Japan trip Summer 2015 part 5 - Tokyo based: Day 8 - 9

Day 8, August 8, the day after our day trip in Sendai, we didn't have any big plans. We definitely wanted to start finishing up our major shopping though because we needed to send our large luggage pieces over to Osaka via Kuroneko. I had two large check in bags with me plus my new rolling carry on bag and my large tote which I obviously wouldn't be able to manage well on my own + it's too many pieces to really be taking on the train, so we had planned to just forward the baggage to our final hotel in Osaka.
We decided to do any more must-do Tokyo shopping that morning once the stores opened and then go back to the apartment, pack up the luggage to be forwarded, and then drop it off around 03:00pm to ensure that it would go out with that day's shipments and arrive well before it needed to.

On the previous day, we had actually been discussing getting omiyage KitKat, and most websites suggested a store in Tokyo Station. I had heard of it before but had never been there. Basically, it's supposed to be at the end of Ramen street (another place we were unfamiliar with). After arriving at Tokyo station from Shinagawa via the JR Yokosuka line, it took us a while to find it with a lot of looking, wandering and asking directions, but we finally found a sign that directed us to Ramen street. We got so turned around that I don't remember exactly where it is anymore, but if you pinpoint your location in Google maps in Tokyo station while you're there and then type in Ramen street, it should help point you in the right direction. (I put in Ramen street instead of the KitKat omiyage store's name since I figured that that was a better landmark.) Tokyo station is really huge, and it's a bit of a way's down one of the sides. I'm not really sure how to explain it. Usually there are a lot of employees in the station who can help point you in generally the right direction though.

Since we were visiting in summer, the KitKat selection was meager. At least one website had mentioned that that might be the case. Because of the heat/weather, they don't continue to order the chocolates because they will melt. They also had a sign to that effect explaining it. What they have in stock during the summer is what they had leftover from before. When we went, there was just strawberry cheesecake and chili pepper flavor left. They also had a lot of different Hi-Chew and Puccho flavors there as well. I bought quite a few things because I thought it would be fun for my family/friends to try. They were expensive though - probably because they're specialty flavors and also because it's like a tourist shop lol.
I was/am convinced that that was the KitKat store that people talk about and resolved that we were just too late in summer to see all the different flavors. But for some reason S was convinced there was another one that had more, so we continued walking past the shop and looked around. We didn't find anything else similar although there are other shopping stores down there. Eventually, we decided to just turn around.

On our way back to the tracks, we entered a department store-like space (I'm not sure if it was actually a department store or not, now that I think about it), and I noticed the KitKat Chocolatory! I had read about it while researching where to find the other omiyage store but hadn't planned to actually go to it lol. Mostly because it's just really expensive KitKat in premium flavors. Since we were already right in front of it, I decided to take a look, and honestly the prices were pretty ridiculous imo. ...But I ended up buying one of everything available in the front anyway??? I thought it would be a good omiyage gift for people who had given me money for the trip like my grandparents. After that, I had to make particularly sure not to lose the $60 small bag of chocolates that could easily melt while we were just walking around wtf.

Shibuya was where we ended up next. Even though it was a slow ride, we just hopped on a JR Yamanote line train to get there because we thought it would be easiest.
We went to the fishing stores first that S wanted to revisit and got that out of the way. We then we went to Shibuya 109 where I ended up buying something from Liz Lisa and (talking to shop staff Ikumin a little bit more!), and then we hit Uniqlo which is right next to 109 so I could pick up some pants for my brother.

Finally in Shibuya, I wanted to go to Don Quixote. I've been there several times before and I knew it wasn't super complicated to find. HOWEVER, that is when our pocket wifi chose to die. For absolutely no reason. We had charged it the entire night before. S thinks it was something in my purse that killed , but it was in my purse the entire previous day in Sendai and it was fine???
Anyway, we were supposed to find a place for a quick lunch, grab the things I wanted from Don Quixote and then head back to pack. I thought we could just head over in the general direction of Donki to look for a restaurant, but guess what? I couldn't freaking find it and I was super hopeless without the freaking GPS. I don't know what was wrong with me. Everything looked familiar, but I just didn't walk back far enough. I led us around in circles for at least 20 minutes. I even asked several stores and headed in the correct direction, but just not for long enough. I don't know how I freaking did that, but it happened. We had finally given up trying to find it and were essentially back at Shibuya station when S decided to ask the tourist information thing outside. Ofc it is in SUCH a simple and straightforward location like I remembered but for some reaosn couldn't actually get to -___-. What a waste of time and energy tbh. I quickly bought the things I wanted and then we went back to Shinagawa. We actually got on a JR Tokkaido line train which has reserved cars, thinking we'd be able to figure it out when we got on. It's kind of cool because they have these small lights for each seat that will indicate if the seat is reserved or not and also warn you if the seat is going to be "reserved" soon (I'm assuming at the next stop). I should have taken a picture because it's a little hard to explain.

