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Old 4 Jan 20, 06:41 PM  
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Gr8WideSomewher
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When you gachapon a star: Tokyo Disney and Japan 2019 - Day 7

A long time ago in a 2019 far away...

Hello friends! I am back after a loooong time away. I am going to try and get a couple of days out before Christmas, but we’ll see how that goes. Obviously at this time of year the weekends just disappear. But I’ve got a great Disney ambience video (this one, if anyone’s interested
), a cup of tea, a duvet, and couple of hours before we head out to watch Frozen II so let’s see what I can get done!

Edit: OK so I never finished the day...oops. Life has very much been getting in the way recently, so I’ve taken a long break from this trippie. However, Bex and I went away to a yurt in the Derbyshire Dales after Christmas and had four days of doing almost nothing, during which time I wrote four trippie days! So I’ve written up to Day 10 and now I’ve just got to sort photos and post, so you should be getting a few (relatively short) days coming up over the next couple of weeks.

Edit 2: Wasn't Frozen II so great? I should really update the Watching all the Disney movies from the beginning thread...

I'll shut up now.

Day 7: Tokyo Skytree (sort of), Moomin Cafe, a temple, a shrine, Shibuya and terrible weather

We woke up at 6:45 again the next day, which was a Saturday. We had the usual disorganised start, both trying to crowd into the tiny bathroom at once and packing and repacking our day bags. My hair was also seriously misbehaving due to the humidity. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that episode of Friends in, I think, Barbados, where Monica’s hair just keeps getting bigger and bigger and frizzier and frizzier but, well, that was me.

We were out of the hotel room by 7:35 and caught the underground to Tokyo Skytree. Today was going to be a day of hoovering up Tokyo sites and experiences, and Tokyo Skytree is usually near the top of Things To Do in Tokyo, so off we went!




I took the opportunity to grab a sneaky photo on the underground! Shhhhhh. This is extremely bad form in Japan, so but it was so quiet and it struck me that we didn’t have any pictures of something we’d actually spent a LOT of time doing, so I took some cheeky snaps. As you can see, everyone is asleep! This was the case pretty much every time we were on the underground, no matter what time of day it was, no matter how busy the train was. I saw a woman fully asleep standing up once. Apparently sleeping in public is quite a big thing in Japan, as it shows how hard you’ve worked.

Unfortunately, this really really really wasn’t the day for Tokyo Skytree. Tokyo Skytree is the tallest tower in the world, and so naturally you go up it in order to enjoy incredible views, but when we arrived we discovered this…



To be honest, we had been concerned that this might be the case, as the weather had been some variation of wet and cloudy for most of the trip so far, but it was still disappointing. Some of the advice on Tokyo Skytree suggests that you shouldn’t book in advance, and should just drop everything and visit on your first sunny day, but we hadn’t had any sunny days. We dithered for a short time at the bottom of the tower, but when we checked the weather we saw it wasn't going to be getting any better for the rest of the day, or the following day, which was going to be our last in Tokyo. It was pretty much then, or never.


Well...this is not ideal.

So, up we went. And it was disappointing. I’m sure Tokyo Skytree is wonderful and inspiring on a good day, but on that day it was empty and underwhelming. We were told we were 350m up (and I had the popped ears to prove it) but we couldn’t see 10m out of the windows.




We got to see what the inside of clouds looks like, but it's not that's that exciting for someone from Britain! It was a bit ridiculous. I think I had thought there might be a number of floors so that we could have at least seen out of the windows on lower ones, but it’s pretty much the ground floor and the top floor, which was completely surrounded by cloud.


This is what you could have won! (This is a picture)


After about 20 minutes up there, we gave it up as a bad job and left. We had learned that there was a Moomin cafe in the Tokyo Skytree complex and had decided to go there for breakfast. We were both fans of the Moomins as children and were excited, as usual, for some themed eating!

Unfortunately finding the cafe was not easy. The building was on multiple levels and was very confusing.



