Japan trip Spring 2015 part 5 - March 24, Day 4: Omiya, Ikebukuro, Takadanobaba, Asakusa & luggage forwarding

Originally on the agenda for this day was "G-cans" - the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel in Saitama. However, we ended up not being able to get a reservation to view it, so that was a total no-go. While we were planning that, I noticed that Omiya actually wasn't too far from Tokyo (and actually it was right along the way to G-cans), so I had my heart set on going to Omiya Arche to check out the Liz Lisa there even though there was no real reason to go that way anymore lol. S had 0 interest in Omiya since there were no Sansui stores there and instead decided to venture out on his own to Ueno to check out the Ueno Sansui. My mother and father decided to join me to go to Omiya.
(It was essentially like in Day 3 where I just wanted to go to the Liz Lisa because we were already planning on doing another activity in the area that the store was in, but somehow we ended up not doing the main activity, and I ended up traveling to a place just for the Liz Lisa wtf.)

Omiya is about 30 minutes away from Shinagawa. The train ride felt a bit long though. Leave the JR Omiya station via the west exit, and you can't miss Omiya Arche.

It's like BAM, in your face, right there lol. The Liz Lisa store there recently had a Renewal Opening, and they still had the banner up, front and center.
When I got to the entrance, I was also pleasantly surprised to see this display!

It was just to the right of the entrance doors.We got there just shortly after 10:00am so the lighting was poor to capture pictures of it, but it was quite lovely to see the Liz Lisa x My Melody 6th collab dresses and cardigans in person a few days in advance of the release!

After what seemed like a long train ride, my mother and I quickly dashed to the restroom to freshen up.Which worked out well for me since I somehow didn't take an outfit photo before leaving the room and the bathrooms were really nice!

OOTD - Liz Lisa riders faux leather jacket, Liz Lisa sleeveless tie front lace top, Liz Lisa key motif skirt, Liz Lisa rose quilted bag, Liz Lisa lace up back pumps and off brand OTK socks. I'm also wearing the Yui Kanno collab rose barrette!

Since the renewal, Liz Lisa is now on the third floor! There were still many flower arrangements from the renewal event which happened the week previous.

When I entered the store, I was surprised to find no other than Machida 109 shop staff Sayaka there! Wtf. Machida and Omiya are nowhere near each other imo (at least 70 minutes away from each other by train). I don't know where she lives or if she had to travel often to more than one store location, but it was crazy to see her again! This time I felt really nervous talking to her for some reason and didn't say as much as I should have, I think, but she was still really friendly and helpful! I wish I had asked her name then or asked to take a picture with her or had something to give her from Hawaii :|.
This Liz Lisa location now has Penderie stock as well! I almost bought a top and skirt set that was really well priced, but I ended up not wanting to for some reason. My dad was forlornly sitting outside the store waiting for us anyway lol.

We also went to the Disney store in Omiya Arche which was right next to the Liz Lisa.
And I had seen the Ank Rouge store also on the third floor when we were coming up the escalator, so I decided that I wanted to shop there as well. I meant to check out Ank Rouge in Shibuya 109, but I actually didn't spend much time exploring Shibuya 109 during this trip because I don't really count the 2 hours I was waiting outside and the hours I was waiting at the Liz Lisa for/during the Yui Kanno event lol. Anyway, this seemed like a good opportunity to browse, so I did. They had a good display that clearly showed two sets available for what I considered a good price, so I decided to go with the top/bottom combo one (versus the OP version which was also a pretty good deal).

I had previously browsed through the Ank Rouge webstore before leaving, but didn't have anything in particular I absolutely thought I HAD to purchase, but the set seemed a good way to wipe out getting 4 items/a whole outfit without thinking too much lol.
Here are the stock photos from the Ank Rouge webstore -

I thought the stock photos would help, but looking at them now, I think it's just more confusing because most of the photos are showing more than one item in the set and none of them are the exact combo I bought lol. Top left: The jacket in "white". Top right: The top in purple. Bottom left: The skirt in purple. Bottom right: The tote in white. Confused? Yeah me too lol.

