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!

 

Japan Pictures Day 2: Akihabara

 Day 2: Akihabara!

I am going to switch to Japan time when I talk about where went just because it is easier. We both woke up pretty early because 2 in the afternoon (Utah time) is just too late to be sleeping in, I guess. We stopped by a Conbini (Convenience Store. Too hard to say the whole word in Japanese, so it got shortened to Conbini from Conibiniensu) and got some breakfast.

Onigiri (rice balls), mostly liberated from the fancy
wrapping that keeps the seaweed
from touching the rice until being opened.

We shared some kind of "pan" that a sweet, jam-like filling. "Pan" is the Japanese word for bread, stolen directly from Portuguese and incorporated into their own language. We also each got a different kind of Calpis, a "soft drink" that isn't carbonated. In English, the company is called "Calpico" because "Calpis" sounds too much like "cow-piss".

Drinks, unopened Onigiri, and some
kind of "pan"

The manhole covers in Shinjuku
were very pretty. The colors are
which utilities it accesses?

Then we headed to Akihabara, the "Electric town" and the Male anime/manga fan's place-to-go. We got there so early that nothing was open yet! We also had issues finding the places on Kerri's list, so we ended up asking a Koban, cops in a little room (box?) that are all over the place, and they ended up giving us a map after we came back several more times to find the other places we didn't ask about the first time. XD

Eventually things opened and we started at Super Potato. It covered 3 or so floors of a thin building, and was all about Retro games, with toys from a few more modern games.

Steps on the way up to Super Potato

More steps, but with one full character.

Trying to read what is on each floor off a Mario sign.

On the stairs of the final floor. Can't read it, but obviously
it says "You can't go up here!" D:<

Stolen from Kerri.
From http://www.japan-hotels.ws/tokyo/akihabara/shopping.htm

After Super Potato, we went to the Gachapon store. A gachapon is one of those plastic balls you get from the vending machines in the grocery store that have little toys, or whatever, in them. In Japan, they contained figures, cell phone charms, and more. They cost anywhere from 100Y to 500Y, and are mildly addicting. The place we went to was called Kihabara Gachapon Kaiken, and contained 430 gachapon machines, supposedly. I spent... a lot of money there.

My Gachapon spoils

After that, whenever we saw a gachapon machine in front of a shop or wherever, we were all "Oh! What do they have?!" and would have to run over to find out. A good majority of my souvenirs were gachapons, though once out of their capsules, they don't take up a ton of space, usually.

And Me in the cutout.

Kerri in the Maid Cafe cutout
outside the gachapon store.

I should have bought this headband!

 Next we went to Don Quixote, a place with lots of random stuff, including housewares, bath towels, costumes, umbrellas and more! There were like 8 large floors full of stuff.

After some shopping, where I got a little fold-able umbrella because it was raining a little still, we went to find a restaurant that Kyle recommended to us, called Hamakatsu. It serves tonkastu, which is breaded pork(?) cutlets. At Hamakatsu, you get to crush your own sesame seeds to mix with sauce to get your own preferred flavor. It was DELICIOUS and fun, even though we were still working on understanding the etiquette of eating in Japan.

Tonkatsu at Hamakatsu on the 8th floor of some building.

We also went to a very large Manga store called Mandrake, but since we couldn't read anything, it wasn't very exciting. Oh, and also the Tokyo Anime Center which looked pretty empty, space-wise (lots of empty space) and had a little bit of expensive merchandise. It was starting to get late and kind of cold, so we headed back to the hotel in Shinjuku. When we got there, we stopped for Dinner at a place close to the hotel.

My gyudon (I think) which is a beef
bowl. Came with an egg and separator
so I could add my own yolk.

Kerri got Curry

Then it was into the hotel to organize our spoils and recover from a day on our feet.

The elevator was rather small. You can
see I am touching the back and holding
the door open at the same time, and I
have the Ross raptor-arms.