We always seemed to be one floor away, or near the wrong exit for the Moomin Cafe, and Google Maps was no help. We did pass a cool-looking Ghibli shop, but unfortunately, it wasn't open. We took a picture of the huge catbus in the window though!



Eventually, we managed to find the Moomin Cafe. We’d been wandering about for about half an hour, and it was now about 9:30 - definitely breakfast time!



Inside, the cafe was extremely cute. There were lots of cuddly Moomin characters sitting around at the various tables and our waitress brought Little My over to sit with us!








We had learned that they do this so that no one is lonely at the Moomin Cafe, because many of the Moomin books deal with themes of loneliness and depression. I was very happy that we got Little My because I remember relating to her a lot when I was little - not sure what that says about me!



The menu was short, with not many options, but everything looked very nice. We ordered a breakfast set each, plus a chocolate latte for Bex and a sort of fruit cocktail/ice cream float thing for me. The breakfast sets were very tasty.



I think they were sort of Finnish-themed, as they included things like soup, cold meats and cheese, which I think are Scandinavian breakfast foods. There was also a salad and little bits of Moomin pasta.

I think Bex enjoyed her drink, but mine was really special.




I’m not really a big ice cream float person, but this one was great. It had a little Moomintroll-shaped marshmallow sitting on the top, which I tried not to eat because he was so cute, but ended up scoffing down because he was so tasty.


Are you too cute to eat? No.

All in all the food was pretty good and the atmosphere of the cafe was fantastic. The food was a bit pricey (3,132 yen - £22.50 in total) but I think more than worth it, especially if you are a Moomins fan.








When we’d finished eating we pottered about in the gift shop for a bit. Of course, we tried the gachapon machine first, and I won a little Moomintroll figure, who now sits on my desk, along with all my other gachapon goodies.



Then I bought a really cute pair of chopsticks for 800 yen (£5.70) and, after umming and ah-ing for a long time, Bex eventually bought herself a Moomins water bottle for 1800 yen (12.90).

Next, we returned to the underground and took the train for one stop to the Senso Ji temple. The temple was a few minutes walk away from the station. It was free to get in and walk around and was very pretty - despite the constant drizzle of rain.



There were lots of women walking around in kimonos, including some westerners - I predict that this will become a big thing next summer during the Olympics.








There were a couple of shrines, some nice artwork on the walls of the temple, and some impressive Buddha and Bodhisattva statues.






We wandered happily around for an hour or so, obviously liking what we were seeing, but not really knowing what any of it was because there wasn’t a lot of information available in English.




There was a small street behind the temple where stalls were selling amazing-looking but extremely expensive street food. We were glad we’d eaten earlier, or we might have been tempted.

At 12.30 we had a short sit-down under a canopy because my feet were really hurting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a covered canopy, so we continued to be rained on. The rain was a bit irritating and did ruin quite a few of our photographs, making everything look grey and dismal. It was one of our worst days as far as the weather was concerned.




We left the temple shortly afterwards as we still had sites to see. We stopped in a little shop on the way back to the station to look at some really cool painted fabrics. I ended up buying a fun Star Wars and Mount Fuji- themed one that I will eventually put up as a wall hanging when I have a bit of wall space. It cost 862 yen (£6.20) and looks fantastic.





We caught the train at about 13:00 towards Shibuya - our next stop was the Meiji Shrine. It was quite a long journey, but things are far apart in Tokyo, and at least it gave me some time to rest my feet.

We arrived at Meiji Jingu about an hour later and walked into the sort of park that surrounds the shrine. It was easy to find and only a couple of minutes walk from the station.






This was probably my favourite place that we visited all day as, even though it was extremely busy (as everywhere was), it still seemed quite peaceful. The area was very green and beautiful and everyone was taking things at their own pace. It was still very grey (and hot), but at least the rain had stopped for a bit.




Partway around the walk, we paid an extra 500 yen (£3.60) each to go into the shrine’s garden - this was the highlight of the shrine for us and well worth doing. It was nice to get away from most of the people and the garden itself was gorgeous.




