Japan trip - Day 12

We must have gotten to Tokyo at around 7am. I remember that shinjuku was completely deserted and that it was also freezing cold. We always find it so funny that our bags are always outside waiting for us when we get out of the bus and how there's always a ton of staff helping out. I assure you that does not happen in Portugal.

Why did we take a bus, you ask. Well basically going from Nara to Tokyo by shinkansen (however fabulous and fast it may be) is absolutely and mindblowingly expensive! One pays around 150 euros a person to take that train. Night buses are a better option for those who do not want to splurge. They used to be very expensive as well but in the last years they have become pretty affordable. For the 6 hour drive you pay 30~60 euros a person which is a lot less as you can see. Of course its not as confortable and you arrive at the destination looking like a zombii but one has to have priorities. Anyway...

We just got out, grabbed our luggage (we each took a small trolley), took this shot and we left.

Our Oji- Tokyo night bus

Shinjuku is my favorite spot in Tokyo... well maybe tied with Asakusa. It's big, its lively, its still pretty organized for the amount of people that walk around the area every single day and you can just find anything you like there, from the average to the bizarre.

Street view accross the bus stop.

The building on the next photo is one of my favorites there. It's the local Isetan. Isetan is a department store. I used to go to Isetan a bit when I was studying abroad. Its a bit on the upscale side though.

Street view - Isetan

We were starving and it wasn't the best hour to find an open café. When that happens one does what japanese working people do, we go to one of those "always open" chain restaurants/stores. We knew exactly where there was one and we just had to walk for a couple minutes.

Street view - If you are a lolita you have to know what that is. That's right, its Marui One.

We finally arrived and YUM! I love this stuff, can't believeits only 3 euros and something.

A bowl of rice with pork slices and salad. Not something one usually eats in the morning here but not that odd there (even though that is the sort of thing people would eat after work)

Rice bowl, miso soup, salmon and "salad". My husband as most japanese just orders the usual breakfast menu. Yes eating fish ir normal in the morning.

After that we just walked around. It was so early that we couldn't do anything nor did we want to because it was so damn cold! So we just chatted and hanged out and eventually found a coffee shop where we spend a bit of time. I could smoke, he could browse the internet... we both had coffee so it was perfect!

His and her coffee.

After that we went shopping for some necessary items and when we were finished we headed over to Closet Child Shinjuku.
It was almost opening time but we were so hungry again. I didn't take many shots in the morning, sorry for that. :|
So we just went to another chain restaurante and got something.


What those places look like inside.



What I ate. Bowl of rice with an omolette and miso soup.

Everyone who knows me is aware that there's nothing i like more than a smoke after lunch and I was really feeling the urge to smoke at this time (didn't smoke for a day or two). I placed my hand in my bag and then looked around. I had forgotten i was in the anti.smoke country and main city.

NO SMOKING!

NO SMOKING I SAID!

Gah. How annoying.
So nicotine-less I went up to Closet Child and got a bag and a dress. The dress was an impulse buy though, I have this theory that the first thing and the last you get while in Japan is always an impulse buy.

We had arranged to meet up with Aviva at Ikebukuro later that day. I had tried to visit the closet child store there last year but didn't find it. So she told me she'd take me there.^
We got at the Station and we were confused. She had told us we would meet at gate 30 i think? (not that relevant) but there were no numbers at any gates so how could we know. Easy: ask someone. Not that easy if you can't speak japanese though.
We headed there and i recognized her from the back, no way i'd forget that long red hair of hers.
I said hi and i was really happy to see her, i really am very fond of her and her husband. We chatted along the way, about how things are going for her and all that jazz and she showed me how to get to cc.
My husband who does not appreciate shopping that much went to starbucks for another cup of coffee.

Closet Child Ikebukuro

I was really surprised with this store. A local lolita had told me it was small in both size and contente and i didn't think so at all. It's all a floor but it has a bit of everything. They even have doll clothes and dolls there! (too bad i didn't know how to pick clothes sizes back, just learned all about it this january haha).
I bought another bag (and worried about space!), found a dream dress for my friend, got another black dress for myself and drooled over everything else for a while. Contemplated a long mmm dress and the gold etc bow flats but didn't have such expensive items in my shopping plans.


