The day’s itinerary included visiting several touristy spots, but first .. to pick up some breakfast to go.

You probably figured out by now that I/We have a slight obsession with these “Pocket Lunch” sandwiches which we usually pick up from convenience stores in/near the train station. While on our way, our jaws literally dropped the moment we saw some familiar branding.. and looked a little closer into the kiosk to find shelves full of the sandwiches! Couldn’t count how many different flavours there were but the difficult part was trying to chose from such a big selection with my very limited Japanese reading skills (and identifying the pictures on the packaging) for the flavour. Why did we only just discover it near the end of our trip?!

We ended up picking what seems like (canned) tomato spaghetti (apparently a popular one) and honeydew + cream. yum! Here I am stuffing my face with a sandwich on the streets, so classy.

We arrived in Asakusa! It wasn’t too tricky finding our way to Sensoji temple, once on the right track, just follow the crowd (pretty much straight ahead). We were there pretty early in the morning just to avoid the Sunday crowd so some stalls were just setting up.

Obligatory shot with the giant red lantern when visiting Japan for the first time. 

We made wishes by shaking out sticks and got the respective readings. Alfred only got a so-so result, I on the other hand got a pretty good reading, so lets fingers crossed that my wish will come true soon!

Ice cream burger sounds pretty cool, but once you find that its presented in between thin pastry (well it was pretty much like an ice cream cone except in a different shape) it feels like you’re just eating normal ice cream. Ice cream sandwiches are still much, much better. 

So from Sensoji temple is apparently a ‘short walk’ to Tokyo Skytree (as pictured above), it ended up being 20-30mins I guess that’s alright. If we didn’t walk, we would’ve totally missed the golden raddish like thing at the top of that building. I have yet to find out what it really is. A quick google search tells me that it is the “Golden Flame” of the Asahi building.. or as people would call it the “Golden Turd”. I think the latter best describes it.

Finally here! We didn’t actually go up to the observation deck because the queues were freakin’ long and decided we’re not really big fans of getting a birds eye view of the city, so we admired it from the bottom and outside. Okay we were really there just to check out the shops and all the cute stuff they sold..

Alfred got to see a life size Domokun! Even though he really is just the frame of a TV screen..

The area around the Skytree is actually quite lovely, I think there are more shops or even small shopping centre attached to it but we didn’t get to explore it so in depth.

Craving for Hot Star Fried Chicken back in Sydney led me to sampling these chicken nuggets out (they have franchises everywhere). Sadly nothing mind blowing, because totally missing that crazy awesome seasoning of Hot Star..

Finally got to try Tokyo Banana! Long story short, I attempted to bring some home from my last trip to Japan but it got taken away by Customs upon arrival because it contained Bananas. I regretted not trying it before leaving Japan! This time I made sure I did while in Japan incase I get caught up by Customs again (but this time lucky!). Sadly I don’t get why people rave over it, sure it doesn’t have much of an artificial banana taste (which is good) but yeah nothing for me to drool over.

Off to Harajuku! (Training from Skytree station is pretty expensive.. so we walked to the normal station)

Shopping in Harajuku wasn’t a priority on my list, since the kind of clothes there weren’t my style… so the next best thing would be a trip to Kiddy Land! (followed by crepes of course). Never been to Kiddy Land in my previous trip and 4 levels of kiddy stuff just appeals to my kiddy side. They had a section for just about every cartoon character, some that I grew up with but have forgotten about. Rilakkuma and Hello Kitty was obviously a Japanese favourite since the 2 characters shared a whole level.

We started from the top floor and made our way downstairs… if my sister ever set foot in Rilakkuma level, she probably will be there for hoursss. I hope she’s not upset that I didn’t come home with goodies for her… I simply couldn’t chose from all the cute stuff!

The above toys (middle) would give me a nightmare as a kid..actually their looks scare me now too..

A car lift – incase you’re wondering. Alfred took this shot obviously. I wouldn’t have a clue if I walked past.

“I’M FAT” – hehehe. I only just noticed the Tokyo Story shirt, that would’ve been pretty cool to have!

We finally reached the crepes intersection in Harajuku, and faced with a difficult situation, crepe stall left and right… Angel’s Heart or Marion Crepes, which to go with? We ended up with Marion Crepe but their queues tell us that their equally good.

Sticky fingers from eating crepes lead us to trying to find a bathroom, but before that we sat down with a burger each (fatty much?). What was more interesting than our burgers was spotting this guy in Maccas slowly creating a crowd around him. He was a balloon artist and made some pretty cool characters, such as what he’s holding, Mike from Monsters Inc. What a way to attract girls’ attention too?

Spotted a Kombi van in Japan!

We checked out the Onitsuka flagship store in hopes that it would be cheaper since its a Japanese Brand but nope… Hong Kong is still waaay cheaper. They had some pretty cool designs though.

We spent the remainder of the day (finally) exploring our neighbourhood (Akihabara) and looking shopping for souvenirs for m anime/manga obsessed sister. Truly felt foreign to all the stuff there!

We were finally hungry and had a late 11PM dinner at Ichiran (Ueno branch), can’t get enough of it! We were surprised that even at such a late hour on a Sunday night, there were queues! Good way to end the day though, on a happily full tummy 😛

Heading to Odaiba in our next post!

x Clarissa