Quaint&Kawaii | Fashion, Lifestyle & Whimsy: jetsetter

Day 3 in Japan - July Travels '16

Sunday 3rd July 2016

Today started out pretty easy, today was going to be the day of exploring all the different shops Shibuya, Harajuku and Ikebukuro had to offer. We had a late breakfast as we wanted some actual breakfast foods, which took us to Bills in Harajuku. The line was so long. By the time we were half way through the line, we thought we had been here long enough we should stick it out as other places would have lines as long.

It again, was a hot day and we were so grateful when we got closer to the front of the line as I could get some breeze from the fan. It's the little things.

Soon we were seated and got to ordering. It's a pretty moderately priced place, so more so like usual hipster cafe prices in Australia. Simon ordered the ricotta pancakes with butterscotch and bananas and I got the French toast with burnt butter, pistachios and a sour stone fruit sauce. I wish I had photos but we were so hungry we demolished it! What was beautiful though is that on top of the shopping centre, is that next to the starbucks was a fabulous garden with places to sit and drink your venti triple shot soy half pump mochaccino with no whip.

Afterwards, we were going to get said coffee from starbucks, but again, the line was huge and went out the door so that was a no go. So we ventured to that street of awesomeness, Takeshita dori.

We perused around and had a look at some of the interesting shops and the anime shop which is upstairs from an lingerie store. Simon thought we were going in there for a different reason. But no, I wanted to look at the anime goods and the massive totoro.

After looking around Harajuku for a while, at kiddy land (I got some Gudetama tape, badge and other items and also a Sailor Moon badge) and some other awesome shops we decided to take the train to Ikebukuro because, hello! the Pokemon Mega Centre! Plus the Sunshine City mall is a simpler shopping experience...in theory. We got lost a few times inside trying to find the actual shopping part. Which we eventually found and also found THE POKEMON MEGA CENTRE! Full of cute pokemon plushies of different sizes and heaps of other types of pokemon items. (Cookies, socks, shirts, pens, pins, keychains...etc etc).

Too much excitement!

After we left the pokemon centre, we heard a little performance going on and heaps of screaming girls. And here was our first and only experience of a live J-Pop performance. And it was magical. Simon kinda fan-girled and was intrigued by the smooth dance moves and interesting beat.

So that was an interesting treat. Another interesting treat was lunch. It was about 3pm at this point and we were keen on some Japanese curry. One place that I know does amazing curry is Coco's Curry House, which I also went to last time I was in Japan and I did a blog post about. I got the Pork and Simon got the pork and cheese. We also got corn salad to share which was delicious. One thing I love about Japanese restaurants is that some places only do one particular dish but they do it insanely well. Like I probably said last time, Coco's Curry House do all different types of meat, and cooking styles like fried or stewed etc with their signature curry and rice. Which is oh so delicious. We absolutely devoured our curries and had to digest for a while.

Digesting was over and we got moving again to look around the wonders of Ikebukuro. I grabbed a Double ChocChip Dark Mocha from Starbucks and we left Sunshine City and not even 10m we saw something amazing...a group of cats lazing around in a park. Like just chillin. Not even bothered if you come up and pet them or hold them. They were clearly strays but it was so cute to see the homeless care for them and make sure they reach their love quota.

soft kitty

That's another thing I noticed about Japan, you didn't see many homeless but when you did they were all very resourceful, dignified and polite. They had made makeshift tents from tarps and tape which was very impressive, and they looked after the cats in the park...there were like 20 cats just in this small park that is usually the sight for cosplay meet ups.

We said goodbye to the cats and walked on to look at the maze of anime shops and megastores. Took in more sights and sounds. As the end of the day was dawning..well evening-ing...I was thinking more and more about our journey tomorrow to climb Mount Fuji. Will we be able to do it? How crazy hard will it be? Will there be many people on our tour? Is there actually a tour? Did we just pay a scam company? Are they all going to be crazy fit and leave us in their dust???!!