First thing we did when we got back was charge the wifi. Then we finished up packing our bags and, leaving the wifi, took them over to the Prince Shinagawa's luggage forwarding/Kuroneko window & service area which we had used on our previous trip. It's really not that far away, but since I had two full bags (one with no wheels at all), S ended up switching with me and dealing with my luggage since I was being such a hassle. There may in fact be a closer place for us to have dropped them off, but I didn't want to deal with any uncertainty, and I knew that the people working at the hotel would probably be able to speak a little English which would help. We didn't want to risk our luggage getting forgotten or misplaced or something. I filled out the paperwork for our three bags and then we went off to finally find something to eat for lunch.

Just so that we wouldn't have to struggle, we decided to just go to one of the restaurants on Shinagawa's Ramen street which is pretty near the Prince. We'd been there before and didn't really think it was anything particularly special, but we decided to try a different restaurant and see what's up. We hadn't eaten any ramen up to that point in the trip anyway, so it was about time. None of the restaurants really grabbed our attention, but at least there wasn't any lines since it was about 04:30pm by then. The restaurants over there are all vending machine order/payment types and there aren't necessarily a lot of pictures. We ended up just choosing the restaurant with the most reasonable picture that also included some English lol.

I think this was just some kind of basic ramen. It was super salty lol.

Having accomplished our main goal(s) of the day, we went back to the apartment to pick up the wifi and figure out what else to do. I still wanted to go to Omiya since I didn't get to go at the end of Day 6, so that was my suggestion. S didn't really have anything to do there, so he wasn't extremely keen on it, but he came along anyway.

Since we had gotten the hang of catching the shinkansen in unreserved seats, we quickly hopped on one at Shinagawa for one stop to Tokyo station, and then transferred and got on a Yamabiko for two stops to Omiya.

Omiya Arche is where I really wanted to go, and it's super close to the station, just outside the west exit, so that's where I led us. I went to the Liz Lisa first and didn't find anything in particular that I wanted that I hadn't already seen in the other stores. I took a little more time to check out the newer stock, but didn't end up trying anything on. I also looked in a few other stores like Ank Rouge and explored a few other floors on the way down. The Inside Out printed items at Spinns caught my eye from the escalator, so I decided to take a peek in there. I really wanted to buy something so the trek up to Omiya wouldn't seem like a waste lol. There was a top I was interested in that seemed to be on a sale rack and the other colors of the top had an adjusted price actually on the tag, but the one I wanted didn't. So I had to either figure out a way to ask the shop staff or just take it to the register and risk having to explain the situation once there. I knew I would probably be too embarrassed to say anything while I was actually checking out, so I finally worked up the nerve to approach one of the shop staff and ask in my really basic Japanese about if the price applied to my specific top. She seemed to understand my question without too much confusion and the top was actually on sale, so double score for me lol. I'm usually not so shy about that stuff when there's no language barrier, but I get really insecure about my Japanese wtf.

After we got out of Omiya Arche, I wanted to revisit the Daiei that I had gone to with my parents last time and had some good "luck" finding some good things to bring back. It's really kind of out of the way to get to Omiya just to go to Daiei since there are obviously locations elsewhere, but since we were already there...I thought it would be best to look.

When we were just about to enter, S saw this pastry/dessert shop at the edge of a department store -

He thought that he recognized the pictures from the place that sold really good cream puffs that he and my father had really enjoyed from last summer and hadn't seen since, so he was really excited to try it. To me, it didn't look the same, but he insisted that they were at least the same stock photos and wanted to try it. He asked the employee what time she closed and then we went into Daiei.

