heading home

Day nine

My last day in Japan! I could hardly believed it had gone so quickly. It was a sunday so I went back to Harajuku to see if I could see more of the famed Harajuku Girls – I did have a few more sightings that with Jane the day before, but I was disappointed not to see that many at all, maybe winter isn’t the time for them. I’ll just have to go back to Japan, sigh.

Sunday did however bring a lot more activity around Harajuku, the streets were packed with shoppers and all the stores were a buzz. I walked the streets enjoying the energy, and making sure I had bought everything that I wanted from Japan. About mid afternoon I was ready for a break – enter the crepe shop! The french and Japanese fusion is just not one you would expect, but you find french bakeries, patisseries and creperies all around Japan. I ordered a ice cream, banana, and chocolate crepe – I love ice cream in the winter!

yummy

I also had a first when walking around Harajuku – I saw my first graffiti in Japan. For such a clean city (despite the lack of rubbish bins?!) I had never seen any graffiti or needless destruction of any kind.

graffiti in a Harajuku street

Even in Japan the graffiti is still clean and precise. So I left Harajuku a little disappointed but on wards and upwards to Shinjuku. I had planned to visit Shinjuku as the Lonely Planet had suggested a book store which had english books – and since I finished my trip book on the plane over, I required some reading for the way home. It was a bit tricky to find, but once I did it was a god send. An entire floor with english books – I ended up buying The Watchman, and also Sophie’s World. I knew the Watchman was on my 1001 books to read book which I had been working my way through. Sophie’s World was a book I had read when I was younger, and remember enjoying it hugely, I thought it deserved a re-read.

And with that I headed back to Tokyo station and began my journey home. It was such an amazing experience – Japan was such a different world to what I was used to – I am so looking forward to continuing my exploration of this amazing country oh so soon!

goodbye to jane

Day eight

Saturday was Jane’s last day in Tokyo before she headed to the snow so we went to Harajuku hoping that the cosplay costumes came out on saturday as well as sunday – however  no luck! Again I think the rain discouraged many to venture on the streets.

All, however, was not lost. We discovered Forever 21 – which has insanely cheap clothes, I’d liken it to a Temt or Valleygirl, but with a better selection. It was 4 floors of clothes and more clothes – with accessories all in between. Not wanting to add to my suitcase size too more I only bought a few accessories – namely more scarves and Berets to keep me warm! After walking through some of the smaller Harajuku streets we stumbled upon another Kiddyland and ventured through the levels of toys, gadgets and things you could never need. This venturing brought us to lunch – which we decided to have back at Tokyo station, as this is where Jane had to depart from.

After browsing through Restaurant St, as Tokyo station called it, we settled on a humble Japanese restaurant that served a bento box for Jane and Chicken Katsu curry for myself. It was the first Katsu I had had with the curry – and I was pleasantly surprised.

I soon left Jane at the station and headed over to Ikebukuro to have another look around some more Tokyo stores and to have one last look through Loft and Tokyu Hands. The top storey of this Tokyu Hands had something quite unique – it was a room which you could pay to enter, and to hang out with….cats! By paying 600 yen you could go through to the cat room and spend as long as you wanted and just sit and play with the cats. I couldn’t believe there was a market for this sort of interaction. I was missing my Bailey by this stage (my 8 month old ragdoll) so I paid the fee to spend some time with the kittens.

it was like a cats utopia – cat runs, scratching posts and all the pats they could want

After what was a rather uneventful afternoon (except for the cats) – I headed back to the restaurant where Jane and I previously had Chicken Katsu and tried their other appealing dish, a sizzling beef with lemon and ginger.

it certainly was sizzling

On the way home I managed to stop by the local 7/11 and bought one of my favourite Japanese snacks

It was a frozen treat, with some sort of dough around vanilla ice cream – it even came with a stick to eat it on. I am going to miss what ever these are.

And that was my last night in Japan…

time to shop

Day seven

We awake in Tokyo hoping for a better day – thankfully the weather was on our side – it was still cold, but the day was clear and no rain was forecast – phew! Our plan was simple we were going to hit Ginza and Shibuya for the shops – key stops on our way were; SaniroWorld for Hello Kitty, Tokyu Hands, Loft and H&M.

We began by catching the subway straight down to Ginza, conveniently enough the Hello Kitty store was in a department store connected to the subway via the underground – we didn’t even have to face the cold!

I am always so surprised at how much merchandise they manage to put Hello Kitty’s face on! Hello Kitty humidifier, blenders, cooking utensils – you name it, there is a Hello Kitty version. Jane bought a few items and we headed out to the cold of the streets. We walked the streets for a few minutes before we encountered an Abercrombie & Fitch store. Being curious, since we don’t have one in Melbourne, we went in. What we found was not at all what we imagined. Firstly we were greeted with ‘Hi, how’s it going’ in a strong fake american accent, then as you move into the store you are now in near darkness. A male employee stands topless posing for photos with shoppers, we pass right on by and begin the climb up the seemingly endless amount of stairs. Each floor only held a small amount of clothes – the employees however were plentiful. There was one at each floor to greet you from the stairs, usually one girl dancing in the corner, and then a couple at the registers. If if wasn’t 11 in the morning, and for the presence of some clothing I would guessed I was in a club.

