Japan trip Spring 2016 Part 8: Day 7 - Last minute shopping in Omiya and Tokyo & Tokaido Shinkansen to Osaka

On May 20, it was already time to pack up again and say goodbye to Tokyo!
Thankfully the shinkansen runs fairly often between Tokyo and Osaka, so we had a number of trains to pick from and had reserved one for the afternoon allowing us to spend a bit more time in the Tokyo area.
We started the day with the free breakfast at the top floor of the Prince's N Tower!

They changed the bread choice from croissants but everything else seemed the same from the last time I visited lol. Not extravagant but convenient and free (no additional charge beyond room rate).

We took our time with breakfast and then back in room, I finished packing my things. I had run out of clothes that I brought from home, so my outfit for the day was the set up I bought on Day 5 from Shibuya 109 - Liz Lisa fruit water jumper skirt and flare sleeve top.

We gathered up our larger suitcases and went to the second floor of the Prince Shinagawa Annex Tower to forward them to the hotel in Osaka. We were happy to hear that it should arrive by the next day!

We gathered the remaining smaller pieces of luggage, left them at the front desk, checked out and headed for Shinagawa station.

where my parents and I caught a train to Omiya in Saitama! Arrived about 45 minutes later and headed straight for Arche just outside the west exit of the station. Liz Lisa shopping was my top priority this day since I didn't end up doing a ton of it on Day 5. This location isn't "close" but I was hoping to find a few things I hadn't seen in the Shibuya, Harajuku or Shinjuku stores so it was worth the ride. Plus it opens at 10:00am which is earlier than a few of the closer locations and allowed me to get a jump start on the day.

The store was empty when I arrived and one of the shop staff was super nice, not overly pushy and even tried to help us in English a little once she realized we were from Hawaii. I tried on a few things, bought a couple items (and got overcharged by a different shop staff because I didn't get the set price even though I know the items were eligible for it but sigh, my fault for not saying something. This is the second time that I've caught myself being overcharged at Liz Lisa but way too late - when will I learn to say something about a total that seems oddly high?? Seriously, overpaying by 5000yen is nothing to shrug at, especially when I don't think I would have wanted to purchase the items without the discount -__-)

and then we went down to the Daiei next door which has been a bit lucky for us in the past having items that we hadn't seen in other stores. It's obviously not a really convenient location and there may be grocery or similar stores that have similar stock closer to the hotel, but since I wanted to come up to Omiya anyway, it made sense to just stop here as well and pick up a few things, especially since it's just a short distance from the station as well.

Once we were done, we headed back to the station and got on a JR Saikyo line train headed back down towards Tokyo.

We arrived at Ikebukuro about half an hour later. Again, the only item on my agenda was Liz Lisa and actually we only had about 30 minutes in the area if we wanted to make it to a specific restaurant for lunch, so I left the station from the north exit and immediately walked through the underpass to get to the other side of the tracks.

On the other side, Parco is just there on your right. Liz Lisa is on level B2 where our pocket wifi didn't have reception lmao.

While my mom and I were shopping, I actually left my dad waiting in this line for apple pie because Sachi had highly recommended it and it was near Parco and gave him something to do.

They make them fresh in the which is why the line can be crazy sometimes, but my dad managed to get four by the time I was done in Liz Lisa which was actually a while because the shop staff had to run to the stock room which doesn't seem to be conveniently located FHL.

Since we were trying to make it to Naka-Meguro by 13:00, we didn't have much more time in Ikebukuro but were able to meet up with S who had been doing his own shopping since we left the hotel.

We caught the JR Yamanote line to Ebisu and then transferred to a Tokyo Metro train to get to Naka-Meguro.

We exited out of the southeast side of the station and I was actually able to navigate to Seirinkan without the help of Google Maps lol. I guess that's not really an accomplishment considering I had just come in November and it was daytime, but I overshot it every time before so I'm going to give myself some credit.

The restaurant closes at 14:00 with the last call at 13:30 and we had arrived just around 13:00. We ordered the broccoli, two margarita pizzas, one marinara pizza and the limited specialty pasta.

This restaurant is one of my favorite places to eat in Tokyo because I love pizza wtf but the crust/dough used for it is just great.

One of the apple pies from Ringo was a super quick dessert since we were on the third floor completely by ourselves lol.

Since we were already in Naka-Meguro, I also went to Traveler's Factory to look for two items for an ex-coworker. Unfortunately, neither was available wtf. I think one was sold out and the other is only sold at Narita Airport? :(

 

Running a bit short on time from that point before we had to catch the shinkansen and we each had different priorities. We all bought tickets for the Tokyu Toyoko line to go one stop to Shibuya. S and my parents had some things to do there but I transferred to the JR Yamanote line and went to Shinjuku.

Now that I had the wifi, I had a much, much easier time navigating myself to Lumine EST from the tracks lol. I had seen something on Day 5 at Primevere that I definitely wanted to purchase, so that's why it was a priority to go back lol.

The store wasn't busy at all and I was able to quickly identify the items I wanted to the sole shop staff and she carefully wrapped them up for me. It took a little longer than I had anticipated so I didn't have time to go back to Studio Alta which would have been just outside, but I already done a fair amount of purchasing so I didn't feel too bad about it.

I was still technically in Shinjuku station so I just navigated back to the tracks and caught a JR Yamanote line train back to Shibuya lol. I rushed over to 109.

I didn't look at Liz Lisa but I did go to quickly look at Swankiss to check on stock for Rennie (no luck), and I finally remembered that I needed additional ankle socks for the remaining two days of the trip. Fortunately, Doll Kiss was on the same floor so it worked out well.