We shopped around for more omiyage-type items but refrained from buying too much since we had already forwarded the bags. We were basically just looking for anything we hadn't seen before or didn't think we'd easily find elsewhere.

In that same complex of stores, there was also a Tokyu Hands. I finally remembered that there was something I wanted to look for for my mom that I thought they would have, so we went to take a look. S was also looking for a particular type of pen for one of his friends.
While we were in the stationary section, I saw these!

Liz Lisa Pentel Sliccies pens still in stock wtf! It's been like a year and a half or more since they were first released I think lol. I hadn't seen them in any other stores. And in some of the best colors too! If you want them, I would suggest Omiya lol. I thought about getting more, but I still haven't used two of the four I bought last time, so I figured I shouldn't lol. You can just buy the refills when the ink runs out anyway which is supposed to be part of the appeal of the pen.

Also saw these pretty Decorese pens again and had to snap more pictures lol.

(Sorry I know these pictures aren't much but apparently I hardly took any photos this day?? so this is all there is lol.) 

After we checked out, S went to go buy the pastries he wanted, and there was a Tutuanna Black Label I spotted in the corner, so I quickly hopped over to buy some last minute things for Berri while he was making his purchase. By then, it was already about 08:00pm, and we decided to call it a night. We hadn't even made it very far from the station lol.

We looked at what time the next shinkansen would come and then, having a little bit of time, we bought something from Auntie Anne's to eat on the ride, since we didn't actually eat dinner because of our late lunch.

We were able to catch a Hakutaka shinkansen back to Tokyo station from Omiya. I had never heard of this type of shinkansen before, so it was cool to catch something new lol. The interior/seat design is different in the the different types. The exterior is often different too but I usually don't have a chance to take it because the front passes too fast lol.

Back at Tokyo Station, we quickly jumped on a Kodama shinkansen to get back to Shinagawa

We actually caught 4 different types of shinkansen this day! They weren't going very fast since we were just traveling such a short distance, but I still think it's quite fun lol.

Only purchase picture I have from Day 8 -

Apparently I didn't take photographs of the other omiyage items we bought because I packed them up straightaway either before the luggage forwarding to get them out ASAP or after that in my remaining bags to see how much more room I had to shop for Day 9 lol.

Wow, sorry, while I was writing this, I realized that Day 8 is a real bummer for pictures! It's mostly a wall of unnecessary details and text lol. It was a rather uneventful day anyway, so I guess I'm not surprised. Too bad I don't have just one picture from Tokyo station in the morning lol. But there's so much hustle and bustle going on there, it doesn't make sense to stop in the middle and take a photo lol. But anyway, this was just a casual shopping day with an interruption in the middle to send over out luggage, nothing noteworthy lol.

Day 9, August 9, was our last full day in Tokyo. We had done most of our "must-do" things by this point, and S said he had been to all the fishing stores he wanted to go to, but then I reminded him about Chiba. I had actually brought up the Chiba store several times to him because I specifically remember going last time, but he had kind of brushed it off. Not having any solid plans, he decided to finally look into it again and realized that the Chiba store might actually be kind of decent judging from what he bought from them last time. (Um hello?? Thank you for finally taking my suggestion lol. Jk, I only wanted to have an excuse to go to Chiba so I could go to the Liz Lisa there....)

Chiba is not exactly close to Shinagawa, but thankfully you don't really have to transfer much or anything, and we weren't in a rush. Unlike the day before, we didn't get to catch the shinkansen though lol. I think we ended up catching the JR Yokosuka line to Tokyo station and then getting on a JR Sobu line Rapid train? In all, I think it took almost an hour to get there.

First, we went to the Sansui. Actually, we could see it from the west exit of the station, so it definitely made sense to go there first.

Seriously. There was so many things S wanted to buy at this store. I don't know why he didn't listen to me sooner. He almost didn't go at all lol. We spent almost like half an hour in there while he decided what to purchase.

Selfie while I wait

The store was pretty empty because we got there just as it opened, but there was one other customer. And he had like 4 baskets of things to purchase! S wanted to stay and be nosy and find out how much that guy was spending and what he was buying, but there was no telling how much more that guy would shop and I didn't want to spend the rest of the day there, so I dragged him to Liz Lisa. We had a bit of trouble navigating to the mall last time, but was able to more easily find it this time since I made a note about the location, thankfully lol.

