Adventures from our second day in Tokyo, Japan!
Bert actually did better with jetlag than I did.
I had slept a lot on the plane, and I think that my body clock just got massively confused by that and reset itself to Belgian time.
Meaning he slept enough at night, and I had barely slept when the alarm clock went.
Regardless we got ready, had breakfast and went back to the station to go to Shibuya.
First we had to sort out our Suica card (which was thankfully not too hard) and find the Yamanote line (for which needed some directions from kind strangers). It surprised me that people working in one of the biggest transit station in the world, didn't speak better English.
Sure, they got by, but I can just see the trouble this will give in a few years when it's the Olympics in 2020.
I really like the JR transportation system.
They have trains running every couple of minutes on the Yamanote line, so if one train is too full, just take the next one.
That said, it wasn't rush hour, so whilst we didn't have space to sit (we needed to get off at the 3rd stop so that was ok) we still had plenty of place to stand without being cramped at all.
The trains were also super clean, and the announcements were in English as well as Japanese.
And people queue to get on the train and let others get off first without hassle, I really love that!
Super cute shop inside of Shibuya station.
Shibuya station is smaller than Shinjuku, but it still took us a while to find the Hachiko exit.
Not as long as it took us to find the Disney Store though.
That was the point where we realised that we probably should have gotten a portable router so we could use google maps, because Japanese street maps were less than helpful seeing we didn't know any Japanese.
Many of my friends warned me we should get one, and their “I told you so's” are all totally valid. Strangely enough, the Disney Store was a store not listed on any of the maps we had on us, go figure.
On the way to the Disney Store, we encountered a Cosme store selling all sorts of cute Disney beauty and stationary products.
I didn't get anything because they didn't have anything I needed or would actually use. But I did go in to look at all the pretty things!
We also came across a place with a ton of purikura inside and a gatchapon station outside.
It looked really cute, and the staff was mega friendly, one of them looked up the Disney Store for us on our iPhone so we could see the map and how we had to walk there.
Much obliged kind lady!
I got some Halloween Disney keychains from one of their machines, I ended up getting Mickey Mouse twice, so I gave one to my friend Marie :).
Thanks to the kind assistance of friendly Japanese people, we found the Disney Store, hurrah!
Aurélie had told us there was an Adventure Time pop-up shop right next to the Disney Store, which is why we were looking for it, but we searched high and low and it wasn't there.
There was, however, another pop-up store in the bookshop right next to the Disney Store so we went inside to ask about it.
What I feared was true, we had missed the Adventure Time pop-up shop by mere days! We were there on September 4th, and it closed on August 31st! Understandably, Bert was NOT a happy camper about this.
So we went to Disney Store instead, which is AMAZING.
Definitely one of the nicest Disney Stores I've ever seen.
The outside is definitely the coolest, and the inside only gets beat for first place by the Rome (Italy) one!
I did get quite a bit of stuff in there, not just for myself mind, I also found presents for Marie (and stuff from her shopping list), Charlotte and Lora.
They did have their Halloween range out already, but this year they don't really have things I want, so I didn't get any.
I also figured that seeing we were going to Tokyo Disney Sea later that week, I only wanted to get things I REALLY wanted and would use in this store because I would no doubt see stuff I wanted at TDS.
After that we went to Loft.
On the ground floor we looked at the massive Star Wars section before heading straight for the cosmetics. I purposely avoided the stationary section, because I knew it was going to be a financial death trap. I have a hard time resisting stationary as it is, and I knew I wouldn't be able to in Japan.
So I just didn't look at it.
I had to look at the cosmetics though, because not only was I shopping for myself, I was also shopping for friends.
Hail tax free is what I say! The tax system in Japan is kind of annoying though. I'm sure that if you're Japanese you're totally used to it, but for Bert and I, who are used to the price being the price, it was hella confusing.
Seeing we were pretty hungry, we decided to go find food.
I didn't want McDonalds or overly sweet desserts, and the area we were in didn't seem to have much else but fast food or just that, so we decided to check out Tower Records Café.