After that we headed over to Harajuku. It might sound like i'm doing a lot of shopping in just one day but that's because the whole point of going to tokyo was basically visiting Aviva and shopping, nothing more. I had discussed this with my husband and we both compromised and decided this way.
Seriously going to Closet Child is worth it if you are looking for older items.

Street view - takeshita dori

Street view - shoe store (because i didn't want to take a lot more lolita related shots)

We went straight forn closet child and headed over to "my floor" which is the second. The secong floor is where all the gothic and punk brand items are. Last time I was there i didn't find a lot of moitie but this time it was full of moitie items, a lot of silent moon and whatnot. Silent Moon is still ridiculously expensive for second hand, they were all the same price they were at MaruiOne so i went for two non printed dresses instead. One of them was my husband's xmas gift.
After that we went to the third floor (the classic and otome floor) and i browsed through everything to see if i could find something else my friend would be dying to own (wasn't really sure so i didn't get anything). Instantly fell in love with a bustier/vest from Jane Marple and showed it to Aviva who also fell in love. I basically "forced her" into getting it. It was affordable, it was magnificent and i'm plus sized so i have to live my ideal style through others. And who better to pull something fab like that out than Aviva! Of course it looked amazing on her yay!
After that we went down to the first floor (mainly Ap and sweet but some other random items as well). I spotted some things i liked but i didn't want to spend 200-350 on a sweet dress so i left them. I did buy a black skirt (wow more black seriously?) though.
We also had the chance to witness how us foreigners end up having a bad name in Japan:
3 foreigners (i'm assuming they were american) using a camera shooting dresses and making mocking comments at the same time.
The shop attendant notices this and one of the guys antecipates her move and talkes to her in japanese. He decides to ask if they could film the store because they need material for a university paper. She obviously says no very politely and apologizes. The guy pretends he is a nice guy (and so does the rest of the group) and they say "what a shame" and stop recording.
Nice huh? That's the random foreigner for you, i, even if i would like to believe otherwise, think that some "japanese modern culture fans" would actually try to pull off something similar because of course having shots to brag about later at home is a lot more important than it is to be respectful, quiet and polite.
But anyway... we left. I had no more shopping plans but both of us wanted to visit the local Evangelion store. (we thought they'd have a café)

Street view - searching

Street view - searching 2

After searching for a while we finally found it! It was in the place where they used to have a... café of some sort? I don't really remember now. It's just in front of the Takuya Angel store if you ever want to visit, on the back street of cc.

Posing near that glorious store. Very fancy, not corny and otaku-ish at all!



This is the only shot I have of Aviva because we were running around.



Most awesome anime related staircase ever.

Tired but happy it was time to chill somewhere. We went to another coffee shop and I had ice coffee and Av ordered the delicious looking version on the right.
I don't really remember everything we talked about then (maybe she does) because i never remember details which sucks but It was great. I would have stayed there longer but our bodies were telling us that we needed to start heading to the hotel. We actually told the hotel we would check-in at a defined time and we weren't really on time so we started worrying a bit.

Lavazza coffee, delicious!

A gorgeous handmade card I got, its lovely and i'm going to frame it!

We got up and started heading to Harajuku station.


There were still xmas light up and they always result in gorgeous photos.

The incredibly gorgeous dress we saw at a store window. I wish i owned it <3

This made me miss home, my dad is a total Alfa Romeo fan.

We parted at the station and it was sad as usual but i know i will see her again, we must. <3 Thank you for the lovely afternoon.

It was then that we really realised how tired we were. We sat waiting for the train and I felt sleepy.

I spotted an Ap pink lolita there, and thought about my friend Ana of course. So this blurry shot is for you. Guess what she is wearing if you can :P

After this shot, I slept. All the way from there to the switch station and then Asakusa.

There's always a feeling of belonging when I get to Asakusa. Not only do I really love it there (and i am not a fan of the traditional usually so that doesn't make much sense) but also because we have always stayed at the exact same hotel every time we go to Tokyo.
There's a spinning sushi restaurant there in which we eat because its very cheap and we were hungry as heck... so we went to the hotel, did the check in and came back down so we could go there. The minute we got there, literally the minut we got there, they closed. We were too late!