*spiralling into a pit of existential crisis*

All of that spiralling got me hungry. So we both decided we should grab something to eat, get some breakfast/snack/protein bars for tomorrow, as the next two days would be huge! So we just grabbing something quick and easy and grabbed some stuff from the convenience stores near our apartment. Like I said before, learning the symbols for Katakana was such a help as I managed to find protein bars, yogurt, and we also stocked up on sandwiches, water, muesli bars.

Lugging it back to the apartment, we mentally made lists of stuff we had to remember to pack. Like, thermals, spare clothes, rain jackets and pants, itinerary, headlamps, everything we could need if ever the weather changed, sunglasses because of dust and sun. It was crazy. We were going crazy. But the climb was almost upon us and we had to be prepared. One thing that I didn't take into consideration the entire time we were planning to climb Mt Fuji is that I have an alpha thalassemia trait which will make sense when I explain in tomorrow's blog post.

So after all that packing and making sure we don't forget anything we double checked trains for shinjuku and how to get to the meeting place. Then it was lights out and beddy byes.

Until next post.

xxT

Total steps taken this day: 18, 948

16:45
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Day 1 in Japan - July Travels '16

2016

Ello!

How are all you lovely love lumps going?? In the start of July, again, I ventured off to Japan for the adventure and experience of a lifetime! This time, I went with my other half, the old ball and chain, the not as good looking partner... :P And boy did we have a schedule.

From Cairns to Tokyo, where we will stay for 7 nights, on the 4th day we go to Climb Mt Fuji for 2 days, then coming back and Tokyo sightseeing before on the 8th day taking the famous Shinkansen (Japanese for Super Express, also known as the bullet train) to Hiroshima for a night, then to Kyoto for 3 days, stop over in Nagoya to visit family, then that same day, to Takayama in the Japanese Alps. After 2 days here, we will travel back to Tokyo to spend our final few days before jetsetting back to sleepy Cairns.

ok... I shall back up a bit and start with days 1 to 3 in Tokyo. Our flight into Japan wasn't too crazy, again we were able to score a 3 seat row, and not have a random passenger next to us. Other passengers who were alone scored even more and several of them got to spread out fully and take a nap.

7.5 hours later, and a lot of doing nothing we finally arrived in Narita Airport. We had a delay in getting off the plane due to a medical issue, which was a bit worrying because if it had been someone sick with a contagious disease...well let's just say I'd rather not be spending a majority of our trip in quarantine. Finally after 20 minutes, we got to disembark the plane and we were Tokyo bound! I was starving and just could not wait until we reached the shining lights of Shibuya. Simon could not believe his eyes and couldn't believe he was in a different country. Before jetsetting off, he was nervous as he hasn't been overseas before. Which was cute...such a noob :P He was looking at everything like it was the first time he has ever opened his eyes. Which technically it was, with all the fancy vending machines everywhere and the very efficient way the Japanese conduct every day life.

Taking the NEX was pretty uneventful and by 10:30pm we had arrived! Now the small trek to our Airbnb. Which was a bit nerve racking. We had never stayed at a place through Airbnb before and were pretty confident in that it wasn't a completely fake apartment/dump. And fortunately for my anxiety's sake, we found the place easily through utilizing the Lawson convenience store's wifi and Google maps. The place was Clean, small (like all of Japan) but cozy. After dropping our bags we had a massive hankering for ramen and of course it was going to be Ichiran Ramen. Thankfully it's open 24hours a day as it was 11pm when we got there, usually there is a long line and we beat the late night rush just as we walked in. There was no line...YIPPEE! Food...come to momma!

Afterwards, we just decided to walk back to the apartment with our food babies and delirious minds from tiredness. Day two was quite a big day as we were meeting up with one of my university friends who is Japanese and of whom I haven't seen in years! Which was an exciting prospect to catch up in another city. Until next post, kiss kiss!

xx T