On my way out, I also quickly ran into DaTuRa since I wanted to look at a few of their set prices.

 

By the time I was done, I was already a bit late meeting back in Shinagawa and actually I was at the JR Yamanote line tracks in Shibuya station when I should have been back in the hotel lol.   

Once I was back in the lobby, I still had to consolidate all of my shopping into my carry on bags so that it wouldn't be a nuisance on the train.

And then we were on the move again!

This is one of the reasons why we like staying in Shinagawa - we're familiar with the station, there's a huge selection of things to eat/ekiben, and we don't have to deal with transferring to or from another train to get on the shinkansen with all of our crap lol.

Having bought our snacks/dinner for the train ride, we found our way to the proper track. We were in the last car (Car 16), so we had to walk a long way down lol.

We sat in the first row with three of us on one side and S by himself with a stranger across the aisle lol. I'm not sure why the JR attendant booked us this way, but I guess it worked out because we had decent room for all of our bags like this.

Our food on the train including a bottle of water that S had to buy because we didn't bring enough with us.

Somehow, we have ended up making a habit of buying desserts during the trip lol. We rarely eat desserts at home.

We arrived at Shin-Osaka just under three hours later but we still had to transfer to a JR Kyoto line train for just one stop to Osaka station. There's no pictures of this because we all had to manage our bags on a crowded train wtf.
And then we had to navigate to a hotel that we've never been to before but shouldn't have been hard to get to because it's so close to the Hankyu Umeda station. That being said, I've never really had to navigate all over the Osaka/Umeda station area with luggage and with three other people with luggage, so we screwed things up a bit and ended up exiting at the wrong point, leaving the station at the wrong point and then having to walk through the Hanshin Department store underground to get to Hankyu and out that way wtf. (Don't ask, it was actually more complicated than that too lol.) But, soon enough, we arrived, checked in and I dropped my stuff off in the room.

Then I rushed back out to Hep Five where I met up with Mei for the first time! She's doing a study abroad in Osaka, and I'm so glad I was able to catch here before it was over! By the time I got to Hep, it was close to the time that the mall was closing, but we were still able to take purikura on the top floor and talk for a bit.

Bahaha, as it turns out, neither of us claim to be any good at puri, but I really like how the full length shot on the left turned out! Mei - thank you so much for being so patient and meeting up with me even though it was just for a short time! It was so good to meet you!
Once the mall closed, we parted ways at the station and I returned to the hotel. There was only one room key per room, but S had already gone out and made it back to the room, so I didn't have to worry about being locked out lol.

My Liz Lisa purchases this trip and particularly on this day pushed me onto another stamp card! (This was actually my intention so I'm really happy about it!) I really doubt it if I'll end up being able to make it back to shop in Japan within the next year to keep it going, but who knows?

All the things from Sapporo from S's suitcase that we had forwarded directly to Osaka had to get unloaded so that he could start packing it for himself lol.

I didn't have my check-in suitcase yet which we had just sent from Tokyo earlier in the day, so I just had to pile the items in my current available bags so they could be off the bed so we could sleep wtf lmao.

I feel like shopping days are the most boring to blog since I save the purchases for the posts at the end of the series! (This is so they're easy to access all in one place later for reference and also because taking and editing all the item and coordinate photos takes a lot more time, and I don't want to back up the daily posts because of it.) However, I hope that this blog post was still able to provide a little information to you! Due to our sidetrack for lunch, I wasn't able to be as efficient as possible, but I still got to hit 3 Liz Lisa stores that had items that I wanted to purchase. Tip: be sure to take into account the time it takes for the shop staff to wrap up your purchases lol. I think that alone easily ate up about 30-40 minutes total this day wtf which could have allowed me to get to one more store IMO. I totally understand why they do it and I'm glad they package the items with such care, but when you're in a rush, the process can be excruciating (especially when you're just going to unwrap and repack everything in a suitcase later)! Carrying all of those shopping bags was such a pain on the train and in anywhere even remotely crowded - I cannot even begin to explain to you lol. I'm glad I was able to fit everything in my not-yet-full carry on bags though because I couldn't have gotten on the shinkansen in a feasible matter otherwise. I can't wait to share more about the purchases with you soon!

✦ Japan trip Spring 2016 posts
Part 1: Packing (Liz Lisa outfits) for Hokkaido to Osaka in May
Part 2: Arrival to CTS & Day 1 - Curb Market, Shiroi Koibito Park and shopping in Sapporo
Part 3: Day 2 - Nijo Market, Sapporo Beer Museum & Tanukikoji in Sapporo
Part 4: Day 3 - Exploring Otaru & experiencing the Hakodate Liner
Part 5: Day 4 - Morning Market, Red Brick Warehouses & Mt Hakodate in Hakodate
Part 6: Day 5 - Hokkaido Shinkansen & shopping in Tokyo and Funabashi
Part 7: Day 6 - Tokyo DisneySea
Part 8: Day 7 - Last minute shopping in Omiya and Tokyo & Tokaido Shinkansen to Osaka
Part 9: Day 8 - Kinkakuji in Kyoto & shopping in Osaka
Part 10: Day 9 - Utsubo Park Rose Festival, Namba/Shinsaibashi & departure from KIX in Osaka
Part 11: Liz Lisa shopping, purchases & coordinates
Part 12: Other shopping, purchase & coordinates
Part 13: Travel notes - Hotels, Luggage forwarding & Pocket wifi

✦ Japan trip Autumn 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Summer 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Spring 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Summer 2014 posts