Japan trip Winter 2017 Part 6: Day 6 - Last minute shopping, Ameyoko & Harajuku

Our final day of the trip, Day 6, January 30 didn't have any sort of set schedule, but we knew we didn't want to venture too far from the core of Tokyo just in case. (I remember watching a news story on a past trip where the trains stopped running from Yokohama to Tokyo and thinking about how screwed we would have been if that were us trying to get back for a flight. Some people were at the station all night until 4am!)

I got ready and started the day by just popping down to the convenience store to get something for breakfast.

Then we went to go do another trial run of getting to the airport shuttle pick up spot because it's on the way to Shibuya station anyway and we really didn't get it completely right the night before lol. It's actually quite easy if you know exactly where you're going!

The shuttle stop is connected to Mark City, so we went down to the basement level to check out what food items they had in case we wanted to pick up something to eat at the airport/on the plane. Department stores have some of the best looking foods!

We navigated our way on the basement level to get to the Tokyu building where we went up to the third floor.

to get to Ito-ya! This is definitely a stationary store that I've heard of before but have never had a chance to go to one on prior trips. Now I know where a conveniently located one is :)

My mom purchased a few things and then we went to the station and caught a JR Yamanote line train to Ueno.

My dad had done a little research and thought my mom would like to check out Ameya-Yokocho / Ameyoko shopping street which seemed to promise all sorts of sweets and things that you could buy.

The first street we went down seemed to be selling a lot of clothes and shoes/accessories + had a lot of drugstore type shops. I know I saw a number of places selling sukajan type jackets. It didn't seem like a sweets street at all lol. I stopped to buy a sunscreen that S specifically wanted but we didn't really see much else that really caught our eye.

At the end of it, we made a turn and found a 100yen shop.

And on our way back towards the station, we found a bunch of stores selling candy and sweets on a perpendicular lane lol. I guess we might just have been in the wrong section, but there was this one major 3 part store that had a bunch of different food items!

We made our purchases and looked around the area a bit more. There seemed to be a lot of small places to eat but for some reason I wanted to eat gyudon lol.

Luckily there was a Matsuya on our way back to Ueno station! There weren't 3 counter seats side-by-side when we first got there, so we took up two tables of two, but shortly after we submitted our tickets, 3 seats became available so we moved to the counter lol.

After we had managed to move all of our things to the opposite side, our food was already ready!

My dad was the only one of us who got something more interesting lol. The restaurant filled up quite quickly after we sat down as well with 5-8 people waiting! Thank goodness we walked in and made our decision when we did, otherwise we'd be in the same position. The staff is also quite quick, so there's a lot of turnover for people on the go.

We made our way back to the station and didn't have solid plans for the rest of the day except just a bit of last minute shopping and browsing.

On our way back to Shibuya, we stopped at Shinagawa station because my dad had spotted a really good dessert earlier and wanted to check if they had restocked it. Sadly they hadn't but they picked a few different things anyway.

We separated at Shibuya station because I wanted to exit on the east side to go to Sansui for S again and my parents went to go look at a department store again for more desserts.

Thankfully I really understand how to get to this store on my own now wtf. It's not such a hassle but it is insufferably warm in there -__-. Doesn't help that I feel completely out of place and the wifi gets spotty, but anyway, got mission accomplished!

I walked back toward and through Shibuya station to get to the Hachiko side and while I was walking back up to the apartment, Ebony found me! We were actually FB messaging and she asked me if I was wearing a white beret lmao. I went back up to the apartment, dropped off my purchases and then quickly headed back down to met her.

I really wanted to check out the stores for a few Larme type brands but was too nervous to try and go by myself, so I enlisted Ebony's help since it seemed like she had visited a few already! We took a JR Yamanote line train 1 stop to Harajuku. We exited on the Takeshita side despite the crowds because

I wanted to stop by the Liz Lisa to look for a few things! Second floor first because sales lol.

And then the main store on the first floor as well!

Ebony frequents this location and knows a lot of the staff personally! I only know them from IG and Twitter pictures lmao. She introduced me to Micchan (@liz_micchan / @micchan.228) who I've definitely seen on social media - both her own accounts and the Liz Lisa Harajuku store accounts. She was really nice to talk to!

We continued down Takeshita doori and stopped at a couple places along the way.

I've seen this My Melody roomwear set from Aimer Feel before and I've always admired it. But I can never bring myself to purchase -__-

Past Takeshita doori, Ebony took me to the original Bubbles location!

And the EATME store!

As well as Honey mi Honey.

These are the brands I wanted to visit and thought maybe I might find something that would interest me after seeing it in person, but there's still too much winter/heavy material items so unfortunately it doesn't make sense for me. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I'm really glad Ebony introduced me to their locations!

We also went to Tokyu Plaza which you can't miss with the huge mirrored exterior. 

There's a Jill Stuart shop!

And a fantastic Rady shop!

