Some Retail Therapy
Natural Lawson
So apparently Lawson’s come in different flavors and a Natural Lawson supposedly focuses on healthier foods? In any case, it’s easy to see that their convenience stores because a staple for us whenever we felt too tired to walk to a restaurant or needed food at an odd hour.
The onigiri became Henry’s favorite while I just wanted all the egg sandwiches. As for drinks, the calpis soda and Kirin milk tea because our go-tos pretty quickly except when I really craved soda and needed to get a coke. We only saw maybe two vending machines out of all the ones we came across that carried Mountain Dew. Overall, it seemed like weren’t many Pepsi products in Tokyo. We mainly only saw Coke and Fanta that were commonly found in vending machines or at stores.
Shinjuku
Kajitsuen Libre
“Kanmi nomi zo shiru!”
Kantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman
So I’m a little obsessed with this show on Netflix that I mentioned on the previous post. It’s a live-action TV show based off a manga that is basically about a publishing company salesman who tries his best to get his work done ASAP so he can play hooky and eat desserts for the rest of the day. All the shops he goes to are real places in Tokyo so I wanted to visit at least a couple of place during our trip. Kajitusen Libre was the second place we tried that’s known for its fruits. Fruits are serious business in Japan, we saw single mangoes worth over 50 dollars!
When we arrived, we just put our name down on a sign-in sheet with our name and number of guests. I think we only waited about half an hour to be seated and we did have a bigger party than most. While we waited, we just stared at the fruit and cakes on display. Probably the funniest thing I saw was the pyramid-shaped watermelon.
When we sat down, they were able to give us an English menu but not all the prices were accurate when we compared it to the Japanese menu. It didn’t seem like there were too many tourists at this place and the waiters weren’t as adept with basic English as in other places. But of course, pointing at the menu worked beautifully. One tip for the menu is that not all the cakes are available, only the ones you see displayed at the waiting area are the cakes they’ve made for the day. Additionally, not all fruits are in season so we couldn’t get the peach parfait that Kantaro eats on the show lol. But the melon parfait was more than enough for me (and was also briefly featured on the show)! The honey dew was so juicy and the melon ice cream was absolutely delicious. Henry got a seasonal dish that had various types of strawberries–I don’t think I knew that there were different types of strawberries– and that was really good as well. We also tried the cakes and crepes! It was somewhat expensive but it’s my understanding tha fruit, in general, is pretty expensive because it’s mostly imported.
Shinjuku Marui Annex
Seria
Since we were in Shinjuku, we went to Seria at the Shinjuku Marui Annex because it looked like one of the larger Serias when I was researching it before we left for Japan. This one was much larger than the one we saw in Ueno and made me wish we had one in the US so bad. At first, I felt a little guilty at making Henry’s family come with us to the store but they seemed to instantly take to the store and all the useful items it had. I think I got asked a few times, “Is this really just 100 yen??” The stuff that Seria sells is pretty dang high quality for what you’d expect from a dollar store and if I could, I’d bring back a whole suitcase full of stuff so that I could Marie Kondo our whole apartment.
Avengers Pop-up store
There was also an Avengers pop-up store that we checked out and found a Spiderverse gashapon. Henry doesn’t seem to have the greatest luck and we got the same Spiderman twice when we were hoping for anything but the normal Spiderman… Oh well!
Odakyu Ace
By this time, we were starving and I remembered seeing a bunch of food on the way from Shinjuku station so we ended up at Odakyu Ace. There were two floors devoted to just food and we ended up picking a tonkatsu place.
Tonkatsu Wako
I honestly was impressed by how perfectly fried the food was. I got some sort of cheese-filled beef patty and pork fillet. Henry got tempura and pork loin. We both agreed that my dish was better so I guess fillet > loin? We were also strangely super impressed by the miso soup because there were lots of little clams at the bottom!
Loft
After eating, we wandered at bit and shopped at a store called Loft. We got some really cute stickers and just looked the variety of goods they had there. But overall, this Loft was fairly small and didn’t have too much that interested us.
Shibuya
We actually then tried to walk down to Shibuya because we wanted to check out Yoyogi park and the temple on the way down but didn’t realize that the park would be closed so soon. By this time, it was a little past sunset so I guess that was a bit of a fail. We hoped on the rail to Shibuya from Yoyogi station.
Hachiko Statue
As soon as we stepped out of the station, we saw Hachiko statue on Google Maps while we were trying to orient ourselves. Of course we had to take pictures! Briefly, his story is that he would meet his owner near Shibuya station the same time every day. One day, his owner died but Hachiko continue to wait for him every day at the same spot for almost nine years before Hachiko died as well. His story is seen as one about faithfulness and loyalty.
From the statue, it’s easy to see Shibuya crossing because you’re basically right there!
Shibuya Crossing and Starbucks
We spotted the Starbucks and went up to the second floor where many people were already doing what we planned on doing: taking pictures of Shibuya crossing–the busiest crossing in the world apparently? We sat there for a while trying to get all our time-lapse videos and even saw some people in MariCar go by!
On our way out we saw a crowd of really excited and rowdy men who were singing. On closer look, we saw they were gathered around what we think was some J-idol girl group. We couldn’t even hear them sing because the guys were so loud and pumped.
Disney Store
We headed to the Disney store just because I saw it on the map and I wasn’t disappointed. Except in the crazy prices. But everything was crazy cute even if my wallet wasn’t going to open up for the cost.
Mega Don Quijote
We then headed to the Mega Don Quijote nearby and it was massive! We ended up finding a really cute Gudetama shirt as well as more Studio Ghibli socks that were Spirted Away themed! Seriously, take my money. I did also see a Pikachu jumper that I really wanted but it was out of stock, boo.
At some point we also walked by a massive Loft store that looked really cool, but it was closed by the time we got to it. Whenever we go back to Japan, I’ll be sure to try to check out this store.
After the Mega Don Quijote, it was time to go home and sleep!
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