random!

 The store is super cramped and pretty junky looking, but that's what makes it awesome. The organization is really terrible so you never know what you'll find. I would probably hate this store in the US, but it's filled with weird Japanese merchandise so it's good.

It's laid out really terribly... this aisle is actually part of a staircase!

Too soon it was time for me to leave. :( I'm never ready to leave Tokyo. It's just too fun!

In Mishima I saw a Hamtaro bus! Why do I never get the cool transportation?