Japan Pictures Day 4: Shinjuku and Ikebukuro

 Day 4: Shinjuku and Ikebukuro!

(There are a TON of pictures, so I am going to do a lot of talking in the captions)

Melon Pan! Bread covered with cookie-
like crust. Called "Melon" because
the scoring makes it look like a
melon, not because it tastes like it.

Saturday the 28th of September. We started off in Shinjuku, where our hotel was located. We wanted to go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, which has the highest observation deck for free, we were told. So we walked straight from our hotel (after getting breakfast).

My Pan was filled with vanilla and
chocolate pudding. Yum!

Large intersection in Shinjuku.

My new favorite drink! Some kind of "Yogurt"
drink, that tasted kinda carmel-ly.

Fun Whale named Kuu-chan.

Kerri rockin it out!

On the way we saw a few shops, and some Gachapon machines, so we had to stop (of course!). There we saw they had a DDR-like game, but with Taiko drums! You hit the drums when the circles passed by, and it was surprisingly fun. I was not the best at it. XD

And me, about to beat up the drum.

We can see the building now!

When we got to the building, they had just barely opened, so we didn't even have to wait to go up (going back down was a different matter).

Selfie in the tower.

The funny-looking building in the middle was some
kind of art building, and it was called the "Cocoon".
Pretty accurate if you ask me.

I liked these three buildings all lined up.

Central park below us. What's going on down there?

This is "Tokyo." Buildings crammed together as
far as the eye can see. Also, like Salt Lake can mean the entire
valley, but it actually has many cities in it, that's the way
Tokyo is referred to a lot.

Very large, tall installation in the middle of
the tower.

Waterfall where the Market was being held.

We were interested in what was happening in Central Park (pictured above), so we went over after we finally got down from the tower. It was a Flea Market! I think they have it either every day, or once a week, or something, because there was a fairly permanent-looking sign calling it the Central Market.

Someone offered to take a picture of the two of us.

And a full-grown cicada (we think)!
It was huge!

I thought this was a live cicada, but it
was actually just a husk. I pinched
off the leaf and stuck it in an
empty gatchapon to take home!

Flea Market!

Base of the tower. They had a bunch of artsy statues and such.

We got a lot of stuff at the Tower and the flea market, so before moving on to Ikebukuro, we decided to stop by the hotel and drop our stuff off. We ended up walking in an underground passage almost all the way from the Tower to the train station near our hotel.

One part of the underground passage.
More like a station/shopping center!

I needed to get some more cash, so we did a detour to a 7-11 on the way to Ikebukuro. The 7-11s were the only place besides a bank to get cash, because they had ATMs that would take foreign credit cards.

A large, old fashioned gate on
the way to 7-11

Same gate, with a very
Japanese-y tree.

And a large monolith on
the other side

Kerri got some An-man while waiting
for me at 7-11. Steamed bun with
anko, sweetened red bean paste.

Then the drama started. The ATM wouldn't take my card. It wasn't that I couldn't read it, because I could check the balance and such, but it wouldn't let me withdraw any money! After trying to get it to work for a long time, we finally decided to move on and try again at a different location later. I still had some money, but only about 3000Y ($30) and it was only day 4! The good thing was that Kerri still had plenty of cash, and could cover me for the day.

 We stopped at Health/Makeup store (that's how they billed themselves) to get me some Ibuprofen, ice packs for me knees (which were starting to hurt a whole ton), and some shoe inserts. Explanation time: For the last several walking-intensive activities I have done, my knees have hurt like the freakin' blazes. I learned at the last activity that it was related to swelling somehow, though that wasn't the cause so much as the main symptom. So I brought knee braces, cold packs, and anti-inflammatories to help stave off the inevitable. While in Japan, however, I noticed that my arches were starting to hurt as well. "That's suspicious" thought I, and so I started looking for some arch supports.

I put them in immediately, and while it really hurt to walk in them, because I wasn't used to it, they really helped my knees! They didn't get a ton better, but they didn't get any worse, and that was sufficient.

Eating gyoza with dinner. It came out with
a sheet of whatever on the top, from being
fried and flipped over onto the plate.
Gyoza is Srs Business.

After food we went and got Puri-Kura's. Basically
super-photo booths. I stole Kerri's that she posted,
but I have my own that's a little different.
Can you tell what the booth did that is funny?

Nekobukuro in Ikebukuro

After Puri-Kura (see photo sheet) we went to Tokyu Hands, which had all sorts of stuff, and is called a do-it-yourself store. We went through almost all the floors, and all I got were a couple glass bottles. The main attraction was on the top floor, the Cat cafe, Nekobukuro. You pay a cover charge (600Y) to enter and get to pet their cats that they have all over. The cats get really good at dodging the people visiting. Until they let the kittens out after dinner, and I was able to entice them with my shoelaces.

My favorite part was the cats were trained to jump into the arms of the workers when their name was called! All the cats were hanging around the door to the back, since they knew it was dinner time. Then a worker girl came out and called a cat, who literally jumped straight into her arms (or so, since they were full-grown cats and the girl was rather small). So fun!

Enclosure with kitty in a basket

Cat walks, complete with cat.

Cat from below.

This kitty knew it was dinner time.

Little scottish fold kitten. They are called that because
their ears are folded over from a defect in
the cartilage gene.

No kitten can resist the laces.
The one advantage I had with my shoes.

