What we were actually waiting to open was Nakano Broadway, a shopping mall that apparently was better than Akihabara for anime goodies, but none of the shops opened until noon. We stopped by the local Ueno arcade Taito Station and did purikura (think Glamour Shots for Japanese teenaged girls). See the hilarious results below! On our itinerary for the day was also a stop in Ueno to buy a souvenir suitcase. I had found one for really cheap in Ameyoko, near the "Store of Awesome" (aka Yamashiroya) the past trip and hoped to do so again. Seriously, we're gonna have SO many suitcases... I think we found the same store again, but in a different location than I remember, but we still got a sweet deal for a large, hard-cased suitcase! By the time we bought that and brought it back to the hostel, it was after 12 and we could make our way to Nakano Broadway.
First thing was first. we were hungry, so we hunted down the ice cream shop often featured as a crucial part of Nakano Broadway. This ice cream shop has 9 different flavors and you can have a scoop of each flavor piled on top of each other, on top of a cone. I can barely finish one scoop, and Jeff and I know our limits, so I had ramune (soda) flavor and he had strawberry. Again, his ice cream flavor won as mine tasted like... ramune soda, I guess? Bubblegum? Kid's Sparkle Crest toothpaste? Something extremely kid-like, so I wasn't too keen on my flavor ice cream. I finished my scoop anyway because I was hungry. Then it was time to see what all the fuss was about. So, Nakano Broadway does indeed have a TON of anime stuff, but after a while it seems like you're seeing the same things over and over. I honestly couldn't think of an anime I really wanted merchandise for besides Cardcaptor Sakura (which I think had jacked up prices since it's the 20th anniversary of the comic and it's being rebooted), and Yuri on Ice (which I think is still too new for used merch). So almost all of these stores are second hand anime items, which does make the stuff cheaper. I think what happens is people will collect complete sets of figurines and items from UFO catchers and gatchapon machines and then rent space in a glass case in Akihabara or Nakano Broadway to put them up for sale. You come along, needing that elusive character that you couldn't get from the gatchapon machine to complete your set. It would have taken you more than 5 tries at 300 yen each, but you see that someone else is selling the figurine you need for 1200 yen, less than if you tried to win it yourself, with an added couple of yen so they make a profit. I think that's how that works. Another downside is wading through it all. My eyes were tired and my brain numb (I was turning into that song Brain Stew by Green Day) from looking at so many tiny little figurines, shop after shop. Most were organized by having items from a certain (and popular) series clustered in one area. It's only through dumb luck that you might stumble upon a figurine or toy of a character from your favorite but obscure series. Like Jeff's keen eye as he picked out a tiny figure of Sae Sawanaguchi from Magic User's Club among a set. I had to buy a set of totally unrelated tiny figurines from Bandai to get her, but I don't care. I had no idea they even MADE Magic User's figurines! Jeff found a couple of Log Horizon art books and I tried to search for something but had no luck. In all honesty, I don't really know much of the current anime, or if I do, it wasn't popular enough to have merch. Or if it is popular, it's so popular it's constantly sold out of merch so I'm not seeing any of it (*coughYuriOnIcecough*). Jeff bought me a tiny Cardcaptor Sakura figurine that's really cute! Jeff also got a mystery adult DVD from an 18+ gatchapon! OMG, I wonder if it works on our DVD players!
It was dinner time by the time we made our way though those four floors of visual over stimulation. Just down the street, across the street from a UNIQLO we ducked into a ramen shop that turned out to be delicious. I mean, I thought it was even better than the ramen we had in Kyoto in Ramen Alley! Mine was the pork special and it had two kinds of pork and the broth was even better. I think it was much closer to a tonkotsu ramen than the one in Ramen Alley, and I love my ramen to be super heavy and full of pork fat!
Ramen satisfied our tummies, but I wanted further relaxation. On the itinerary today we decided to skip Akihabara but I was determined to travel to an onsen on the outskirts of Tokyo. Almost by the Ghibli museum, Yumori no Sato onsen is in Chofu, Tokyo and was recommended by a favorite Youtuber of ours, Grace and Ryosuke from the Texan in Tokyo series. It is a natural onsen with dark waters and many different kinds of baths. I really wanted to try it and it was worth the hour it took to get there. To start, the shower water wasn't effin' freezing like it was in Osaka's public bath. The onsen water in the main bath was sooooo nice and hot. There was a clear cold pool if you wanted to cool off (nope, nope, nope), a small onsen in a gazebo which, since it was now dark out, had turned on black lights and lit up stars on the ceiling of the gazebo, two large and super hot onsens with a waterfall nearby, an onsen that was in a cave that wasn't as hot but bubbled and had massage jets, a pool on an upper deck that I'm sure had a view in the daytime, and two barrels. Yup, you could climb into a barrel that was just deep enough you could sit and your little head would poke out and you were surrounded by nice, hot water. Seriously, it was all so relaxing. Once you get over the fact that no one is going to be studying you intently while you're naked, just as much as you don't want to stare at them naked, it's all well and good. An old lady asked me if I liked the onsen (very yes), if I was here alone (no I was with my husband), that my Japanese was good (no, I was no good at speaking it), and something about "koko ni" or "here" but I didn't understand the rest so I just apologized for not understanding. At least she was nice about it! I will also definitely recommend this place. I don't know if it's a good place for beginners to onsen that are going alone, but I think with a friend to show you the ropes, or if you want natural, volcanic water that makes it an actual onsen, beautiful views and nature, then this really is an impressive place to go while in Tokyo! Oh, but make sure you don't have any large tattoos showing. I know with the Olympics coming up, a lot of places are allowing tattooed foreigners in, but this place remains traditional. If it's small, you can put a bandaid over it, but there was a sign that read NO TATTOO.
Now we were relaxed. Well, I know I was. I don't think Jeff is too keen on public nudity, but kudos to him for stepping outside his comfort level. What Jeff was keen on was stopping by a 7Eleven on the way home and getting (more) ice cream. They didn't have anything that he fancied so he picked up a package of chocolate brownie while I found the recommended seasonal chocolate "Melty Kiss", recommended by Laura Waiss. They are pretty much tiny truffle cubes that melt in your mouth (and your hand) and are delicious. And Jeff's brownie was even more delicious as it was more like a dense, fudge-y brownie that came with teeny tiny forks. ^_^
So that was our day. Filled with desserts and anime. Tomorrow I think will be a trip to Shibuya, a Persona cafe, and possibly Odaiba? Wow, it's after midnight here! I've been staying up late for these blogs but I don't feel too tired. Better get some sleep anyway. Goodnight!
Texan in Tokyo at the Yumori Onsen we went to !
Here, I Google Image Searched "Nakano Broadway" since they didn't allow photography inside most stores.
 |
| Purikura will automatically smooth and whiten your skin and enlarge your eyes. It'll even add makeup! Hence Jeff's super-pink lips! XD |
 |
| I didn't think to take a picture until we were well into the ice cream. Well, here's half-eaten Strawberry and Ramune flavor! |
That's all the pictures today! Not many shops let you photograph inside them. Enjoy the video and image link above.
No comments:
Post a Comment