Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Omotesando
Yesterday was incredibly confusing because of culture shock from Seoul, strangely enough. I'd anticipated speaking Korean instead of Japanese, but it's really hard to break the habit. I keep saying "ne" and "aniyo" and "kamsahamnida," and I can't quite get back into the habit of thinking in Japanese after not having done so for years (I've read manga in Japanese after undergrad, but not spoken the language). Thank goodness my listening is still all right. Also, Seoul Metro had conducted a "keep to the right" campaign with stickers on all the stairs and escalators and hallways in the subway. I'm already terrible at switching over to the other side (I kept trying to get on the wrong escalator when I was in Hong Kong), and that probably made it so much worse.
That said, today was much more fun, probably because there wasn't anywhere we had to be or anything we had to do! We headed over to Shinjuku to see the Bunka Costume Museum, which is sadly closed during my entire visit here, I think for Obon. I also found out that the Takarazuka performances while I am here are completely sold out, though I'm going to try lining up the day of to see if I have a chance then. Then I dragged my sister to yet another Book Off, where I sadly didn't fill any holes in the gaps I had from yesterday, but I did find Saiyuki Gaiden 4! After that, we were going to head to Harajuku but got somewhat distracted by Takashimaya Times Square (HUGE!). We originally were going to go to Uniqlo, but after I saw the sign for yukata on sale, we headed over there instead. And! Upon entering the eleventh floor, I was met with yards and yards and yards of cloth on sale! It makes me want to sew. But even better, there were shelves and shelves and shelves of YARN!!! I went and ogled all of it, most of which were Japanese brands I've never seen. It was seriously the size of a medium yarn store right up there in the department store! They had hemp and rougher material for crocheting and knitting hats too. They also had trims and beads and all sorts of awesome arts and crafts stuff.
They also sold school uniforms on that floor, probably for very exclusive and expensive private schools? My sister and I wondered why Japanese school uniforms seem to look so much better than ours (a painfully bright shade of pink). And so many yukata and gorgeous kimono! Oh! They also have a Din Tai Feng there, which is much more expensive than the one in Taiwan. I thought the line was only a few people and figured that was good enough and indicated a fair amount of popularity, and then I turned the corner to find people lining down the entire other wall. And! They have green tea donuts at the Krispy Kreme here with green tea cream inside and green tea icing on the top! They are very good; not too sweet and tasting very strongly of green tea. Sadly, we have not yet encountered a Mr. Donut.
After emerging from Shinjuku and Uniqlo several hours later and several shopping bags more than anticipated, we headed over to Harajuku. I have discovered the little signs in the subway that tell you what car you should be on for what exit, which is AWESOME. I wish they had those everywhere! Thanks to that, we found Takeshita-doori with no trouble at all. It was hot and incredibly crowded, despite it being Tuesday, and my sister and I wandered around for a while until we saw a store selling bakudan and churros. The bakudan are basically this fist-sized ball filled with mochi, bits of hot dog, corn, pickled radish, a quail egg, konnyaku, and other things, and the batter tastes quite a bit like takoyaki, save without the tako. We wolfed it down on the side of the street while our piping hot churro melted the whipped cream on top and dripped down my fingers. They had strawberry, chocolate, and cinnamon churros, and you could get them with whipped cream and crunchy things or flaky things or chocolate sprinkles on top. So good!
And then we found Marion Crepes! And! And! They had my tuna-pizza-sauce-cream-cheese crepe that I remember from eight years ago in Kanazawa! And it is still good! I made my sister eat it too. They also had tuna curry crepes, which I wanted to try but didn't. After eating that, we headed back for a strawberry-vanilla-ice-cream-cheese-cake crepe, having learned our lessons from eating our bakudan while bits of our churro melted. YUM. We both decided that Taiwan crepes are crispier, though sometimes I think they are too crispy (sometimes they break into bits when you bite into them). The Harajuku crepes were floppier than I remembered; last time I was here (years and years ago), I remember whichever store we went to had a stack of pre-made crepes, thick and beautifully browned, a bit crispy and chewy. This time ours were rather thin and floppy, but still good! Also, cheese cake in crepes = AWESOME.
We wandered into several stores on sale, but I couldn't find any shirts interesting enough to be cool but not so interesting that I couldn't wear them everyday. But I did find Princess Tutu sunglasses! They are sunglasses in the shape of two swans facing each other, with both of their tail feathers fanning out to form a sort of cat's eye shape by each eye. They came in pink and black, and I would have gotten them just for fun, except I could not manage to get a clerk to pay attention to me to ask the price. Still, they exist in the world, and that makes me happy.