Our usual affordable eating sushi place at Asakusa

So we just had to look for another place to eat. I was so hungry that I was even considering fast food but my husband was really in the mood for sushi.
After a while we decided to go in a place that was lively and where we had never been before.
After some deliberation he picked the Tuna set for both of us.

Yes I always drink beer and drinking beer is VERY expensive in Japan. This is the appetizer

The most fantastic sushi I had during this trip!

Because I am evil like that I'll just leave you with some photos of the food.

Otoro!!!!!

Ok I had to make a stop here. Otoro is known as being the best part of the tuna and the most expensive tuna you can eat. And seriously, its friggin delicious. I mean it, if you can, order some otoro when you visit Japan. If you are a fan of sushi and sashimi and especially tuna you'll just beg for more.

Soup.

Then my husband still felt like eating something so he ordered sea food. They literally grabbed it from the tank in the back of the balcony and he just snapped it out of its shell and cut it into pieces. They add nothing to that. It may be absolutely grottesque to most people. :|
I tried a bit because i'm like that and not even I liked it. And believe me I am not picky when it comes to food. See that little green slimmy thing on the bottom right? That's the animal insides or something. It was disgusting looking and he taunted me and ate a bit and left the rest so I assume that not even he liked it hahahaha

It doesn't look that bad i suppose.

Front of the restaurante/bar (very affordable for the quality, recommended!)

So after that it was time to go back to the hotel and sleep. I was absolutely beat.


Engrish! hahahahahahaha

 The next day was going to be our last day in Tokyo so I just wanted to take a relaxing bath and get to bed.

Blue Wave Inn - Asakusa (our usual hotel)

So basically that was it. I hope you liked reading and hopefully I'll be able to post about day two later today!
Love,
Jo

Day 7 - Tokyo [part 1]

"Woke up" at around 6am which is the approximate arrival time (6.30) and watched the outside scenery as the bus kept advancing. Our stop wasn't the last one so we had to pay attention. We got at Tokyo station which is situated in the heart of the city, one of the most important office areas of Tokyo.

We took our small back pack and headed over to the train station entrance. On the way we found an opened dinner, one of those 24/7 open shops (Nakau) that mainly offer Gyudon which is exactly what I had. T prefered the typical japanese breakfast set.
Outside the shop everything was extreme propaganda (as if at that time of day they really needed it -_-;): the super bright lights, the million ads for special prices and menus, the absolutely annoying music that was put on repeat!!!
When you get into these fast food joints in Japan 30% of the time (not sure if you're aware) you don't go to the employee and order, you just pick the dish you want from a machine, press the button, insert the cash and then you get a ticket that you then can hand over to the person at the counter. A lot faster and a lot more efficient. Of course it might be a problem when you don't understand what it says on each button.

That's my Gyudon, it was so good, i was really happy but then again i was starving. They also served hot tea and you can ask for a refil, even when your dish only cost around 2.5 euros.
Another thing thaqt really makes me happy when I'm in Japan is the free Beni Shoga and Gari. They just have it around in small containers and you just take as much as you want and I love that stuff in a very unhealthy manner actually. I can be home watching a movie while eating it and nothing else. Yes I do realize i'm an oddball.

This is what the sky looked like when we arrived, it was super early and that is also what pretty much every building in the area looks like, tall, modern, businessy.

After eating we were a bit confused as to what we should do to kill some time, so we went to Shinjuku again because it was on the way to our final destination which was Harajuku.

Time for the JR train adventure again.
We got some special tickets that lasted the entire day so we had to only use JR trains to get to where we wanted.

We got there and it was just so windy and cold outside! We tried looking for a cyber café because someone handed us a flyer with some decent discount and we could chill out online for a bit and even rest a while but we couldn't find it anywhere.
So there we were freezing and lost and without having a place to go.