There was a little summer house, a lake and greenery everywhere.





The garden was supposedly famous for a particular type of flower (can’t remember which one, it was purple), and there were a few around, but it was the end of the season so not too many.





After we’d finished in the garden we completed the walk round to the shrine’s main building, where a wedding was taking place.






We reasoned that it must be someone very important getting married if they were able to do it at such a famous shrine. All the visitors were crowding in trying to get pictures of the wedding party, who all looked fabulous - certainly wouldn’t be my choice for my wedding!



We walked back to the entrance and left the shrine at about 16:00. We then walked through the Shibuya area towards the Shibuya crossing. The shops here were all massive designer stores and the billboards were all huge and colourful. It was also extremely busy, as you’d expect.




The walk to the Shibuya crossing was about 20 minutes from Meiji Jingu. Once there we found a Starbucks we’d heard about that has an upstairs area from which you can view the crossing. We queued for a short time and bought a coffee frappuccino and a chocolate scone to share, which cost 750 yen (£5.40). Upstairs was somewhat crazy, with people hoarding tables near the big windows, and everyone else crowding in to snatch one as soon as it became available. We waited about 20 minutes for a seat near the window while we ate our chocolate scone, which wasn’t that awesome.

Our view when we did eventually get a seat by the window was really good though, and we got some great pictures.







We also watched a slightly insane tourist run out into the middle of the crossing repeatedly in order to get the perfect selfie with her selfie stick. She would run out as soon as the lights changed and then stay out there long after they’d changed again, only running back to the pavement when the cars started hurtling towards her. Do it for the ‘Gram I guess.

Bex wouldn’t let us stay for long as she wanted to go and check out the Disney Store. Because of course she did.



The Disney Store was just one street over from the Shibuya Crossing. It’s a very impressive Disney store – much better than the one in the middle of London. It’s very extensive, with three floors, and there’s loads of cool, immersive displays and light effects on the walls.





As in Tokyo Disney however, we didn’t find much that we actually wanted to buy. There was a lot of Aladdin stuff, to celebrate the live-action film, which had just come out at the time.




We also played another gachapon machine – this one was Dumbo themed, and Bex won a little Dumbo and Timothy figure, which she was thrilled with.




It was now 17:00 and we went to catch the underground back to our hotel. It was a bit stressful trying to find the underground station in the first place, as it was such a busy area, and then finding the Ginza line to take us home was even harder. We found it eventually, however, and the journey was fairly simple from there.





We picked up some cokes from the 7-eleven on the way home and made it back to our hotel room at 17.45. I remembered to take a picture of it today, so you can see what it looked like. Of course we’d already messed it up a bit with our suitcases, but you can see how, er, unusual the layout was, with the two beds back to back and separated by a sort of shelf. The strip of floor next to the beds was only wide enough for my suitcase – whenever Bex wanted to walk past my bed to the bathroom (which was behind where I took this picture from, and was tiiiiiny) she had to step into my suitcase. Not ideal. It was definitely our least good hotel room, but was still pretty good value and a great location.



We rested for a couple of hours – it had been a very busy day so far – and I allowed my feet to recover a bit. At 19:00 we went out to Tokyo Station to find Ramen Street again. You’d have thought it would be a bit easier to find the street, seeing as we’d already been there, but alas, no. We got lost again.

Eventually we found it though, and tried a different ramen place this time. We both had pork and egg, and mine definitely had chicken in it too.




I went for a spicy sauce and Bex for a milder one – though I think that was just by luck, as we pretty much had no idea what we were ordering. It was a bit of a mystery soup, but very delicious, and not like anything you’d find in the UK.

When we’d finished eating, we wandered round the shops in Tokyo Station for a bit. As I said, stations in Japan are nothing like stations in the UK – there’s all sorts of cool shops and restaurants in the stations there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any pictures of this bit, because you’re not allowed to take pictures in shops (boo), but this is probably not a bad thing to be honest, because the humidity was playing merry hell with my hair, and I was not fit to be seen.