Lucky for me, the Omiya Arche store had all the color options for each of the items. I had a really hard time picking what I wanted because there were so many choices! I almost went with a navy jacket and skirt combo with red ribbon shirt, but in the end, I decided that I wanted to go with lighter colors and feature lavender which I don't have a lot of in my wardrobe and have been wanting to indulge in a bit more. I also got the novelty tote which looks a lot like the tote that comes in the set. (Somehow I ended up with two...I'm not sure why.) And I also received a lookbook/catalog book! [Photos of the items at the end of the post!]
If I had more time/wasn't with my father who was super bored, I would have loved to explore/browse Omiya Arche a lot more. It's a HUGE mall and has a lot of the brands that Shibuya 109 does + it's really near the station and easy to find. I mean, I probably could have, but I had a feeling I wasn't going to buy a lot of other things but rather just look so it would have kind of been a waste tbh. Maybe next trip!

As we were heading back to the station, we saw that there was a Daiei sign on one of the buildings. We used to have Daiei stores in Hawaii, but they have since turned into Don Quixote stores here (with a lot of the same content but a different name), and my parents were curious to what a Daiei in Japan would sell, so we went to check it out.

These strawberries looked so red and delicious! (Everywhere we went we saw gorgeous strawberries tbh.) Daiei is basically like a grocery store and somewhat similar to what we have at home but with more Japanese products and goods, of course lol. It was a great place to pick up lots of candy and snacks for omiyage with great selection.
There's also a dollar store near the Daiei, and I picked up a few washi tapes and things for my coworker and some cheap stationary for myself.

Then, we went back to the station and headed to Ikebukuro. We were planning to meet back up with S there who was planning to go to the Ikebukuro Sansui. Meanwhile, I wanted to take a peek at the Liz Lisa in Ikebukuro Parco. For some reason, even though I've been there before, and I was in the direct area, I had such a hard time finding Parco wtf. It was so irritating, and by the time I finally got there, I just took a quick look in the store before I resigned to just go to lunch.
When I had dragged us to Ikebukuro Parco to check out the Liz Lisa during our last trip, we had eaten at a pasta restaurant that my father REALLY enjoyed. So much so, that he wanted to go again lol.

The menu had a lot of kanji so we had a hard time reading it last time and mostly just guessed on what was good based on the photos but still lucked out lol. My dad made sure he took a picture of the set he wanted on the outside. He knew he wanted to eat exactly the same thing as last time.

My mom got the same thing she ordered last time as well lol. It's some sort of lunch set with two pastas and a drink. My dad also wanted to try a dessert so he ordered this tiramisu with small strawberries on it!

This is what S and I ordered -

S's is something about ham and egg (sorry I don't remember the exact name), and mine is some kind of margherita pasta lol. I usually like to eat meat sauce pasta only but they don't have that for adults (only for a kids meal which is actually what I ordered last time), so I decided to try this. It was pretty reasonable for someone who is picky like me! I really like how the pasta is cooked at this restaurant. S also wanted to try a dessert so he got this chocolate cake thing with banana ice cream, a cookie and banana chips. He said it was pretty good.

After lunch, we went to the Loft that's connected to Parco. My mom was really looking for this scissors and razor combo thing that's essentially the size of a pen that she bought last time from a Loft, but she couldn't find it. I, on the other hand, found a lot of things for my coworker who had specifically requested sakura themed things if possible! Loft definitely has lots of deco and washi tapes and a huge selection of stickers.

I had also wanted to go to the mon Lily store at P'parco but I still felt somewhat defeated since before when it took me a such a long time to find the Parco which was right in front of my face omfg. Anyway, I didn't feel like dragging my family there since I felt I was likely only to browse and not buy. Instead, we got back on the train and headed to Takadanobaba. S decided that that wasn't worth his time, and instead stayed on the train and went back to the Shibuya Sansui store.