While walking around I took pictures of some interesting (for me at least).
This is the lid for their underground systems, a man hole which for some reason sounds like a very funny thing to me which made T perplex. :P

It was cold, empty with only some people wearing their salary man outfits (but they are far more stylish than the portuguese type, I assure you) and heading out to work. Some people were really sleep walking and I felt really sorry for them for a while until I remembered that i'll be on the same routine from the 10th January onwards.
Since we could not find the internet café and I was really sleepy I asked for some machine bought strong coffee, asked for the strongest and was expecting something super sour and heavy but ended up with a very mild sugary café late instead. These machines are very interesting and conveniente. Not only they are everywhere, from the busy city centers to the small regional localities, in some temple site (i mean everywhere) but also very easy to use.
Only focusing on the ones that sell drinks they usually offer water, tea, juice and a wide variety of coffee. They are divided in lines and each line has a color. The red colored lines offer hot drinks and the blue colored lines offer cold ones. Just like any other machine all you have to do is put in the cash, choose the product and get it in a sec. For tobacco and maybe liquor you do need to have a special card you can buy, like a permit, or use your cellphone. Super handy except for smokers :P.
After this we got back to the JR station and headed over to Shinjuku, another tall building, commerce and business areas, one of my favorites because its where my favorite Maruione and Closet Child stores are located.
I didn't go there to shop though as I had been there on my very first day but to spend a bit more time sight seeing as it was still very early in the morning and nothing was open yet.
On the right side you can see me giving a perspective of just how tall buildings are there, that one being one of the tallest: Tokyo Metropolitan Governmental Building. You can climb up to the top to have a city view which I highly recommend and have done in the past. It's actually free of charge and they have some souvenier shops up there with some cute things as well.

We saw a lot of people going to work at this time, it must have been the busiest hour to be honest, so many... just so many... its incredible how many citizens this city has.

T found this ridiculous thing that apparently can't be new as he knew exactly how to make it work. A Christmas Gazebo that can be used for pictures and also works as a "happiness bell". You get in, step on a green circle and then a bell will ring giving you happiness o.o? Anyway its really pretty at night I guess.
Of course I fond it to be quite tacky and took pictures of it while laughing a lot. Just felt a bit silly in the middle of all those serious business buildings and people when absolutely nothing else even remotly linked to Christmas was to be found. Because we were cold and bored and also pretty sleepy we looked for a nearby Doutor Coffee shop which we found very soon. It's a shop you can find in many locations and their cofee is actually quite good so I love it there. It also usually has a room for smokers which i find to be very convenient especially since its practically impossible to find a place to smoke in the streets of Tokyo.
After chatting and resting it was finally nearly 10 in the morning and we decided to head over our destination.

On the way there nature called and I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I remembered some of you might never used one of those fancy japanese toilets and decided to take a quick snap of the buttons and break it down for you.
Well even though you can find a ton of different types of toilets in public bathrooms I'll only be focusing on this one. I first saw one when I was staying in Shanghai and it took me some time to understand how to operate it but its actually quite simple as all you have to do is look at the pictures, really.
The music button is just that, it'll play sounds while you do your business, what sounds? Usually flushing noises or noises of running water. Why? Because its considered a bit embarassing to pee while there's someone else in the next toilet. I totally love this concept.
The pink button is the bidet button. It'll basically throw clean warm water at the front zone of your private parts.
The blue button with those sexy buttocks is for sending the same type of jet to your rear end in order to get you clean after you know what.
The stop button is, obviously, for you to stop whatever function you had activated before.
The seat can and will probably be warm in the winter and there are other functions depending of how high tech this toilet is. Fabulous hein? Yes no wonder Madonna and other international celebrities have been reported to have bought one to take home when they came to visit. I want one too one day.

Well after I was ready to go we finally started walking the long way back to the station. Shinjuku station is huge and I think anyone will feel very lost if alone there for the first time. There was this American couple there who said (and I clearly heard this) "I don't even know if this is JR!" as in *We're super lost!* - and mind you the only reason I didn't ask T to wait and help them was because he was ahead of me and I didn't want to get lost during morning hours when its madness.
Anyway I saw this add and fell in love, I think key makers need to copy this in Portugal right now. I fell in love with the cross and crown keys in a sec, even if they do cost like 20 euros to make :X

Anyway stay tuned for [part 2]. This post is taking forever to make due to me being kinda weak right now. I'm sorry for that. <3

Love,
Jo