RyokOhio: The Lewises In Japan Blog: Japan Trip 2016, Day 11: Tokyo

We bought a loaf of sliced bread a couple days ago because here at the hostel they have butter and jam and a toaster, but the call of diner breakfast foods was too strong. This morning we finally cracked open that bread and had a nice little breakfast of toast here in the hostel. We used the time to plan the day and find out what time the shops we wanted to go to opened. We never know. Noon? 10? 10:30? 9? It's always different.

Today we went to Shibuya to check out Tokyu Hands, which is a store of many floors of.. well, everything! Maybe we'll find some souvenir ideas there. Shibuya station is one that many people are familiar with, even if they didn't know it. When viewing a television program or documentary about Japan, they will usually show the busy city life in Tokyo. They will have that shot where there are three, wide crosswalks and as soon as the lights turn red for the cars, waves and waves of people come streaming from the sidewalks into the streets, crossing to the other side and looking like schools of fish weaving around each other. That is Shibuya, known as the Shibuya Scramble.

Have you ever seen that super sad dog movie with Richard Gere where the dog waits for him at the train station every day, and one day Richard Gere doesn't come home? The movie called "Hachi"? That dog was real and he would wait for his master to come out of the Shibuya train station every day. He became a beloved mascot of the crossing and a statue was erected outside the station, where Hachiko would sit and wait. This is considered a popular meetup place for friends, and people still have their pictures taken by Hachiko's statue.

It was while we were sitting by the Hachiko statue that we were approached by a small film crew. I had read about this before this vacation, so I knew what this was, but was surprised they would approach us. The show, called "Why Did You Come To Japan?" will interview foreign tourists about why they came to Japan. Then they pick their more interesting interviews (so definitely not us) and air them on TV Tokyo every Monday evening. Here is the website. Needless to say, we were pretty boring with their main line of questioning pointing out our PokeGo Plus and asking if we've caught any Pokemon while in Japan. We showed them their regional-only Pokemon Farfetch'd (Kamonegi for them) and said that we were excited to have caught their region-special Pokemon and that we were having a lot of fun. We totally missed our chance to mention the concert we went to! Argh!

Anyway, after our minutes of possible fame, we wanted to go live on Facebook, and I wanted a good view of the intersection to film it. The usual spot, a 3 floored Starbucks, was completely packed with everyone else filming the scramble, so we went into a cafe nearby. The view wasn't as great, but it was a nice place to go live on Facebook and their desserts were delicious! I had creme brulee and Jeff had a seasonal fruit shortcake.

We finished there and shopped the many, many floors of Tokyu Hands, definitely finding some great souvenirs! We swapped out the visit to the store Loft (since it was pretty similar to Tokyu Hands) and went to our favorite store Book Off, which is a used book store that also has used CDs and DVDs. I found a BUCK TICK CD and, I'm pretty proud of myself and gave myself a thousand Friend Points, for finding felting and clay books on my own. This was the request of my friend Christina and gosh darn did I set out to find them!

Our lunch plans were to check out the Persona 5 cafe where they had a special Persona-themed menu, but it turned out being one of those cafes that needed reservations. Our next stop was Tower Records and they had a restaurant/cafe on the third floor so we went to check that out. Lucky for us they were having a 30th Anniversary for Dragon Ball there and had themed dishes! It was pretty cute. Man, I can't believe DB is as old as I am!

I just wanted one thing from Tower Records since CDs and media in general are expensive in Japan! One CD costs $30 or more! There's a new-ish Susumu Hirasawa CD I haven't been able to find online, so I was finally able to buy that. Yay! I can't wait to listen to it!

Our last stop for the day was the island of Odaiba, which is out in the Tokyo Bay and has a lot of great places to shop with two large malls and a giant Sega gameland called Joyopolis. I wanted to go to Joyopolis, but I always forget you have to pay tickets to get in. It looks like a fun place to go with a bunch of friends and play games, but a tired Jeff and I were not the target audience. No matter, we walked around Decks and Aqua City (the two malls there) and looked at the Christmas lights that were now on after dark. I had never been to Odaiba at night, and everything is lit up very beautifully!

By then it was getting late (like, old-person late) and I had worn my boots which were not made for so much walking. I was ready to head back to the hostel. We did stop at a popular gyudon (beef and onions on rice) place, Yoshinoya, and it was exactly what I had been craving for so long now!

So now it's almost 10:00 p.m. Letsee what's on the agenda tomorrow...Ah yes, it's Sunday, so there will hopefully be musicians in Yoyogi park, along with cosplayers on the bridge, and we'll be visiting Harajuku! And I think we'll be going to the TOTO toilet museum! Is there anyway I can buy one here and fly it home with me? I wish!! Also, kudos again to me, I successfully used the squat toilets twice now, and I even tried out the bidet option on a toilet once. It's certainly a function I would have to get used to! XD Night night! I hope this child I hear screaming down the hallway does not do this all night. He's still quieter than the snoring guy in Kyoto though!