You can tell that their home goods/room line is doing well because of how much store space they dedicate to it! Again, nothing immediately struck me as something I could easily use in Hawaii, so I was just window shopping.

Despite the enormous crowds outside due to the grand bazaar event, we decided to try to get into La Foret.

Wtf it was so, so, so crowded though. I don't even know how to explain it lol. I think there was a time sale that happened to be going on in several of the stores and some of the lines were absolutely crazy. Not just lines to make a purchase but also lines to just get into the stores. It seemed somewhat well managed but it was just so hard to move around lol.

We ended up making it to the eHyphen shop which was having their own sales that seemed really decent as well as Rose Marie Soir.

Back on the second floor is a little Mexican-type cafe where Ebony stopped for something to eat before she had to go to work and I got a little frozen lemonade which was really refreshing lol. I think this was the only non-water and non-breakfast-OJ drink I had during the entire trip lmao. We were able to sit and chat for a while before it was time to go. I always enjoy our conversations!

We separated at Harajuku station and I returned to Shibuya.

Last look at Shibuya 109!

While I had been out with Ebony, my parents had done their own errands in Harajuku and then returned to Shibuya to try this ramen place that was close to the apartment that my dad had wanted to try. He said he would definitely try it again and the portions were very generous!

Meanwhile, I had to take the time to pack up the remaining items I had purchased earlier in the day (thankfully not that much) to prepare to leave.

I had initially wanted to go to get a bento or something similar from a department store, but I decided I didn't want to walk all the way over there lmao (and it's not even that far). Instead I just went down to 7-Eleven to grab a musubi and something small to eat for dinner.

We all finished our last minute packing and preparations and made sure we double checked the check out list with the Airbnb instructions. Since we had quite a few bags, we knew we wanted to take a couple trips down to the shuttle stop instead of struggle with everything at once. We took about two bags each on the first trip, left my mom there and then my dad and I came back to get the rest before checking out.

We had minor drama because I accidentally left the Airbnb pocket wifi in my purse which I had left with my mom when we were going to make the second trip, so my dad actually had to go back and forth three times to accommodate for that FHL. Thankfully we had enough time to do everything, but it was definitely a little more rushed because of that. My mom had purchased the shuttle tickets while she was waiting.

The airport shuttle bus came just around 20:00 and asked each group of passengers if they were flying domestic or international and he loaded the bags based on terminal. He was extremely efficient!

We arrived at the Haneda International Terminal just about on time at around 21:00. The first thing we did was go to the Air Lawson to drop off our Pupuru rented wifi unit in the mail slot.

And then we found our way to the Departure area and Hawaiian Airlines counter. We were about an hour early so there weren't many people in front of us in line.

We stopped at a couple of the shops in the Departure area to get some of the things that S had wanted and then started on our way to our gate that ended up being quite far away lol.

The gate area is so nice and clean and there was almost no one there lol. We settled in near one of the available outlets and then my parents went to go search a bit more for last minute things to buy while I watched our bags.

Our boarding time was a bit delayed but overall the flight didn't fall much behind schedule for actual take off. I had been able to upgrade my seat to Economy Plus again and was able to take up the entire empty middle row lmao.

Since we departed at around midnight, I was determined to sleep through most of the flight and I did haha. The flight back to Hawaii is usually much shorter than going towards Japan so I think it took about 7 hours or even a bit less. I woke up maybe just about 45 minutes before landing so I could get ready to deplane and freshen up a bit.

After going through immigration/customs and claiming our bags, I ended up going straight to work because it was still the early afternoon on Monday, Jan 30 and we had essentially flown back in time lol.
The day we leave always ends up being one of the longest days for us because of the scheduled time for departure being close to midnight, but at least we didn't have to fuss with too many things and there was a lot to explore just around the apartment area. It was a pretty low stress day for me aside from forgetting to leave the Airbnb wifi in the apartment at the end, and I was really happy that I had time to see Ebony for a second time!
(Overall concluding thoughts for the trip will be in Part 8!)

✲ Japan trip Winter 2017 ✲
    Part 1: Arrival and Day 1 - Tokyo errands, Ebony/Liz Lisa & Shiodome Caretta Illumination
    Part 2: Day 2 - Yokohama NOAH Inner City Zoo, Knot, Chinatown & Machida 109
    Part 3: Day 3 - Nagano Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park & Omiya
    Part 4: Day 4 - Tokyo shopping, Imperial Palace & dinner with Yuni
    Part 5: Day 5 - Shizuoka Izu Cactus Park (Capybara onsen!) & Mount Omuro
    Part 6: Day 6 - Last minute shopping, Ameyoko & Harajuku
    Part 7: Liz Lisa & Other shopping purchases/coordinates
    Part 8: Travel Notes - Airbnb, Pupuru pocket wifi & weather
    Part 9: What's in my bag - Japan trip edition

✦ Japan trip Spring 2016 posts
✦ Japan trip Autumn 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Summer 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Spring 2015 posts
✦ Japan trip Summer 2014 posts