Three parts of town on a mostly rainy day.
We didn't wake up at stupid o' clock (so neither too early nor too late) and managed to leave the hotel at a sensible hour. Like every other day, we had breakfast with foods we had bought at HALC and konbini stores in our room before we went out for the day.
Because I haven't mentioned it before, I'll do it now :).
The Ibis Shinjuku has a water cooker in the room, as well as complimentary tea and coffee (not amazing ones, just the stuff you'd expect complimentary in a hotel room when they offer it), as well as some sugar etc. You know what it's like.
What was cool though, is that there was also a small fridge in the room, which allowed us to get some food that you need to store in a fridge like cheese, yoghurt etc, and keep drinks cold.
First stop of the day was BIC Camera, because I was on a mission to find StreetPan film, which I didn't succeed at in Yodobashi Camera the day before.
They didn't have it there either, but I did find batteries for my sonic screwdriver torch and some cute washi tape.
And I saw other film I liked, but I didn't want to lug it around all day. Not with BIC being pretty much around the corner from our hotel. I did buy the batteries, because they were much cheaper in Tokyo than here in Belgium, go figure.
I had wanted to go to Daiso ever since I had been there the first time, because I hadn't seen the other floors yet and I wanted more Halloween goodness.
So we first went to Harajuku.
Of course, it didn't end at Daiso, and we had a look at several other stores too.
I ended up buying a blouse at Amavel.
The shop girls there were super sweet!
And their outfits were so cute and pretty!
We visited the Disney Store and various other ones.
In one I found this super cute Honey Marble blouse. It was dirt cheap too, less than €20!
We also popped by the infamous LaForêt, and I have to say that I had expected it to be hellishly busy, but it really wasn't.
I suppose that during a weekday outside of tourist season it's actually totally ok to shop in, because there weren't many people around at all.
Most stores won't allow photos, but the kind shopkeep of Ozzon Japan was totally fine with me taking pictures.
I also popped by Angelic Pretty, and I have to say that I really had to grid my teeth not to cave for the beautiful Halloween Treats JSK (jumperskirt, a type of lolita fashion dress).
I got the socks instead, because I also like those and I have no issue spending about €20 on socks, but I do have an issue with spending close to €300 on a dress.
I wish I had known about the brown and ivory colorway of the socks earlier, because by the time I found out they were sold out :(.
Would have loved to have those as well, but I'm super happy with just owning the ones I do so it's all good :).
The shop girls at Angelic Pretty were really friendly, but quite eager for a sale. Which is normal in that kind of shop I guess.
But you know, the girl talking to me spoke decent English and was legit friendly so it was all good. She was telling me what the Japanese word was for ghost (bōrei) so I taught her to say it in Dutch (spook) which she nailed on the first try. She thought it was a brilliant word and even wrote it down :).
Bert wanted to go back to KIDDY LAND to have a look through the entire store, which we did, and on the way back we stopped for crépes, because he _really_ wanted to try Japanese pancakes.
I had always been under the impression that Japanese crépes were the equivalent of toxic waste. Well, ok, that's a bit harsh, but I find that most Japanese sweets and desserts are overly sugary and I was absolutely convinced it would be the same with these.
Turns out I was right and Bert didn't much like them at all (there were several I told you so's from my side).
I loved the matcha ice cream on mine, and the tiny cheesecake was ok, but the strawberries had seen better days, I definitely had had better pancakes and there was just too much horribly fatty cream in there, so Bert had to eat most of mine as well.
What I do really like about food in Japan, is that pretty much every restaurant, no matter how small, either has photos of their dishes or fake food dishes showing you exactly what a meal you order will look like. I thought the fake food thing was pretty awesome, they should do that everywhere!
On the way back to the station I found a super cute pet store on Takeshita Dori and whilst they didn't have something nice for Loa cat to wear, they did have treats, which he absolutely LOVES.
He's run out by now, for a while he was super displeased, but then Charlotte came in and saved the day by giving him the British version of these treats, which is duck instead of chicken. And if there is one thing he loves more than chicken or turkey, it's duck. Plus, it'll be much easier to get them imported via Charlotte than via Japan :). Hail Charlotte, for she is mighty and awesome!
Click here to make the video of Loa going mad for treats play, because Flickr is rubbish when it comes to video sharing XD.
After Harajuku and Ometesando, we popped back on the JR and headed to Akihabara.
We had only just arrived when it started to pour, and so we commenced our search for Adventure Time capsule toys in what was pretty much a downpour.
That sucked.
So that's why all my Akihabara photos are shit.
I did, finally, find StreetPan at the local Yodobashi store.
The shop girl was MEGA RUDE though, she clearly hated tourists.
And fine whatever, but there was really no reason to be mega rude like that.
The rest of the store was pretty ace though.
Sadly we didn't find any new Adventure Time gacha machines. If anyone comes across this Princess Bubblegum watch, please let me know because Bert would LOVE to own it. Willing to pay a fair price!
All in all, I have to say, Akihabara was my least favourite part of Tokyo. Don't get me wrong, aside from the rude shop girl everyone there was as friendly to us as they were in other parts of town! I just felt that everyone was a lot more rushed and I think the downpour didn't help either.
That said, I do feel like we had been better off going to Nakano Broadway instead of Akihabara. Oh well, live and learn, something for the next time!
I'm still glad I saw a little bit of the fabled Akihabara though.
Having had enough of the rain, we decided to go back to Shinjuku for dinner. After wandering around a bit, checking out a few places, we settled on Hub, a chain of Japanese British pubs (which I would totally recommend!).
The staff was super friendly, and the food was really affordable and good.
Bert had a pizza Margherita and fried fish (salmon) and chips. And I also had fried salmon and chips but with fried octopus tentacles. Because you know, I have a hard time resisting tentacles. But clearly, I was very shit at photographing food all trip long. Alas.
Because there is so much cool food in Japan. Next time I will do better!
It really was too bad about all the rain, because I would have liked to have taken a lot more photos in Akihabara.
But nothing can be done about that, sadly.
At least I got to take a bunch of pictures in Harajuku I suppose :).
Previous day posts:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
And the haul post is here.
All our Tokyo photos.
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