Japan Pt7 - Tokyo day 3: Tokyo West!

Many of the major must see places according to various sites and travel guides were clustered around the west side of Tokyo. For this leg of the journey a lot of the places were on the JR Yamanote line, so we had to purchase additional tickets.

Akihabara & Shinjuku

We decided to keep the main players of Tokyo for the full day with the boys, so after grabbing some breakfast and lunch at the supermarket near the hostel we headed off to Akihabara, the electronics and otaku centre of Tokyo. It was another scorching hot day but we braved the sun and headed over to Yodobashi camera, the huge electronics megastore because Munira wanted to get some instax film. We spent quite a while there, mostly on the toys floor trying out different games and toys that were sold. After that we walked over to the Tokyo Anime Centre, which was quite disappointing I think. It was just a small gallery in a big building. Maybe it was also because I’m not really into anime kot.

super huge (and this one was considered small) momo! it was sooo juicy and delicious and refreshing

out of place

no idea what most of the stuff here was. rasa mcm such a wasted opportunity.

cute pirate ship thingies

concentration

finally someone I know!

trying out Mario kart at the Nintendo stations

I wasn’t very good at it but it was fun!

we all scream for toy ice cream

this one’s for my mom (no we didnt buy it)

my new friend

the quite disappointing anime centre

no idea who these are

the fan that saved the day

Afterwards we just wandered around the colorful streets looking for maid and cat cafes for the fun of it. I don’t know why, maybe it was store policy or you have to be a paid customer, but whenever we tried taking pictures of maid café promoters they’d always hide. Strange.

so bright! so colorful!

the only maid cafe maid we managed to sneak a picture of

Akibaaaaaa

We headed over to the Shinjuku area afterwards to go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (Tocho) for a free 360° view of the Tokyo metropolis. There are two towers, and from my research it was said that the South tower had slightly more interesting views, so we lined up to take the express elevator all the way up to the 45th floor. Tokyo seemed to go on forever and ever! It wasn’t a perfectly clear day though, so we couldn’t really see Mount Fuji unfortunately. Still, I’d highly recommend going up to the observatory. It definitely helped me get my bearings and gave me a better perspective on how sprawling Tokyo really is. Me and Munira ate our onigiri lunches up in the tower and after refilling our water bottles at the water fountain we headed back down and took the train over to Harajuku.

cute car ^__^

layers

traditional japanese armour shop

the cocoon

Tokyo Metropolitan Government

huge central plaza

shinjuku skyscrapers

That patch of green is Yoyogi Park, next to which is one of the Olympic sites for Tokyo 2020

sprawwwwlllll

I think the altitude got to us coz we were so giddy and excited when we saw this mascot

Harajuku & Omotesando

Harajuku station on the Yamanote line was surprisingly very small, I had expected it to be bigger, being a major attraction and all. The station is right across from the entrance to Yamshita-Dori, the main street to visit. It was crowded with people, with a very high percentage of them being teenage girls. Well the travel guide did say that Harajuku was the go to place for young adult girls to see, be seen, and shop. Most of the shops there were bright pink, though scattered in between them were drastically different goth/punk shops too. We stopped by a Daiso to shop for some souvenirs and then headed on down the road.

don’t be fooled, this was a guy

takeshita dori

overwhelming pinkiness

any trip to Japan is incomplete without a visit to daiso imho

the only fully outfitted lolita girl we saw..and only from the back too

taking it all in

we didn’t go up

stopped by a very pink cafeteria and posed like japanese girls. we were trying to fit in :p

fail.

showing us how its done

much needed relief from the heat

the boys surely felt very out of place. everything was pink and 99% of the patrons were girls hahaha. tula nak sangat makan kebab

At the end of the road the small shops opened up into a wide promenade of multistory mega stores. Inexplicably, the streets were lined with people just sitting around doing nothing in particular. They didn’t even look like they were waiting for anything/anyone. Just…sitting. On the sidewalks. Like it was perfectly normal. Don’t get me wrong, I love sitting on the sidewalk too sometimes, but this was like, a whole other level. So many people were doing the same kind of nothing. Haha.

monster of an H&M store. didnt enter either

inexplicable loitering

spot munira!

We turned down a corner onto Omotesando street, where more supposedly a different kind of crowd would flock to, being lined with upscale brands much like Ginza. Obviously we didnt enter any of them. Instead we went to the Oriental Bazaar, which is kind of a deceiving name because its not so much a bazaar as it is an air-conditioned shop selling all manner of Japanese souvenirs, for the tourists who didnt feel like trawling through the narrow streets of Asakusa and bargain hunting. But being Japanese, (I recall something I read/heard about the Japanese etiquette of not undercutting) the prices here didnt differ so much compared to stalls elsewhere, so we decided to finish off our souvenir shopping once and for all. We got t-shirts for the boys in my family and an antique silk embroidered obi for my mom. the obi was so beautiful and was quite cheap, only Y900, whereas new ones cost upwards of Y20,000 or more.

Shaded Omotesando

Pretty prints that were surprisingly not so expensive

Munira’s project

Tokyo Camii

Shopping done, we walked over to the metro station and hopped on a train to Yoyogi-Uehara, only a few stops away, to visit the Tokyo Camii. It was really nice to have a proper place to pray and relax for a bit, Alhamdulillah. The masjid itself was small (by Malaysian standards of course) but very beautiful. The masjid was built by the Turkish, and the lower floors of the masjid housed the Turkish embassy and gallery/shop. Inside the main prayer hall was the most beautiful masjid chandelier I had ever seen. It was quite simple, composed of arabic letters, but that’s what made it even more elegant. We spent quite a while at the masjid just resting and taking pictures and chatting with the Muslims who were there to pray.

compact and wonderful

entrance to the gallery

you have to go up the stairs to get to the prayer halls

i absolutely loooved the chandelier

tgh jakun

beautiful Masha’Allah

door details

at the entrance to the main prayer hall

that wooden structure on the right is the stairway to the lower levels, where you can find the wudhu areas, toilets, and access to the gallery

taking a breather

Shibuya

After leaving we made our way to Shibuya, and by this time it was already dark. The first time we were in Shibuya we just lingered around the station and swarm crossing, but this time we actually crossed the street and explored the surroundings. It was Sunday night so it wasn’t super packed as I imagine Saturday or Friday night to be, but there were still so many people walking around. We were getting quite hungry so we stopped by a restaurant that Sue recommended back in Sapporo (Hanamaru) and sat down to steaming hot bowls of scrumptious Udon. We walked some more but ended up getting lost trying to find the train station so we backtracked to the Shibuya crossing and headed home after a long day out.

she needed to get 10000! i think we were number 2000something

cutie patootie

outside the shibuya station they were having a TPPA protest. This picture has nothing to do with that but i forgot to take a picture of the guy on the crate so yeah