Finally, we are on the last two days of our winter holiday in Japan. We had nothing in particular planned for those two days so we started a little later than usual. We found a little cafe in Shibuya area called FabCafe that regularly hosts workshops and decided to go and check it out.
Their menu was small, but in general pretty good. I ordered the marshmallow latte that was all over their instagram. It looked really cute, but the coffee itself was just so-so. We also ordered a couple portions of food.
From FabCafe, we walked to Shibuya Station to take the train to Ginza area. I have yet to visit my all time favourite store in Japan: Tokyu Hands. The largest ones I've come across so far were in Shibuya and in Shinjuku. That day, I chose to visit the Ginza location.
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| Manners are very important in Japan |
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| Ginza area |
Whenever I visit Tokyu Hands, I usually spend many hours there. From stationeries, beauty supplies, cookware, coffee gear, papers, stickers, earrings, toys, and more. Other than tax-free options, they almost always have extra discounts for foreign passport holders. Check their page on Facebook to get the latest coupons.
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| Asahi glass, made in Indonesia |
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| Sushi Jenga? |
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| Small pouches |
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| Furoshiki |
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| Tokyu Hands Ginza |
We left Tokyu Hands way past lunch time, and a few restaurants in the area we tried going to were already closed until dinner time. The only restaurant we could find that was open was a Chinese restaurant famous for their giant gyoza! We ordered a portion of gyoza and a plate of stir fried veggies with a bowl of rice. I must say they were yummy! The restaurant's name was Ginza Tenryu.
We continued walking in Ginza area after we ate, and we went to a luggage store that my friend had recommended. Ginza Karen is particularly famous amongst Chinese tourists, and they get dropped off at that store by the bus loads. Everything in their store costs 5,400 yen including small, medium, and large polycarbon suitcases. I got myself a pretty black medium size suitcase and quickly got out of there. It was a total zoo!
From Ginza Karen, we went to Hakuhinkan Toypark. It was a consolation stop for Miss Kiki who didn't get to go to Pokemon Centre. With a vast selection of toys, their prices here are higher compared to other stores for the same items. It's good to browse, but I wouldn't really buy anything there.
We got tired and headed back to Shibuya area. On the way back, we stopped at a kaiten sushi restaurant called Sushi Daidokoya. After Midori Sushi the night before though, this one was rather sad... They were not nearly as fresh so they were rather smelly. Boy.... have we gotten too spoiled with fresh sushi after Hokkaido and Midori Sushi?
The following day, we checked out of our Airbnb and popped our luggages in the lockers. We found large lockers near the basement entrance of Shibuya 109. Slightly relieved, we had brunch at Yoshinoya and afterwards Miss Kiki and I went to L'Occitane Cafe for desserts. We clearly remembered how yummy the Ichigo (strawberry) no Tiramisu (in June) and the Mango no Tiramisu (in September) were, we were hoping for something yummy again this time. Alas, just like the quiche in Jean Francoise, their Tiramisu last December was chestnut flavour... Thus, we ordered something else. Meawhile, DH was still quite unsettled he headed back to the locker area and tried to find the best route to roll the luggages back up to the bus stop.
After DH came back, we headed over to Akihabara area to browse their latest and greatest electronics. We got out of there with a new Nintendo Switch :D Their price was even lower than the USD prices in Amazon!
We hung around in Akiba for a while and headed back to Shibuya for our last dinner in Tokyo. We saw another Sushi Zanmai location and decided to go there... The food was good as usual, but DH was not feeling to good by that time so he didn't enjoy it as much.
Our flight was a late night one so we figured we had a lot of time. Well here's another memorable story from this trip. From the many signs on the bus stop, we were under the assumption that the airport bus comes every half hour at that stop we were planning to wait at. We had timed it so that we still had the chance to visit a couple of 100-yen stores before we collect our luggages and waited at the bus stop.
After waiting at the bus stop for a while, a bus came and we asked the driver about the bus to the airport and to our surprise, he said that airport buses don't stop there in the evening! We actually had to go to the bus depot in Mark City Mall. We ran and ran to the bus depot and the last bus that we could've taken to get to the airport in time had left 5 minutes prior....
We had a decision to make... either take an expensive taxi or wait for the next bus and risk being late. I went over to one of the taxis and asked how much approximately it would cost to go to Haneda Airport. The driver said about 9000 yen. We didn't want to take the risk of missing our flight so we took the taxi. Well, there's always a first! :D
The thing was..... we got to the airport on time only to find that our flight had been re-scheduled! Grrrr......
Well at least that gave us time to relax and buy more souvenirs to take home. And finally Miss Kiki found the Maple Tokyo Banana that she had been looking for...
There's something about Miss Kiki and planes/airports, that evening in Haneda she vomited one more time. We don't know why and she was fine afterwards.
So this concludes our winter holiday in Japan, thanks for reading! The summary page will come right up.
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