We also fondled all the used yukata and kimono and obi at Chicago (thanks to
snarp for the tip!), and I remembered that I bought a vintage silk kimono years ago. I wanted to get an obi for it, but I couldn't remember what it even looked like! Clearly I need to dig it back out of my closet.
Afterward, we headed down Meiji-doori, but we were so tired that we ducked into a karaoke place for an hour just to sit in air conditioning with drinks. The karaoke was sadly not as cheap as I thought (the drinks you had to order weren't included in the price), but warbling along in Korean and Japanese and English was very fun nevertheless. They didn't have "Jansori," though, which totally earwormed me in Seoul. But they used the same system that is in another karaoke place in the Bay Area, which was rather funny, since I knew what songs they would have. We then finally made it out, only to stop in Kiddy Land for two whole hours. OMG. The cute! So much cute! There is a character called Kapibara-san (capybara) and it is SO CUTE AND FLUFFY! I went around squishing it and going "It's so fluffy I'm going to die!"
Other awesome things seen in Kiddy Land include brain games that look like Japanese candy (Meiji chocolate bars, the Apollo strawberry chocolate triangle things, etc.)-you fit all the triangles in a box, or make the chocolate bars into different shapes. There's also a little soup bowl filled with sleepy kittens! And a kitten piggy bank that has a kitten's paw emerging from a box when you put down a coin to scoop the coin in. And a new character called "Nyanpire" that is... a vampire cat! It even has a cross for a belly button!
After we finally made it to Omotesando Hills, we sat down for the fanciest omurice I've ever had. It was extremely good-the egg was wonderfully fluffy and soft, the rice was perfectly flavored and the right texture, the ketchup sauce flavor was good, and the chicken on the side was great-but also expensive, so we didn't order too much. We emerged still a bit hungry and then got sidetracked into an alley by a sign for a tonkatsu restaurant, which we eventually found but didn't go in. Instead, we found... 7-Eleven!
We headed out with a croquette (really good), an egg sandwich (also good), aloe-flavored Kit Kat (smells and tastes a bit like soap), almond tofu (a little too sweet for me), and mini cheese mochi bread balls (really really good). I love convenience stores here SO MUCH.
Sadly, it was so late by that point that we didn't see much of Omotesando and never even made it to Aoyama. And I think we skipped a pretty big chunk of anything Harajuku that wasn't Kiddy Land or Takeshita-doori. I could probably spend a week here alone.
In conclusion: I'm actually still not in love with Tokyo, but I suspect if I ever lived here for only a month or so instead of just visiting and doing the whirlwind tour, I would fall pretty quickly.
Comment | Read Comments (
) | Link
That said, today was much more fun, probably because there wasn't anywhere we had to be or anything we had to do! We headed over to Shinjuku to see the Bunka Costume Museum, which is sadly closed during my entire visit here, I think for Obon. I also found out that the Takarazuka performances while I am here are completely sold out, though I'm going to try lining up the day of to see if I have a chance then. Then I dragged my sister to yet another Book Off, where I sadly didn't fill any holes in the gaps I had from yesterday, but I did find Saiyuki Gaiden 4! After that, we were going to head to Harajuku but got somewhat distracted by Takashimaya Times Square (HUGE!). We originally were going to go to Uniqlo, but after I saw the sign for yukata on sale, we headed over there instead. And! Upon entering the eleventh floor, I was met with yards and yards and yards of cloth on sale! It makes me want to sew. But even better, there were shelves and shelves and shelves of YARN!!! I went and ogled all of it, most of which were Japanese brands I've never seen. It was seriously the size of a medium yarn store right up there in the department store! They had hemp and rougher material for crocheting and knitting hats too. They also had trims and beads and all sorts of awesome arts and crafts stuff.
They also sold school uniforms on that floor, probably for very exclusive and expensive private schools? My sister and I wondered why Japanese school uniforms seem to look so much better than ours (a painfully bright shade of pink). And so many yukata and gorgeous kimono! Oh! They also have a Din Tai Feng there, which is much more expensive than the one in Taiwan. I thought the line was only a few people and figured that was good enough and indicated a fair amount of popularity, and then I turned the corner to find people lining down the entire other wall. And! They have green tea donuts at the Krispy Kreme here with green tea cream inside and green tea icing on the top! They are very good; not too sweet and tasting very strongly of green tea. Sadly, we have not yet encountered a Mr. Donut.
