Advertisement
Published: February 16th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Happy chinese new year!Well back to Tokyo. This day has pretty much been a write off as we basically spent the day travelling and have yet to step out into tokyo. So this blog will combine 2 days. I am hoping to get out into the citry tomorrow and do lots of exploring. As for tonite, We took the train up to Ikebukro for dinner and went to a restaurant that had okonomiyaki which is a japanese pancake. you sit at a table with a flat top grill in the front and order what you want in your pancake, they bring a small bowl to your table with your ingredients and batter , pour it in and cook it. It also has the same sauce as the tako yaki balls, a sweeter brown sauce with japanese mayo and bonito flakes on top. very oishii! Except for the fact that i smell like i work in a diner, dinner was awesome.
So the next day was shopping day. We split form the boys, which was a very good thing, they wouldn't have lasted, and took a subway down to shibuya 109 which is an 8 floor shopping mecca. In Tokyo right
now it almost seems like they are a couple seasons behind a bit but they do have some things that are really fun and definitely stuff you wont find in calgary. Its all about fl orals and bohemian, which im all for for spring, so Jill and I did some major shopping damage, I pulled out the old credit card, and spent the day shopping. It does seem like a bit of a waste to spend a day in a mall when we should be exploring more but I figured that I'll just cram more into another day, because the shopping was too much fun. And I definitely need more luggage. We ended our shopping journey at Harajuku, but we not there long enough to give it justice so we decided we would go there early the following morning and check it out before we head to Shinjuku. A quick pit stop at the tokyu foot market( i love these things) and back to the hotel. This night was also going to be the night we attempted to go out for drinks. Roopongi is known as the area to go to for late night happenings, but ut being a monday
there was not a lot happening. Also when you walk down the streets of roopongi, a lot of these Sudanese and Brazilian men dressing in black with heavy accents( not japanese) come following you or calling you to some to there club. it was weird. This one guy from Brazil approached yuki and began talking to him about a hip hop club just across the street. We had been walking quite a bit and were getting tired of looking for a place so he convinced is top go to this happening club for drinks. It was on the 6th floor. So up we went, entered the "club" which was a really small room with NOBODY in it. as soon as we walked in the man behind the bar put a huge smile on his face, the same way a cat grins before it gets its meal, and they lead us into this booth in the corner. There were these cheesy disco lights and extremely bad hip hop music that they turned up full blast when we sat down.l The bartender came over and began trying to sell us drinks and ever bargaining with us that if we stayed, he would
only charge us 500 yen per drink.Something about the atmosphere sis not sit right with any of us so we got us and left. The men were trying to be persuasive and convince yuki and the guys to stay while Jill and I booked it down the stairs and left as fast as we could. So we walked a little more done the way and found Gas bar, so we wlaked on in ans it too was playing really bad hip hop, but there was some people in there so we stopped for one drink. So at least we went out, it wasnt an all nighter shake down, but really we are older, so i think we did well. Ended the night stopping at don quixote discount mart( I know random) where i bought all the different flavors of kit kat to bring home( squash, creme caramel,strawberry and royal milk tea kit kat, theres also green tea kit kat ill have to pick up) and ended the night at a tako yaki place. Calgary has hot dogs the end of the night, Tokyo has tako yaki. I would much prefer tako yaki!
So tuesday, agiain ended up being a
little more shopping. back to Harajuku, which has had the best shopping so far to me along with Shuibuya, and the craziest clothing I have ever seen! if I was younger ans living in Tokyo I would definitely be a harajuku girl, the fashion is just so fun and different and funky. I found some Awsome stores that have some great harajuku type clothes (I think everything screamed out Janice!) The Harajuku girls definetly imagination when they put their outfits together. After harajuku we headed over to Shinkuku to go to the metropolitan government office to check out the view from the observatory, then on to akehabara, the electronics district, where is is duty free and electronic central. But once youève seen one electronic store, you've seen them all. They kind of give me a bit of a headache. I do have to say that this day was so fricken cold, colder than the rest, that we were chilled to the bone and tired and cranky and hungry, but we did find this out of the way gem restaurant that you would never know about if they didnt have ppl there advertising it on the street, but it was awesome,
sitting on the floor style again, but the menu had a lot of small bit sufficient dishes that were cheap so you just ordered a lot of little things and had a feast.We all agreed that if this existed in calgary it would be very popular. haven't had tons of time for doing the blog, so its rushed, but going to mt fuji today so good pics to come!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.341s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0647s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mom
non-member comment
Shopping
Did you remember to get Auntie Sheilagh her Birthday Wish???? Her b'day is wednesday. Take a real funky pic for her! MOM