Everyone wakes up feeling fine, thank goodness! We deserve a little bit of energy at this point, as a group!
Today’s agenda is Ikebukuro, an area known for their claw machines and gachapon stores. We set out after a quick breakfast at home, and arrive in this new area of town at 9.30am. When we realize that the store we were aiming for didn’t open until 11am, we hop into a café to pass the time. I got a typical Japanese “breakfast set”, it comes with your choice of beverage (hot or cold coffee or tea, or juice or milk)(mine is an iced oolong tea), a thick slice of fluffy toast, butter and a sweet topping, in this case red bean paste. If you’ve never tried red bean as a flavour, you are missing out! This particular café served their set with a small yogurt with jam, other cafés give you the choice of a boiled or scrambled egg instead.
Fortified, we set out to find the stores we came here for. We walked along dreary brick square buildings, and suddenly – an air conditioned oasis of shiny tile floors, stores and restaurants, appeared inside one of these anonymous blocks! I tell you what, this time in Tokyo I have learned to appreciate AC so much more than I ever thought possible… We find SO MUCH POKEMON hiding inside this mall! There’s a giant store, a cute takeaway sweets counter, a Pokémon Centre and battle station, where you can bring your friends and cards and battle all day.
After a bit of Pokémon and a lot of window shopping, we headed for lunch. All the restaurants had lineups outside by this point, as the Japanese love orderly queues. We wrote our names on a list for a Tonkatsu restaurant, and didn’t have to wait long at all. Téa and Maylin ordered kids sets, which came with crispy meats, cabbage salad, potato wedges, rice and a beverage. See that little colourful envelope in the corner of Téa’s tray? It looked like candy and felt like popping candy, so we tucked it away as a treat for later. (Reader, this is NOT candy. It’s seasoning for the rice. I opened one in the evening, smelled it, shrugged and poured it onto Maylin’s tongue. Yum, she said, but it’s not candy!) Joe and I had similar sets, ours with various meat options, same cabbage salad, rice and miso soup. Rice, cabbage and miso soup is unlimited refills, which is normal in a tonkatsu restaurant. Instead of ice water on arrival, we got ice cold and refreshing oolong tea.
After lunch we resumed our tour of this enormous mall. Hey, is that music? It’s really loud, let’s go look! If you haven’t heard of S:Cream yet, you will soon! Or maybe not. I have no idea what they were doing, rehearsing for a music video? Practicing choreography? (They need more practice…)
Once we tore ourselves away from the live entertainment, we stumbled across the gachapon and claw machine area. It takes up half an entire floor of the mall! If not more! We could totally get lost in there, this is why we always have one daughter each, and air tags in all directions… I don’t think I have words for how disinterested I am in these machines, but the other three seem to love them, and so I got to see more of them this week than I had needed for life, I think. All in all, the girls loved the mall, all the different character shops, and of course, their little prizes.
On our way out of the mall, we were ready for a snack (that was meant to say dessert), so we headed for the Sanrio Café. The Japanese crepes are delicious, and we loved our little break surrounded by yet more stuffies.
By now, we are running out of Tokyo time FAST, and have to eat the rest of the contents of our fridge. We grab a few extra groceries to make it a full meal, and head home for dinner and downtime. Only three full days in Tokyo left!