And on the way to the right floor we found an Adventure Time gatcha, so many 100 yen pieces disappeared in that one. It wasn't what Bert was hoping for, but it was something at least. Luckily we had quite a few 100 yen coins between the two of us, so we got 4 things out of it: Finn (x 2), regular Jake and BMO.
Mango juice I had.
Bert ended up having a Japanese waffle contraption for lunch, and I settled for just fries, because I know Japanese desserts well enough to know not to trust most of them. I also didn't want anything heavy because I knew I'd be eating oden later that night. I didn't really want junk food, but I was so hungry that at that point, I just gave up.
Chanel was all the rage in one of the larger stores we walked by.
Even the banks are super kawaii in Japan.
No longer hungry, we decided to explore the shop before exploring the area some more.
Sadly the weather was pretty rubbish most of the day, so I don't have a lot of photos, or any photos of the scramble (the biggest crossing you can imagine, but I'm sure there's a million videos on YouTube, just search for Shibuya Scramble on there).
In the end we decided to check out Yamada Labi, the electronics store. Which was a bit silly in my opinon because we were meeting Sayaka and Sonoko outside the Shinjuku one the next day, but Bert wanted to see electronics, so electronics it was.
I was surprised that they also had a beauty section, but at least they had the eyeliner that Marie wanted. And then it all went pear shaped because Bert already went upstairs, and then we kinda lost each other, trying to find each other for half an hour, oops!
But we were still at Hachiko statue well in time to meet up with Yukio!
Even after a small stop in a store right outside of that area and checking out the weird Hello Kitty tourist office bus, we were still early :).
Yukio was early too, and we set on our way to Meiji Jingu.
Yukio knows the area like the back of his hand, which was mega handy.
I probably should have taken more photos along the way, but I was too busy looking around and catching up to my friend, because I hadn't seen Yukio in _5_ years! Of course we speak online, but you know. He gave me some my way my love stickers and their latest album on vinyl (so cool it's on vinyl!) and I gave him the vintage coat I thrifted for him absolute AGES ago.
After Meiji Jingu (where I bought onamori and was super impressed by the fact that they have ravens, I also loved to hear the cicade chirp).
On a side note, you should all check out Yukio's band my way my love because it is AMAZING! I'm not saying that because it's my friend's band, I'm saying that because I legit love that band!
We went to Takeshita dori, and I bought stuff at Daiso.
I was on a mission to find blot film, and by Jove blot film I bought! Thankfully they still had the Disney x Daiso blotting paper I love so much, and they had expanded their range, so I got Alice in Wonderland paper this time :). Yukio had to ask a member of staff where it was though, because we had gotten so distracted by Halloween things we had completely missed it, oops :). I did get some Halloween things.
If you're curious about what I bought in Tokyo, check out my Tokyo haul post :)
We stopped at Yukio's fave takoyaki stand, but I didn't have any because I don't eat much as it is (I have such a small appetite, it's ridiculous) and I wanted to eat ODEN! The fact that I refused octopus noms is a clear sign of how much I WANTED oden.
There was so much food, but I basically took one photo and focussed on eating instead of snapping pictures :D.
I felt pretty guilty/bad at the oden place (I always feel bad about these things), because they really had a handful with all of my allergies, but the owners and cooks were super nice about it and I got to eat plenty of things that were delicious!
I didn't like the pickled egg, but I liked EVERYTHING else!
Especially the chicken and cheese sticks.
Thank you so much to Yukio for taking us there!
After that we walked back to the station, because Yukio still had a meeting later that night, and we said goodbye.
I really hope it won't be another 5 years 'till we get to hang out in person again, because I had such an awesome time :).
At least we can still hang out online, which is better than not hanging out at all! :)
Because I was super tired (I can't even count the times I yawned that day, omg, so many!) we just went to get breakfast stuff and water at a konbini and called it a night. And of course, my body was still mega confused by the time difference so it took forever 'till I fell asleep.
Thankfully I had The Bane Chronicles with me, so I at least had the amusing adventures of Magnus Bane to keep me company. Bert, lucky him, had no trouble falling asleep, I was well jealous!
And that was our second day in Tokyo!
You can read all about the first day here.
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