Miles Walked: 13
Naps taken: a five minute nap on the subway
Highlights: Starbucks, Snoopy Cafe, MiPig Cafe, Strawberries, Kirby Cafe, Skytree town, Shibuya Scramble, Parco, Don Quixote Shopping, Big Cranes, Gyoza Hanten, Stitch tour
Our day started with a light breakfast at Starbucks. We had a kolache (pig in a blanket) to help us prepare for the piggie cafe that was soon to come.
Our first character cafe was a Peanuts themed breakfast cafe. It was fun stumbling across this cafe in Harejuku. We loved the minimalist, yet cute interior design of the cafe. Its never too late to start your day off with ice cream so we started with a blue raspberry ice cream float and indulged in a Snoopy pancake.
Just around the corner, the minipig cafe awaited us. We had plenty of room for pigs to come hang out with us and they gave us blankets for pigs to nap on us. Andrei’s favorite pig was this out of place monster sized pig Horace who kept getting in trouble. The pigs were snuggly, full of wirey hair, and would occasionally squeal as they got into fights with each other for attention. The pigs seemed to love to bite Andrei’s big toes.
We had already done so much and it was barely 10:30 as the shops of Harajuku began opening their shutters. On our way to the subway, we found a “Strawberry Stand” that specialized in a sugar glazed strawberries. These were some of the best strawberries I had ever tasted… probably due to all the sugar coating them.
Our final leg of the Tour de Cafe was the renowed Kirby Cafe at Tokyo Skytree. This cafe focused heavily on advanced plating techniques and incorporating the characters into each dish. The food was below average but the cute scenes designed by the food made it totally worth it. After lunch, we walked around the shops of SkyTree. I started to realize how serious Japan shopping malls are to be taken in Tokyo.
On our way back to Shinjuku we made a stop at Shibuya. The primary attraction was a Scramble Crossing that consisted of Billboards, Neon Lights, and 5 intersections at different angles. This was the busiest ward of Tokyo that we had encountered so far. We explored a couple of shopping centers including Parco Mall and DonQuixote. We had yet to find Andrei a comfy pair of shoes.
In Shibuya, Andrei came across more crane games 😒🙄. These ones had bigger prizes with different strategies on how to get the prize. For example, they had a towel or bag that had slots aligned perpendicular, so he wanted the crane to pick it up at a certain angle so it would drop right in between the slotted spaces. Not sure we needed the prizes, but Andrei was excited to keep winning. Sure enough he won 2 of the large prizes.
Next, we decided to walk from Shibuya to Harajuku by cutting through a scenic park. Google maps can be a lttle misleading at times. At one point Andrei was looking directly at an apartment claiming that this dinner gyoza place was on the second floor. After staring looking dazed and confused, I took a look at the picture front of the restaurant and found it around the corner.
We decided it was time to hit the hay and get back to home base in Shinjuku. On our way back to the hotel we explored a neat district of Shinjuku referred to as Golden Gai. Golden Gai was full of tiny alleyways with very compact bars that could seat 4 to 6 people max. This district is very popular in movies and TV shows featuring Japan.
In conclusion, we learned how much the Japanese enjoy their animal and cartoon cafes and how serious shopping is in Tokyo. Also, some of the best Gyoza and ramen can be found in Harajuku. We also discovered a store that sold Grand Pianos on the 5th floor of the subway station.
