Wandering Tokyo
We went to a Relief Society activity today where we shared treats and said what we're thankful for (since it's the Thanksgiving time of year). It was a pretty good time, and now we're home right about when we should be getting ready to go to bed, but I really want to finish writing about our Japan trip, so I'm going to be reckless and spend some time on this anyway.
When we last finished writing about Japan, we had just gotten back to Tokyo from Kyoto. We ended up having to wait a little extra long for our room to be ready at the hotel, so we seriously considered calling it a night and hibernating for the rest of the day, but we also wanted to go to Shinjuku, and see if Shibuya was more tolerable on a weekday, so we gathered our energy back up, we got directions to our Shinjuku destination, and we headed out.
The reason we wanted to go to Shinjuku is that we had been tasked with looking for Square-Enix merchandise, and Shinjuku is where the Square-Enix cafe Artnia is located. It's not exactly close to the train station, and the directions got to be a little bit vague towards the end, but we had a lovely walk through the area, and right where the directions got to the point where they said, "Turn right" and "turn left" without any street names or landmarks or anything, I looked up from my phone and saw a small white round building. That was it! We had found it!
It was a pretty neat place, too, with lots of cool Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest stuff. We were sorely tempted to by a Tonberry plushie, but out of consideration for the space in our luggage, we refrained. The room with all the really expensive stuff (jewelry and figures and whatnot) had a super cool fountain in the center of it, with water coming down from the ceiling and a big crystal a la Final Fantasy floating (hanging from cables) in the air, with little crystal fragments floating around it. At the bottom of the fountain was a pile of materia. And it was so cool, because the way the water was falling, it kind of looked like it was actually going up instead of down. It was awesome.
We didn't have the guts to ask if we could have a table and order some food (I seem to remember seeing online that they have a few different pancake dishes...), so we just looked around for a little while, bought a few things, and left. One amusing thing is that there were a couple of other groups there at the same time, both very non-Japanese. As we were looking at all the cool stuff for sale, one of the other people bumped into me and said, "Sumimasen!" Since we were in Japan, it only vaguely occurred to me that that was a little bit odd, as that person did not look Japanese, but then we heard her talk to her group in what sounded like Italian. And that taught me never to assume that every white person I come across is from an English-speaking country.
After we left Artnia, we saw some signs pointing to Shibuya, so we figured it couldn't be too far and we decided to see if we could walk to the Disney Store and the Nintendo Store. The answer to that question is yes, of course, but only if you keep in mind that everywhere is technically within walking distance if you try hard enough. And so we had a very lovely, but rather long, walk to Shibuya. It really was quite nice, though. The weather was perfect, and the sidewalk went along a park for part of it. But we sure were tired when we got there.
It turns out that yes, the popular Shibuya stores are much more pleasant when it's not Saturday. We bought a few more things at the Disney Store, and then we went to the Nintendo Store where we were able to get almost all the souvenirs for our nieces and nephews. The Nintendo Store purchasing experience was pretty interesting, because every cash register had two employees. When it was my turn to checkout, I learned that, at least at the one register, one of them was there to actually ring up the purchase, and the other one was there to speak English. There were a lot of foreign tourists. And they know their audience.
We also got a few souvenirs for people at the Pokemon Center, where we were again tempted by a super cool piece of merchandise: an LED lamp designed to look just like Chandelure. Oh my goodness, it was so cool, and we wanted it so badly. But not only did we not have room for it in our luggage, we also don't really have a place for it in our apartment, so it's just as well that we didn't get it. But I did want to write about it here so I could remember that such an awesome thing exists.
By then we were very tired, so we headed back to our hotel to rest up for the big day the next day: Tokyo Disneyland. And I'm very pleased to say that we had familiarized ourselves enough with the train routes by then that we were able to make our way back to the hotel without having to find some place that had free wi-fi.
Today I'm thankful for work going very well, getting to wander around Shinjuku and Shibuya, not getting lost, managing to find souvenirs for all the nieces and nephews, and having a lovely time at the Relief Society activity.
When we last finished writing about Japan, we had just gotten back to Tokyo from Kyoto. We ended up having to wait a little extra long for our room to be ready at the hotel, so we seriously considered calling it a night and hibernating for the rest of the day, but we also wanted to go to Shinjuku, and see if Shibuya was more tolerable on a weekday, so we gathered our energy back up, we got directions to our Shinjuku destination, and we headed out.
The reason we wanted to go to Shinjuku is that we had been tasked with looking for Square-Enix merchandise, and Shinjuku is where the Square-Enix cafe Artnia is located. It's not exactly close to the train station, and the directions got to be a little bit vague towards the end, but we had a lovely walk through the area, and right where the directions got to the point where they said, "Turn right" and "turn left" without any street names or landmarks or anything, I looked up from my phone and saw a small white round building. That was it! We had found it!
It was a pretty neat place, too, with lots of cool Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest stuff. We were sorely tempted to by a Tonberry plushie, but out of consideration for the space in our luggage, we refrained. The room with all the really expensive stuff (jewelry and figures and whatnot) had a super cool fountain in the center of it, with water coming down from the ceiling and a big crystal a la Final Fantasy floating (hanging from cables) in the air, with little crystal fragments floating around it. At the bottom of the fountain was a pile of materia. And it was so cool, because the way the water was falling, it kind of looked like it was actually going up instead of down. It was awesome.
We didn't have the guts to ask if we could have a table and order some food (I seem to remember seeing online that they have a few different pancake dishes...), so we just looked around for a little while, bought a few things, and left. One amusing thing is that there were a couple of other groups there at the same time, both very non-Japanese. As we were looking at all the cool stuff for sale, one of the other people bumped into me and said, "Sumimasen!" Since we were in Japan, it only vaguely occurred to me that that was a little bit odd, as that person did not look Japanese, but then we heard her talk to her group in what sounded like Italian. And that taught me never to assume that every white person I come across is from an English-speaking country.
After we left Artnia, we saw some signs pointing to Shibuya, so we figured it couldn't be too far and we decided to see if we could walk to the Disney Store and the Nintendo Store. The answer to that question is yes, of course, but only if you keep in mind that everywhere is technically within walking distance if you try hard enough. And so we had a very lovely, but rather long, walk to Shibuya. It really was quite nice, though. The weather was perfect, and the sidewalk went along a park for part of it. But we sure were tired when we got there.
It turns out that yes, the popular Shibuya stores are much more pleasant when it's not Saturday. We bought a few more things at the Disney Store, and then we went to the Nintendo Store where we were able to get almost all the souvenirs for our nieces and nephews. The Nintendo Store purchasing experience was pretty interesting, because every cash register had two employees. When it was my turn to checkout, I learned that, at least at the one register, one of them was there to actually ring up the purchase, and the other one was there to speak English. There were a lot of foreign tourists. And they know their audience.
We also got a few souvenirs for people at the Pokemon Center, where we were again tempted by a super cool piece of merchandise: an LED lamp designed to look just like Chandelure. Oh my goodness, it was so cool, and we wanted it so badly. But not only did we not have room for it in our luggage, we also don't really have a place for it in our apartment, so it's just as well that we didn't get it. But I did want to write about it here so I could remember that such an awesome thing exists.
By then we were very tired, so we headed back to our hotel to rest up for the big day the next day: Tokyo Disneyland. And I'm very pleased to say that we had familiarized ourselves enough with the train routes by then that we were able to make our way back to the hotel without having to find some place that had free wi-fi.
Today I'm thankful for work going very well, getting to wander around Shinjuku and Shibuya, not getting lost, managing to find souvenirs for all the nieces and nephews, and having a lovely time at the Relief Society activity.