6 floors of loft

First full day of Tokyo today! Planning our Tokyo itinerary was tricky because it's so much bigger than we thought it was going to be. There isn't a single tour you can take that covers all of Tokyo because there are so many different areas and within those areas most of the sights are narrow streets you need to walk through branching out into many smaller streets. So we picked a few highlights and decided to go about it on our own.

Shibuya 

After grabbing a light breakfast at a nearby bakery we got on the subway and 8 stops later arrived at Shibuya Station for our first stop, Shibuya Scramble Crossing Road. The crossing has been featured in many movies, postcards, and is known to be the one of the busiest streets. Four streets converging in the centre with thousands of people crossing at the same time, magnificiently organized chaos. 

Shibuya Scramble Crossing

Right after a crossing craze, you can already see people lining up on the other side. 

Round the corner from the crossing was the famous Hachiko dog statue from it's namesake movie about a loyal dog who waited for his owner even after he passed away. 

The queue to take a picture with this was ridiculously long.

Next up was Shibuya Loft which was a department store with 6 floors filled with anything from electronics, toys, humidifiers, japanese tea sets. Spent about two hours here because there were just so many interesting things to see even though the packaging was mostly in Japanese and we didn't know what exactly the things were. We found Su a bonsai tree set that he could grow himself since he's into terrariums now, face masks for me, and stationary for E. I really loved the skincare section, they just had so many products most of which you couldn't find anywhere else. Moisturising face spray, jelly face masks, Tokyo really is a shopping haven. 

Japanese drugstore makeup 

Cute polaroid cameras & disposable ones 

Skincare products

The streets of Shibuya are all brightly lit, big signs in neon lights with a million people rushing around. If you're in a group it's easy to get separated and we had to keep looking around making sure everyone was still following. Baba had the map, the rest of us were quite quick, and then Ma trailing behind.

Shopping district of Shibuya

Harajukku 

Early winter sunsets

Didn't manage to catch the Studio Ghibli studio tours but we did find this massive toy land which had a little bit of Studio Ghibli merc but not much. I didn't get anything but it was nice to see. 10 year old me would have been so excited, I was obsessed with my neighbour totoro and especially spirited away. E was still so traumatised (I made her watch Spirited away when she was about 5) and refused to touch the No-Face doll haha.

No Face

Started to get really cold at this point, the temperature dips at night and the wind doesn't help. Walked through the heart of Harajukku which are made up of tiny little streets with smaller shops than Shibuya but just as lit up and busy. Saw the cutest little owl cafe but E didn't want to go in because the baby owls were tied to their handlers and it was quite sad for them to spend their lives in a cafe for our amusement.

US minus A huddled up in the cold.

Burlesque ice cream parlour 

Matcha kitkat anyone? 

The main attraction here for me were the Japanese crepes! They had them on every corner, and they all looked identical; a few people operating out of a van handing out tens of crepes with the toppings of your choice every few minutes. They were delicious! I stupidly said I'd just share with everyone but no one wanted to share with me except ma and then I understood why. I finished hers and she went back to get more. They're super thin pancakes piled with ice-cream, almonds, drizzled chocolate sauce or nutella and a fruit wrapped into a tortilla looking wrap and then piled high with whipped cream. A thousand calories probably, but worth every single one.

You could choose from about 50 diff types of crepes

Lush just opened up in KL a few months back but Tokyo already has... Lush cafes. Apart from the flagship store near Shibuya we found a Lush cafe which had a conveyor belt sushi-style set up which had Lush bath bombs shaped like sushi! You could also customise your own bath bombs and they had Japanese insipred ones that you could only get at this shop. I don't have a bath tub at home thankfully, so it wasn't too hard to resist. 

Only got a section but they had it in every colour gradient

Sushi bombs 

Quickly rushed back to the hotel after this because A was meeting his friend from school who had moved back to Tokyo earlier this year. His family came to meet us and they were so nice, bringing us cute little Japanese treats. Went for a beef cutlet dinner where they set up these mini bbq pits infront of you and you cook your meat cutlets. Came with miso soup, potato salad, the most amazing cabbage salad (tastes way better than it sounds). After this trip, Japanese food is never going to be the same again. 

The Spread

Face mask count: 3. Tea tree oil and green tea to curb the breakouts!