After emerging from Shinjuku and Uniqlo several hours later and several shopping bags more than anticipated, we headed over to Harajuku. I have discovered the little signs in the subway that tell you what car you should be on for what exit, which is AWESOME. I wish they had those everywhere! Thanks to that, we found Takeshita-doori with no trouble at all. It was hot and incredibly crowded, despite it being Tuesday, and my sister and I wandered around for a while until we saw a store selling bakudan and churros. The bakudan are basically this fist-sized ball filled with mochi, bits of hot dog, corn, pickled radish, a quail egg, konnyaku, and other things, and the batter tastes quite a bit like takoyaki, save without the tako. We wolfed it down on the side of the street while our piping hot churro melted the whipped cream on top and dripped down my fingers. They had strawberry, chocolate, and cinnamon churros, and you could get them with whipped cream and crunchy things or flaky things or chocolate sprinkles on top. So good!
And then we found Marion Crepes! And! And! They had my tuna-pizza-sauce-cream-cheese crepe that I remember from eight years ago in Kanazawa! And it is still good! I made my sister eat it too. They also had tuna curry crepes, which I wanted to try but didn't. After eating that, we headed back for a strawberry-vanilla-ice-cream-cheese-cake crepe, having learned our lessons from eating our bakudan while bits of our churro melted. YUM. We both decided that Taiwan crepes are crispier, though sometimes I think they are too crispy (sometimes they break into bits when you bite into them). The Harajuku crepes were floppier than I remembered; last time I was here (years and years ago), I remember whichever store we went to had a stack of pre-made crepes, thick and beautifully browned, a bit crispy and chewy. This time ours were rather thin and floppy, but still good! Also, cheese cake in crepes = AWESOME.
We wandered into several stores on sale, but I couldn't find any shirts interesting enough to be cool but not so interesting that I couldn't wear them everyday. But I did find Princess Tutu sunglasses! They are sunglasses in the shape of two swans facing each other, with both of their tail feathers fanning out to form a sort of cat's eye shape by each eye. They came in pink and black, and I would have gotten them just for fun, except I could not manage to get a clerk to pay attention to me to ask the price. Still, they exist in the world, and that makes me happy.
We also fondled all the used yukata and kimono and obi at Chicago (thanks to
snarp for the tip!), and I remembered that I bought a vintage silk kimono years ago. I wanted to get an obi for it, but I couldn't remember what it even looked like! Clearly I need to dig it back out of my closet.
Afterward, we headed down Meiji-doori, but we were so tired that we ducked into a karaoke place for an hour just to sit in air conditioning with drinks. The karaoke was sadly not as cheap as I thought (the drinks you had to order weren't included in the price), but warbling along in Korean and Japanese and English was very fun nevertheless. They didn't have "Jansori," though, which totally earwormed me in Seoul. But they used the same system that is in another karaoke place in the Bay Area, which was rather funny, since I knew what songs they would have. We then finally made it out, only to stop in Kiddy Land for two whole hours. OMG. The cute! So much cute! There is a character called Kapibara-san (capybara) and it is SO CUTE AND FLUFFY! I went around squishing it and going "It's so fluffy I'm going to die!"
Other awesome things seen in Kiddy Land include brain games that look like Japanese candy (Meiji chocolate bars, the Apollo strawberry chocolate triangle things, etc.)-you fit all the triangles in a box, or make the chocolate bars into different shapes. There's also a little soup bowl filled with sleepy kittens! And a kitten piggy bank that has a kitten's paw emerging from a box when you put down a coin to scoop the coin in. And a new character called "Nyanpire" that is... a vampire cat! It even has a cross for a belly button!
After we finally made it to Omotesando Hills, we sat down for the fanciest omurice I've ever had. It was extremely good-the egg was wonderfully fluffy and soft, the rice was perfectly flavored and the right texture, the ketchup sauce flavor was good, and the chicken on the side was great-but also expensive, so we didn't order too much. We emerged still a bit hungry and then got sidetracked into an alley by a sign for a tonkatsu restaurant, which we eventually found but didn't go in. Instead, we found... 7-Eleven!
We headed out with a croquette (really good), an egg sandwich (also good), aloe-flavored Kit Kat (smells and tastes a bit like soap), almond tofu (a little too sweet for me), and mini cheese mochi bread balls (really really good). I love convenience stores here SO MUCH.
Sadly, it was so late by that point that we didn't see much of Omotesando and never even made it to Aoyama. And I think we skipped a pretty big chunk of anything Harajuku that wasn't Kiddy Land or Takeshita-doori. I could probably spend a week here alone.
In conclusion: I'm actually still not in love with Tokyo, but I suspect if I ever lived here for only a month or so instead of just visiting and doing the whirlwind tour, I would fall pretty quickly.
Comment | Read Comments (
) | Link