We went up to the Liz Lisa, and I wanted to try on these pumps which were recently released at the time -

blurry/out of focus picture, sorry

and I did, but I ended up not liking them very much. Idk if it's just my foot, but the two front bow straps are quite loose on me. And then it just seemed like there were too many things going on in general because the straps didn't fit right and looked a bit sloppy. But I think the shoe itself fit fine for the size. The third and ankle strap are adjustable, so L did seem to be the right size for me. I think it was good that I took the opportunity to try it on though.

I didn't end up buying anything from Liz Lisa, but because of that, I decided to do some shopping in Cecil McBee because I really liked the dress on a mannequin when we passed earlier and ending up purchasing the top and bottom that one of the shop staff was wearing. I didn't understand a lot of what the shop staff was asking me when I was in the store, but I was able to make the purchase without too much issue, so I guess it was okay lol.

Having accomplished what we went to Chiba for, we then had to figure out what to do with the rest of the day lol. We sat in the mall for a bit to think about it, and then I remembered that on the way to Chiba, I had been trying to research for other things to do at the stops along the way and one of them had the biggest Daiso in Japan lol. S wanted to nix that idea since we really couldn't do very much shopping at that point, but I still wanted to go see it, so we headed back to the station and got on a train heading in that direction. It ended up being a local-type train, so it was pretty slow, but we had seats so it wasn't too big of a deal.
While I was sitting, I decided to browse a bit more to see what else we could do in Funabashi, and Lalaport Tokyo Bay came up. I had heard of the name before and I think there's another location in Saitama maybe? But I realized that this was a huge mall and it would have lots of places to go and restaurants to eat at, and there was also an Ikea nearby, so I figured we could go to Lalaport first and eat and browse for a little bit and then go back to Daiso if I really wanted to. They're actually at two different stations so I did have to definitively pick one, but since S wanted to eat, Lalaport/a mall seemed like the right choice because there would be a plethora of options there. And also there's a Liz Lisa Fusion store there that I didn't even have in mind lol, so bonus!

We got off the JR Sobu line local train at Nishi-Funabashi and then transferred to a JR Musashino line train for one stop to Minami-Funabashi. The mall is about a 7 minute walk from the station maybe? But you just have to follow this large walkway and it's extremely straightforward. The complex is truly huge, but I had looked at the floor plan and figured the food court would be the best place to start. It was super busy! In general, the place was quite crowded lol.

Fortunately, we were able to find a table for just the two of us without having to wait too long and then ordered our food. I think S had some sort of mixed tempura bowl and mine was chicken karaage from a different place lol. It looked like fish on the inside honestly. Not the best meals we had on the trip, but passable I guess. We might have had something better if we had gone to an actual sit down restaurant, but that would have been more expensive too.

We left the food court and right next to it is a Tokyu Hands. I went to look for the nori mold for my mom again since I hadn't had any luck in any other places yet and we also looked at the stationary again lol.
More Pentel Sliccies Liz Lisa pens! This store didn't have the same selection, but I was surprised there was any at all lol.

S likes these Sarasa pens and had bought some previously from another store. I decided to take a closer look for myself and realized I actually really liked the color selection! When I found out they were just 100yen each, I told myself to just buy a few lol.

We then went to search for the Liz Lisa Fusion store and a Baskin Robbins for some ice cream since lunch wasn't especially satisfying. The Liz Lisa Fusion is in the Lala Popteen Land section with a number of similar brands. I looked around and almost bought a Tralala hair clip, but decided not to at the last minute. They also had the Tralala x Sailor Moon Crystal items as well, but I couldn't bring myself to spend retail on it lol. It's all super cute though. There was a Baskin Robbins just after the Popteen Land section but it turned out to have a huge line and no place to sit, so we decided to just pass.

We walked around the mall a little more looking for another place that sold ice cream and somehow ended up at the back of the Axes Femme store which featured Axes Femme Kids merchandise!
This Axes Femme Kids x My Melody display totally suckered me in -

How cute is this stuff?? In case you're wondering, most of these items are solidly for children. The sizes are basically by height - 110cm, 120cm, 130cm and 140cm. I guess if you're not a child but any of those heights, you might possibly fit into them if you're overall quite small as well (like I don't think they're meant to accommodate much of a bust), but just in general, I don't think the average teenager or adult would be able to squeeze into anything without making major alterations, especially in the shoulder/arm area. Accessories can fit all sizes though ofc lol.