After kitties, we went to a large Anime store called Animate. They had a lot of stuff for animes that we didn't know, and from the most recent flame "Shinjeki no Kyojin" or "Attack on Titan" that I had actually watched most of. We went through almost all the floors, but I ended up just borrowing 5000Y from Kerri to get a bunch of Copic markers! They are some amazing markers that are great for coloring and blending, but they are wicked expensive. They are $5 or more in the US, so for about 400Y a piece, it was a great deal! So I got like 16!

By now my feet hurt a lot, so I sat outside while Kerri finished perusing the shop. I tried another ATM that didn't work (not surprising because it wasn't a 7-11) and mostly just sat on the curb playing with my gameboy and people-watching. It was busy!

I should have gotten this, but it was
too expensive for something that I
would only wear in Japan.

We were wiped out by this time, so we went back to the hotel. I emailed my parents begging for help with my card/money problem, then realized that I had left the entire bag of copic markers somewhere in Ikebukuro! Oh man!

Japan Pictures Day 3: Harjuku

Breakfast again. We switched Calpis flavors,
and it was chocolate pan today.

Day 3: Harajuku!

Friday the 27th of September. Kerri had found a list of a ton of things to look at in Harajuku, and we went through to decide what we really wanted to look for (no bars, etc.). We made a list with their addresses and took it with us.

We took the Yamanote JR line, which is just a loop around main Tokyo, with a train every 3 minutes. We purposely took our time getting out of the hotel, but we were still too early.

The Harajuku station. So cute!

A bunch of people already in line for a shop.

I thought these trees were interesting.
Very Japanese. XD

We found one store on our list pretty quickly, but it was still closed, and looked to be just expensive clothes, so we skipped it.

As we turned down the street to try and find our next location, we saw a cute crepe store. Still closed, but we hung out for a few minutes so we could get some deliciousness.

Cute Crepe store. You can see Kerri on the left behind
the sign.

  Next to the crepe store was a shop with two huge red Kanji outside, that people  (Japanese) kept getting pictures with, so we had to get some too! XD

Kerri and the Kanji

Me with Kanji

Funny store name.

We ended up not finding the store we were looking for, but ended up turning down a really popular street called Takeshita Street accidentally. There were a lot of shops, including multiple crepe stands, McDonalds, a 7-11, clothes stores, cafes, and more.


One of my favorite places was Daiso, a 4 or 5 story 100Y shop! It's the japanese equivalent of a Dollar Store. I had fun looking at all the stuff, and got quite a few things.

 

"Dog" was a Lady Gaga-esque store that
really was just as crazy as her.

Mimicking the mannequin outside "Dog".

Our matching hats.

 While I was puzzling over a map, Kerri went into a store called ACDC Rag. I joined her and we ended up getting matching hats. I also got a black bag with wings and Kerri got a Panda-sweater that she loved.

My winged bag! I love it!

Kerri's Panda sweater. With ears even!
And panda-mitten pockets!

One black wing.

With one black tail.

We also stopped at a store that was SO PINK! Described as "shockingly pink" it almost made my eyes bleed from all the pink and neon colors inside and on the clothes. We mostly went for the experience, but I did get some earrings there. There were 5 of them, two white wings, two black wings and a black tail.

We exited from the main entrance to the street.
The sign says "youkoso" or "welcome".

This map was unusual because it had little
stickers for actual stores on it.

 While in the street, we stopped at the 7-11 to see if someone could help us find some of the places we were looking for, because we couldn't find hardly any of them. Turns out we were in the wrong Chome (cho-may) for the places we kept looking for. No wonder! After leaving the street, we headed for the closest Koban, determined to get another map and not keep wandering around. They didn't have a map we could take, so we had to make due with the maps posted on the main streets (everywhere, mostly).

Eventually, I remembered what I had learned about Japanese addresses. They consist of 3 numbers, 6-4-12, for example, in a town or area. the first number is the Chome. The Chome go in some kind of spiral around the town area, with 1 being near the center, I think. The second number is the block number. In the map to the right, you can see those numbers. The blocks are also numbered in a spiral inside the Chome. Lastly is the final address, which goes around each block. I don't know if there is any reason to what direction, but by then we would just circle the whole block looking for what we wanted. Almost nowhere was an address actually posted, so you relied on maps to tell you where you were more than where you wanted to go, sometimes!

Trippy entrance! So cool!

 On our way to the Koban, we ran into this store, which was on our list for one of the places inside. The entrance was entirely these mirrors with the escalators that went up to the 2nd or 3rd floor right away.

Picture of a shoe ad that I thought was so funny
because it says "the boot that build America"

Real ramen! I got all the toppings!

We found another store on our list across the street from the Koban, where I got a lot of Studio Ghibli souvenirs. Then we looked for a gyoza place on our list, but we had to give up and stopped at a little ramen shop (where we shared some gyoza anyway).

Kerri's ramen, with the normal toppings.

For dessert, some almond pudding-stuff. Like what I have
made for my mom a couple times.

The Godiva building was painted to look
like chocolate bar!

 We went out of our way to go find some shops that Kerri really wanted to see, only to find they were gone, dangit! We did get to pet some cute dogs, though. Their owner was fun, and said that one of the dogs knew she was cute, and so begged for attention.

Takoyaki! Yum!

We headed back to the station, and got some takoyaki on the way. Takoyaki are little balls of batter around little pieces of tako, or octopus. It was really hot and we burned out mouths trying to eat them too soon (Kerri more than I). But finally we got back on the train and went back to our hotel to collapse.

An example of funny drinks in the vending machines!