My parents and I got off at Takadanobaba and exited on the east side of the JR station. Shimamura was a short walk away. I really wanted to go to Shimamura to see if I could get some LizMero stuff. It's a bit hard to find if you can't read Japanese since the name is in hiragana, and it's on the second floor of a grocery store, but thankfully I knew what the outside looked like so I was able to find it pretty quickly. The Shimamura in Takadanobaba only sells clothes which I didn't really connect until I got there. (It's called "Fashion Center Shimamura" which should have tipped me off but it didn't.) I had really wanted to see what LizMero goods I could get, but there was nothing like that there unfortunately. I was still able to find a great LizMero roomwear set though. I love my roomwear set from Liz Lisa's Chambre a Coucher line, and this one is pretty similar so I was happy to find it. [Photos of the roomwear set at the end of the post!] I also bought a Tsum Tsum tshirt for my friend.

We also shopped around for some snacks in the grocery store under Shimamura and went to Don Quixote on our way back to Takadanobaba station (for more snacks). This was pretty much our last shopping hurrah in Tokyo because we were leaving for Osaka the next day, and it was time to stock up, so that's why so much snack shopping lol. Because we had so many bags, we had to stop back at the hotel to drop them off before continuing on. That was good though because it gave us the opportunity to meet up with S again.

After dropping our stuff off and taking a short break, we all headed out to Asakusa for a little more site seeing and possible shopping.
There was a lot, like A LOT, of people with selfie sticks there wtf. I ended up putting on a mask because my face was getting dry and cold haha.

There was also a lot of people who were taking selfies with these fake sakura sprigs that were glued or nailed onto trees I think. Not sure if they knew or if they just thought it made for a good photo?

Idk if this is a better picture of my OOTD lol. When we returned to the hotel, I decided to change to sneakers since Asakusa seemed like a mostly standing/walking activity.

We didn't end up buying very much actually. My mom thought she would be buying a lot of trinkets and small things for gifts, but really she only bought maybe a few food items. It was definitely a good place for them to visit at least once though I think, since we didn't make it there last summer.

The big item on the agenda that day was actually back at the hotel and ended up being a little limiting in a way due to the time restriction. We needed to leave Asakusa by around 06:00pm to get back to our hotel and pack our bags so our luggage could be forwarded to our hotel in Osaka since the office closes at 08:00pm, and my mom still needed to pack all of her shopping from earlier in the day lol. [If it weren't for this, I probably would have tried to head straight to Odaiba from Asakusa to look around for an hour or so since I've never been there before.] We had considered trying to send the luggage first thing earlier that morning (so it would arrive in Osaka sooner and we could have had it out of the way), but I think based on the shopping we did throughout the day that day, it was best that we waited even though it eliminated a night activity.  It's good that our hotel has a little Kuroneko office so conveniently located though, so we didn't have to lug our three very packed bags around outside to find a drop off point.

This was our first time using Kuroneko/any service like it in Japan. For three very full/heavy, large bags, the charge was around 4500yen total. We considered this to be pretty cheap, since I thought the weight would matter a lot and had anticipated something like $25 a bag. It would have been really hard for us to bring all these bags on the shinkansen with us besides our other stuff, so at $45, we thought this was great. The bags were set to arrive the next, next day's morning at our hotel in Osaka. I think that if we had sent them in the morning, they could have arrived just the next day though.

With that taken care of by 07:30pm, we were too lazy to go out and find a restaurant, so we decided to just eat at the hotel food court. There's about 7 or 8 vending machine type restaurants and a very reasonably sized seating area in the Prince Shinagawa Annex tower which we had previous visited and weren't wow'd by, but I'd consider it a good option when lazy because it's so convenient and there's a very reasonable variety in there lol.

What my parents ate on the left and what I ate on the right. (S decided he wanted to eat hamburger steak in the restaurant also in the hotel complex but on the first floor that we had been to on the previous trip but none of the rest of us liked eating there so he went by himself lol.)
My dad wanted to eat only a small meal because he and S were going to try to go to a gyu katsu restaurant later that night.