I was trying to think of someone we could buy something for because I just thought it was all so adorable lol. S's niece is about 4 now and she's quite tiny but I wasn't sure if she would even want to wear these clothes. I mean, just because I like them doesn't mean she would and toddlers can be really particular if they want to be lol. The full price dresses/items (like the ones above) were a bit out of our price range for just a trip gift, but the sale items weren't too bad!
S took some pictures and sent them to his sister to get some input. We didn't want to spend money on something she wouldn't wear/couldn't fit and couldn't return, and we didn't have anyone else we would be able to give it to lol. 

While we waited, we walked around in the mall a little bit more, bought a bottle of water, just tried to kill a little time. I looked in the regular Axes Femme for a bit and then S decided that we couldn't wait forever, and we could just use our best judgement and pick. We were just about to make a decision when his sister texted back that his niece wanted the dress in the last picture S sent.
Let me tell you. He is SUCH a lolo. Guess what the last picture was? The My Melody display. Wtf right? We had already decided that those full price items were out of our price range (the OP being over $50 and not worth the risk bc we still weren't sure about the sizing) so why did he send a picture of that? What little girl wouldn't pick that dress? (It was obviously the best one but priced that way as well lol.) I asked him why he even sent that one and he said that he was sending it to show his brother (it's a group text with a number of his family members) where we were and I was like ??????? Anyway, then we had to make the decision about whether to buy her the dress she said she wanted and splurge or buy the sale dress that we liked best. In the end, we decided to just go with the sale dress. It's still really cute imo but obviously not as cute or the same as the My Melody one lol.

Having finished that, we figured out when the next train back to Shinagawa was leaving and realized we better get a move on if we wanted to make it lol. The next train where we wouldn't have to transfer or use non-JR lines wouldn't be there again for a while and we didn't want to have to wait at the station too long. We picked up the pace on the way back and made it on the JR Keiyo line train we wanted. The car we ended up in was really full though, and we had to stand the whole ride. We got a nice view of Disneyland though! The Keiyo line took us to Tokyo station where we transferred to another train to take us back to Shinagawa.

Back at the apartment, we (again) took stock of what we purchased, figured out how it would fit into our remaining bags, did a load of laundry since it was pretty much our last chance, and then tried to think of something else to do. S was actually content to just stay in the apartment for the rest of the day, but it was still the early afternoon, and I didn't want to waste it, so I convinced him to go to Odaiba with me.

Odaiba is actually pretty close in proximity to Shinagawa, but we've never gone before. There's no Liz Lisa there so I've never been dying to visit and you have to catch a monorail which isn't included in our Rail Passes, so I guess we've never casually wandered over there. It's pretty simple though. We just caught a train to Shimbashi and then transferred to the Yurikamome monorail to get to Odaiba-Kaihinkoen station. One way on the monorail from Shimbashi is 320yen per person so actually it's a bit pricey. The route it goes on is interesting to look at though.

Once we arrived, I wasn't really sure what to do. I knew I wanted to go to Odaiba but didn't really have any solid plans. I thought I might shop a bit, but once we got there, I didn't really feel like it. It was also pretty dark when we arrived, and there was a LOT of other people around so that didn't help. 

We ended up just going in to the closest mall and the first thing that greeted us was Baskin Robbins. We failed at getting ice cream earlier so this was our second chance. This one didnt have seating either but there was a lot of other places to sit in the mall, so that was okay.

I decided to deviate from my usual chocolate or triple chocolate and try a seasonal flavor - Hazelnut Chocolate. (Yeah, I know, it's not actually that different but it is new for me lol.) S decided to get 3 different flavors - Oreo Jamoca Coffee, Oreo Matcha and Musk Melon which I had only jokingly mentioned but he got anyway lol. I enjoyed mine lol. It was really rich though.

We didn't really have an agenda, but I did want to try and find the Venus Fort because I wanted to see if Shimamura might have something I wanted by chance. While we were making our way to where I thought it was, we exited a building and had this nice night view (which I didn't try overly hard to capture and therefore looks crappy lol)

We also saw the Statue of Liberty lol.

