Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Day 4- Harajuku, Shibuya, and Ginza

Konbanwa! All I can say is.... Mission Accomplished! We got so many things checked off our to do list today. Started out by going to Harajuku. Apparently the girls who dress as anime characters and yell at each other don't hang out there anymore, so we didn't get to see them. We settled on shopping to get some omiyage stuff for everyone back home. First stop was Takeshita-dori, where we found the Daiso 100 yen store. Woo hoo! Check that off my list. We found choke stuff for everyone and more! Next stop was Kiddie Land... It was a fun 3 level toy store with all kinds of fun stuff. Picked up some Snoopy stuff for Akemi and Hello Kitty for mom. Isn't this picture funny? After Kiddie Land, we found Oriental Bazaar. I totally thought it was going to be a cheapy omiyage store, but they had really nice stuff. Got things for the adults here and something for myself too. After Oriental Bazaar, we headed towards Shibuya. As soon as we got off the train, we saw a Beard Papa shop and picked up this chocolate cake thing. I saw Les post about when she went last year and Joy recommended we try something from Beard Papa while in Japan... so here it is... It was really rich, but really good. After our snack, we found Hachiko. He is a loyal doggie that kept going to the station for ~10 years after his master died. Sad yah? They built this statue in honor of him. I seriously doubt Kiki would do that for us. While in Shibuya, I got to go to Tokyo Hands, which had craft stuff! Yay! That was fun. Found me some Totoro rubber stamps and some other goodies too. Then we headed towards the Loft, where I found stickers and other goodies. We decided to head home after that since our bags were getting heavy. After we had a chance to rest a bit, we decided at the last minute to go to Ginza to try to find the Hakuhinkan Toy Park. We got there with only about 10 min. to shop, but found a couple things in the process. Found this display with all the pandas, so cute! On our way to the Toy Park, we saw a Don Quiote or DonK! Its very different from the one back home. Way more stuff all stuffed into a small 2 story space. There we found Melty Blend (yum) and the instant sushi kit for the boys back home... If you want to know what this is, click here.. After our shopping excursion, we were hungry, so we went looking for a place to eat. We settled on this rahmen shop right next to the subway station. When you order, its at the vending machine, so we had no idea what we were ordering. After you pay at the vending machine, you give the ticket to the waitress. It sure was yummy. Look at DH finishing up my soup too! My feet are aching! DH is already sleeping, so I guess he'll read my re-cap tomorrow morning. I think we might try to hit Ueno tomorrow since we passed through the train station today and I saw all the panda madness there. So cute! We'll also try to hit Ameyokocho while there. We FINALLY got tickets to the Totoro museum for tomorrow afternoon, so after Ueno, we'll be heading there. I hope DH did the ticket thing right. Poor thing, had to try about 5xs to get the ticket to print. Apparently, they don't sell the museum tickets at the door, you can only get them from this Loppi machine at the Lawson Station convenience store and its all in Japanese. DH was searching all kinds of kanji to figure out what the problem was. I told him he needs to do a tutorial on it for others. Better yet, just tell others to go get their tickets at a local travel agency in Hawaii. Don't do what we did. I'll let you know later if we got the right tickets or not. Ja mata!

4 comments:

**CrEaTiNgWiThAlOhA** said...

i am enjoying your adventures how i miss Living there. TFS

Joy said...

Wow, I'm impressed with all that you guys are able to pack in one day!Have fun at Ameyoko, I really do love the toy store there!
Love your picture with the pandas!So cute!

Leslie's pics said...

ooooh you got to eat the chocolate thingy!! I'm sooo jealous! Go visit the candy man in Ameyoko, you'll get all kinds of goodies for 1000 yen :)

You guys must be exhausted...don't you wish you paid more attention in Japanese class??? hahaha!

Michele said...

Very interesting and pretty cool...just watched that instant sushi video. Is that stuff edible?? And the next time I make it out to Japan, I have plans to make it out to that Hachi statue too! :-)