As it turns out, they decided not to wait in the line to get in, but I'll write more about it in the next post because it's more relevant for Day 5!

On Day 4, I finally purchased some non-Liz Lisa clothes. And actually didn't make any Liz Lisa purchases at all despite going to two locations. I bought most of what I wanted by this point, I think. Maybe I wish I had bought a few Penderie items from the Omiya Arche Liz Lisa store, but ehhh, I wasn't die hard over them, so I guess it's better that I didn't. I bought the Ank Rouge set for what I consider quite a good price anyway from Omiya Arche, so I'm not unhappy. This was essentially our last full day in Tokyo, and we spent it doing some stuff that we were familiar with and had enjoyed (Ikebukuro and revisting the pasta restaurant) and also some unfamiliar things (Omiya and Takadanobaba and Asakusa + trying out Kuroneko), and buying a whole bunch of snacks lol.

"Spoiler alert" - I didn't buy very many non-Liz Lisa items besides these and don't have enough to make their own blog post like I'm doing for the Liz Lisa items, so here's the items I purchased on Day 4 (worn)! -

From Ank Rouge -

"Premium Set #1" - Heart pocket tailored jacket in what Ank Rouge calls white but I'm pretty sure is pink (like seriously it's nowhere near being white), Round collar ruffle puff blouse in purple, Front ribbon hem print skirt in purple and small gingham ribbon ruffle tote in white + (2??) Sugar Me? and Be Mine? novelty ruffle totes

The top and skirt only:

+ Jacket:

+ Tote:

I finally tried on this set up today to take these pictures, and I looooove it! The top and skirt both fit really well and the jacket fit is not too shabby either! I'm not a fan of loose fitting blazers on me because I think I look too blocky, but this one is pretty darn good for free size. Not toooo loose and definitely not too tight. Great for layering. I don't know how often I'll use the tote with this set up, but it's still nice to have anyway. How can you go wrong with a simple tote bag? The novelty totes are essentially the same design too lol. I must say that I'm super happy I decided to get this set and made time to go to Ank Rouge at Omiya Arche, because I'm not sure I would have had time to go back to the Shibuya 109 one. I'm glad I didn't miss out on this!

From Shimamura - 

 LizMero floral print jacket with ears and shorts roomwear set in pink

Ahhhh I love this as well! I especially like that the material is not TOO thick which is great for me in Hawaii. I think it might be plausible to wear it quite often. (Whereas with my Liz Lisa Chambre a Coucher set, I only wear it when it gets cold, otherwise it's too hot lol.) The floral print is great and so is the bunny ear and bow detail on the hood. Even though I couldn't get my hands on any LizMero goods or regular fashion clothes, I'm still really happy I was able to find and purchase this roomwear set.

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  Japan trip Spring 2015 posts
Part 1 - Pre-trip planning
Part 2a - March 21, Day 1: Liz Lisa Shibuya 109 Yui Kanno event
Part 2b - March 21, Day 1: Hawkeye Owl Cafe
Part 3 - March 22, Day 2: Kawatsura Strawberry Farm, Chiba, Shinjuku
Part 4 - March 23, Day 3: Tsukiji Fish Market, Yokohama, Machida
Part 5 - March 24, Day 4: Omiya, Ikebukuro, Takadanobaba, Asakusa & luggage forwarding
Part 6 - March 25, Day 5: Shibuya, Shinkansen & Osaka
Part 7 - March 26, Day 6: Tennoji MIO, Nara Deer Park
Part 8 - March 27, Day 7: Kobe (steak), Namba/Shinsaibashi & Keiko
Part 9 - March 28, Day 8: Kyoto, Berri & home
Part 10 - Hotels and Pupuru pocket wifi review
Part 11 - Liz Lisa shopping items/coordinates
Part 12 - Liz Lisa x My Melody 6th collab OPs and hand towel 

Japan trip Summer 2014 posts
Japan trip Summer 2015 posts