Our second last day in Tokyo was a wet one. In the morning, we went to our favourite boulangerie: Jean Francois in Mark City Mall. They had a new machine there since we last visited, it was a cash register attached to a scanner. We placed our tray under the scanner and the cash register would recognise the items from their shapes and calculate the prices for the bread and pastries. The staff took our drink order and punched them in. We inserted our cash in the machine and it will spit out the change. No cash handling by the staff required! I sure love the idea!
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| Our 'cashier' |
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| The scanner |
After breakfast we took the JR train to Nippori textile street. This was the first time I took miss Kiki to Nippori to go fabric shopping. I wasn't sure how that would have gone but it turned out that she was a really good sport and she even helped out with carrying and watching over our stuff. Have you ever noticed that in the train information screen they have extensive information of the approaching station? This one here for example shows the stairs, escalators, and elevators accessible from that platform and on which side of your car. Most of the time they will also show which car number you are on. How thoughtful of them!
Nippori Station is small and older looking, but they usually have cute stuff posted around the station. They also have stamps available. From this station, you can access Yanaka Ginza and Nippori Textile street. DH and I visited both of these places in 2016.
This time was my third visit to Nippori Street. We went straight to Tomato shop, my go-to shop for all the fabrics I need. It was drizzling out but it wasn't too bad. This time around, the shop didn't have as many laminated canvas selection as the last time I went there in December 2017, so I bought more of regular canvases and cottons. I was glad I had stocked up on laminated canvases back then.
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| My new stash |
After fabric shopping, we went to Ginza area to buy grandma a new suitcase! :D In the rain, it was all a grand adventure!
We dragged the suitcase with our fabrics inside it back to the hotel, took off our wet shoes, and changed into flip flops before we headed out to Mark City Mall to meet up with Miss Kiki's friend and her mom. This time, they weren't shy anymore when they met. I guess it hasn't been a year since they saw each other last time. They brought me some Liberty fabrics from their last visit to London. I was so happy!
We walked to the same Gonpachi restaurant we went to in December...
From there we continued to Cafe L'Occitane that used to be our favourite, but it turned out that they had changed their concept and made it fancier along with a famous chef's name attached to it. Unfortunately, the tiramisu that we oh-so-loved became weird, but they still had good mille-feuille.
After we separated ways, we visited the supermarket in the basement of Mark City Mall. I bought these grapes and grandma bought a bunch of better quality furikake that they were giving samples out for. The guy selling them was so happy that he gave her a free sesame furikake.
By the time we paid for our stuff it was already closing time. We went back to the hotel and retired for the evening, and came back to Mark City Mall for breakfast. This time, we chose Cafe Excelsior.
It was our departure day, so we didn't want to go anywhere too far. Grandma and Miss Kiki sat for a while at Shibuya Tsutaya's Starbucks while I went to Uniqlo.
Finally it was time to leave for the airport. We waited for a taxi on the street right outside our hotel. We just needed to get to Shibuya Station but with our luggages, I wanted to take a taxi to the New South Exit of Shibuya Station because that would be the closest gate to Narita Express track. I got this information from this video...
We over-estimated the time it would take for us to get there, so we had to wait almost an hour long for our train. This time the train was a lot fuller than when we came. They had flight information on the screen in the NEX, and I noticed that a lot of domestic flights were cancelled. This was due to a typhoon that was around the area. The same typhoon was responsible for all the wet days we had during our visit.
Fortunately the international flights were not affected.
We passed the Starbucks at Narita airport and they had a big collection of Japan tumblers...
All aboard! Until the next adventure!
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