And this other light up/illumination display -

(Lol actually you can see the sign for Shimamura in the back. I went and didn't buy anything.)
The lights were quite nice in person. I thought it would be lame to be in Odaiba at night for some reason, but there's actually a number of things to look at or see that you can only see in the dark. There was even a light show on one of the high rise buildings.

The final thing we wanted to do in Odaiba was see the giant/actual size Gundam. This was actually S's pick. I don't really know the show, but I do know that it's a huge attraction for Odaiba. It took a bit of walking, but we finally found it.

When we got there, the show was actually playing against the building and the Gundam looked like this -

There were a lot of people sitting on the grass or standing in the back. We were in the back as well. We stood to watch for a little bit and then S said "I think it changes with the show". I wasn't really paying attention, so I go "wait, what, it's moving??" and he goes, "no, like the color" lol.
And that was actually the case! We were pretty far away so I didn't get a lot of great photos, but it was cool to see the interaction with the statue and the show.

Once the credits finished rolling, the Gundam was illuminated in full. It's quite bright actually lol. We were able to walk closer and take a better look.

There was also this huge mass of people in that area as well. I'm not certain but it seemed like some sort of cosplay meet and greet maybe. There were people in costume talking to other people and then there were LINES (I'm assuming to talk to the person in cosplay). Not super sure but it was a large crowd that had nothing to do with the Gundam lol.

We had finished what we came to do (which in reality, wasn't much), so we just ended up heading back from the nearest station to us which was Daiba. The ride back was pretty full lol. We transferred at Shimbashi to get back to Shinagawa, and then wanted to look around the station for another dessert since apparently the ice cream from Baskin Robbins wasn't enough. It was the last night anyway, so might as well lol.

We decided on this little chocolate ganache dessert.

It was a bit pricey but actually super good and worth the money we paid imo. I've had worse desserts for the same or more money, but this one actually felt like I got 390yen's worth of chocolate out of it. It was really rich, and we almost couldn't finish it lol.

Purchases of the day -

Cecil McBee top and skirt. & a lure S bought which he just rolled into my picture wtf

Pens and clips from Tokyu Hands. The clips were for my coworker.

I really like the colors I ended up picking!

Axes Femme Kids dress for S's niece. Still cute or not? Lol.

I think S probably thought this was a pretty decent day because he found a lot of good things to purchase in Chiba lol. I didn't really find anything noteworthy although I am really glad I went into the Cecil McBee and ended up purchasing something. I think the outfit is going to be really cute.  And honestly, I had a blast looking around in the little Axes Femme Kids section lol. I wish I had someone I could spoil rotten with those clothes lol. (Tbh it's probably best I don't though because I wouldn't have any money between spending on myself and spending on a child haha.) It was also really interesting to finally go to a Liz Lisa Fusion store! It's not really exponentially all that different from what I thought it would be, but still nice to check off my list even though it was unplanned. Odaiba is checked off my list now too. I'm not sure if it's really a place that I would revisit again on my own since we end up paying so much out of pocket to get there and don't get that much out of it personally. I don't think we were missing anything by not visiting it sooner tbh. It's just not a huge grab for me. It was nice to see it illuminated at night though which we weren't even necessarily planning on doing specifically lol.

Sorry this post is a bit of a text wall lol. Hardly any pictures and really just casual shopping in a few places we were familiar with and a few places we weren't. A really low key last two days in Tokyo! And it had actually felt marginally cooler these days as well.  We were really trying to tone down our spending by this point, so there wasn't much excitement lol. No Liz Lisa spending for me these two days actually! And finally my money went to other clothing brands lol.

  Japan trip Summer 2015 posts:
Part 1 - Osaka & Kobe: Day 1 - 2
Part 2 - Kyoto & Namba: Day 3
Part 3 - Tokyo-based: Day 4 - 6
Part 4 - Sendai: Day 7
Part 5 - Tokyo-based: Day 8 -9
Part 6 - Osaka: Day 10 - 11
Part 7 - Airbnb & accommodations
Part 8 - Liz Lisa purchases
Part 9 - Other shopping
Part 10 - Travel notes

  Japan trip Spring 2015 posts
  Japan trip Summer 2014 posts