I can’t remember what shops we went into unfortunately (I imagine they were nerdy/80s/nostalgic, seeing as this was Japan) but we definitely played another gachupon at one point, and I won a little stormtrooper with a weenie blaster. This was turning into a bit of habit – gachupons are a gateway drug to gambling!

We sauntered home through the rain round about 21:30. The weather was continuing to be really awful, as it had been all day, but we’d sort of stopped caring by this point. It was due to be even worse the next day, unfortunately.



Our final stop before heading back to the hotel room was in a ShopMart, to pick up some dessert. We bought a strawberry kit kat to share – 162 yen (£1.13) for a tiny little kit kat! Strawberry wasn’t even as good as mint!

Back at the hotel we showered and messed about a bit, and eventually got to bed at 22:45.

It had been a weird, unsuccessful day in some ways – we’d got really soggy and hot, I’d been nearing my foot pain threshold on quite a few occasions, and we’d seen nothing from Tokyo Skytree but the backside of water (tee hee) – but also really fun in ways we hadn’t expected. This is what happens when two women try to ‘do’ an entire city in one day. Oh well, let’s see what tomorrow brings.

By the way, our final step count was 21,477 – ouch.

And that's Day 7, folks. See you in the next one!

Edited at 10:57 PM.
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Old 27 Jan 20, 05:59 PM  
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rachelhelen82
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Fantastic day with plenty packed in! I would love to visit the Moomin Cafe 😍. We saw the Shibuya Crossing when we were there but it wasn’t nearly as busy as in your photos (which are fab BTW), I was a bit disappointed really.

Edited at 06:10 PM.
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Old 2 Feb 20, 08:04 PM  
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Originally Posted by rachelhelen82 View Post
Fantastic day with plenty packed in! I would love to visit the Moomin Cafe 😍. We saw the Shibuya Crossing when we were there but it wasn’t nearly as busy as in your photos (which are fab BTW), I was a bit disappointed really.
Yes it was such a busy one! I found Shibuya a bit overwhelming really, I might have liked it better at a quieter time of day.

Thanks for reading! X
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Old 3 Feb 20, 08:51 PM  
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Tinkermom
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The Moomin cafe is now my number one life goal ❤️
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Old 9 Feb 20, 04:24 PM  
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Originally Posted by Tinkermom View Post
The Moomin cafe is now my number one life goal ❤️
I hope you make it! And I hope you get a better view of Tokyo Skytree than we did.
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Old 9 Apr 20, 10:04 PM  
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I must make a note of your route, as quite a few things you did are on my list and I have no idea what is near what! Such a shame about the weather but you got a lot done.
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Old 13 Apr 20, 07:02 AM  
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Question about the ramen if i may - I think i can see a strip of rind / fat on the pork, which I know gives it flavour but I cannot bring myself to eat visible fat like that and would have to peel it off and leave on the side - would that offend the cook etc do you think?

Edited at 10:01 AM.
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Old 13 Apr 20, 07:22 AM  
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Originally Posted by AntonyJ View Post
Question about the ramen if i may - I think i can see a strip of rind / fat on the porn
Typo of the week!
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Old 13 Apr 20, 10:02 AM  
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oh the shame - now corrected
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Old 13 Apr 20, 12:49 PM  
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Originally Posted by AntonyJ View Post
Question about the ramen if i may - I think i can see a strip of rind / fat on the pork, which I know gives it flavour but I cannot bring myself to eat visible fat like that and would have to peel it off and leave on the side - would that offend the cook etc do you think?
That's a good question. I would say you certainly wouldn't offend anybody in a place like that as it was busy and no-frills and everyone was slurping messily and doing their own thing. You just might have a bit of difficulty getting the pork rind off I would have thought. We weren't offered a knife and fork anywhere we went other than Disney (not that we would have taken it) and it would be tricky to do with chopsticks. Even with a knife and fork, it would be a messy affair!

Now I'm off to eat some porn and noodles...oops, I of course mean watch some porn and eat noodles.
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