Back in the light we were elated to see a H&M across the road – although not strictly Japanese, we indulged slightly in some shopping (my excuse will always  be that the japanese sizing was all wrong for westerners). After a big jolt of retail therapy we went searching for Itoya – a nine storey stationery store – you couldn’t contain my excitement.

itoya – nine storey stationery store

Floor after floor contained more than you would need in a lifetime – concerned for my bank balance I narrowed my purchases to just some origami paper, cat notebook, four pieces of Japanese Washi (paper) to be framed at a later date and some cute valentines day cards. Pleased at my restraint we exited the store and headed back to the subway to journey to Shibuya.

Shibuya had two major points of interest – Tokyu Hands and Loft. Tokyu Hands is described as a creative life store, which pretty well sums up what’s inside. It is just floors and floors of everything you could need – pet supplies, toiletries, electronics, pretty much everything but clothes. Loft is very similar, probably just a bit more a slant to the more wacky. We decided that we could only go to each store once – so it was buy now, or regret it. I certainly brought home a haul that day.

A long day of shopping also needs a relaxing, filling dinner. Many bags later (have I mentioned how much Japanese stores like giving a bag for every little thing! as well as a receipt!) we were venturing on the streets of Shibuya looking for a place to eat – we found a little okonomiyaki place, where the grills were on your table! I suppose you have to feel a little robbed paying for dinner but still having to cook it yourself – but the novelty makes up for it. We both ordered basic okonomiyaki’s but just added a few extras – I added egg (we found out later that egg is already included, so we ended up getting two eggs!), vegetables and bacon. The process was pretty easy – and both of us managed a pretty good result.

our table – the grill

ingredients were brought to your table

first the meat needs to be cooked

then everything is mixed and you pour it onto the grill in a pancake shape (it’s around 5 minutes either side)

the cook at work

nearly ready

add okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise and then some red pepper spice – yum!

After a successful dinner we headed back to the hostel where we were amazed at how much we had managed to buy!

Our sleep was restless as we wondered if we’d make it under the baggage allowance…

hello tokyo

Day Six

After another breakfast of various pastries from our favourite bakery in Kyoto station we said goodbye to Kyoto and hello to Tokyo. The train from Kyoto to Tokyo was approximately 2 and a bit hours long, not unbearable but certainly not as comfortable as the 20 minute train ride from Osaka to Kyoto. Thankfully both Jane and myself had rail passes (pre-purchased in Melbourne) which meant we could ride all the JR lines without paying a cent.  We arrived to a very cold and rain Tokyo station. From here we had to catch two connecting trains to reach our station to the north of central Tokyo. The instructions from the hostel on how to get there from the station seemed foolproof – they had a step to step guide on how go from the exit in the station to the door of the hostel – it would have been foolproof, if we could have found the exit they were talking about. We realised that Tokyo wasn’t as luggage friendly as Osaka and Kyoto and the only exit we could use without hauling our luggage up flights of stair threw us off our hostel instructions. After some guessing and a little walking, we discovered a tourist centre – we decided to bite the bullet and ask for directions, luckily we did. It turns out we were walking in the complete opposite direction! We were soon corrected and we quickly walked through the rain and the crowds to our hostel. After checking in and dumping our l uggage we set out on the town – optimistic that the day would improve.

After I was to head back to Melbourne, Jane was headed to the snow. To do so she decided to buy some snowboarding gear to Tokyo to take up with her – so we headed out North central Tokyo to the sporting goods side of town. We had picked up a place for lunch in advance from the lonely planet – and set out to search for it on our arrival. However, rain and street signs were against us! For the life of us we couldn’t find the suggested restaurant – feeling cold, tired and wet we took shelter in a nearby Starbucks and warmed our sorrows with a hot chocolate and a sandwich.

With a full stomach and a bit more warmth we headed out snowboard shopping – we couldn’t be more surprised with the amount of shops and choice in each that there was! It was floor upon floor of snowboard gear – every possible colour and style you could imagine. After seeing this – it would be impossible to not to find what Jane needed! Little did Jane know that an australia size 9 foot isn’t catered for in the Japanese market! We ventured to over 4 shops searching for the appropriately sized snowboots – we were finally successful – however she did have limited choice, the shop only had one style in her size. Quite a few bags later – and a few trains of lugging the bags later – we arrived back at the hostel.

Feeling a bit downtrodden and less optimistic of the wonders of Tokyo we set out to find dinner near the hostel. The hostel had a recommended restaurants list – and after choosing one and venturing into the rain, we again ran out of luck, we couldn’t find it! We think we walked right past it, but there was no sign posting of any sort. We started in the direction of our second choice, and thankfully we were able to locate it, and headed inside for some warmth. It was a katsu restaurant and so it was only fitting that we ordered chicken katsu.

oh so yummy chicken katsu

Our moods lifted with a warm meal, and the hilarious Japanese game show playing on the TV at the restaurant. Tomorrow would be a better day – we were headed to Ginza and Shibuya – it was time to shop!