2 posts tagged “day four”
A little glimpse of DAIKANYAMA...
Some more of Harajyuku. This is mainly the "Urahara" area, which is the neighborhood behind Omotesando street & the Omotesando Hills shopping center. There are also a few pics of Omotesando street...
Don't have any pictures today. I'm too lazy to upload them, add captions etc, etc. But anyway, today was supposed to be a "relax day", a day where we take a break from shopping and sightseeing and just go to Ueno park or Yoyogi park or visit the Imperial Palace gardens or something like that. Today, we were supposed to just chill. Like hell that was ever gonna happen!
Instead of actually going to the parks or the Imperial gardens, we walked around Marunouchi.......yes, the business/financial district. Trust me, it's not as boring as you'd might think. The buildings there look really cool, modern and hi-tech. Architecture-wise, the buildings were really beautiful. Oh, and plus..........we got to go to the 100% CHOCOLATE CAFE!
These are some sample pictures I borrowed straight from the official cafe website. I borrowed these only because we didn't take any actual pictures of the cafe ourselves. And of course, we didn't take any pictures because we weren't sure if we were allowed to or not.
A side note: In Japan, most shops don't really like it if you take pictures of their store-fronts (because they don't want people to take pics of their goods, to prevent bootlegging). The shops don't come straight out and say you absolutely can't take pictures, but it's best to respect them and just not do it in the first place.
The other day, Jian and I were in Harajuku, and we were there way early......before any of the shops were even open. So, we decided to take some pictures in front of our favorite stores (just to say that we've been there). There were 2 guys that walked by us. I assume they were walking to work. Guy A asks guy B if we were spies or something. Guy B says something in return, but we couldn't understand what they were saying, but they both just turned to each other and laughed. I'm guessing they figured we were just two crazy tourists.
Ok, so back on track here....where was I again? Oh yeah, right...the cafe. So, if you don't know what 100% Chocolate Cafe is, it's a cafe started up by Meiji Co. (that famous Japanese choclate company). The cafe is located exactly next to the Meiji headquarters office. This cafe serves only food & drinks made with chocolate or contains chocolate in it. Their latest event is called "365 days chocolate" where they give out a sample of a different type of chocolate every day. So every day is a different chocolate from around the world. They've got chocolates from Mexico, Cuba, Sao Paolo etc. And they've got crazy flavors like: jasmine, rose, spicy pepper, COLLAGEN (wtf?), royal milk tea, etc. This cafe is a little pricy considering they've got such a small menu selection, but it is well worth it....if you like doing those "once in a lifetime" things.
So, after that little indulgent chocolate experience, we headed off to Ginza........which by the way, is the most expensive piece of land in the entire world. I'm guessing that one month's rent for a shop in Ginza would cost about as much as a 3-bedroom home in California. Don't quote me on that.
People say that Ginza is to Tokyo as Beverly Hills is to Los Angeles. And they are RIGHT. Ginza is like a cross between Rodeo Drive and Madison Avenue with a side order of Union Square. All the restaurants look like places where you need reservations months in advance. All the stores look glitzy and expensive, except for UNIQLO. UNIQLO is like the equivalent of GAP. Lots of cool logo t-shirts, jeans, polo t-shirts, slacks, business-casual work clothes. AND IT'S FREAKING IN-EX-PEN-SIVE! Well, let me just say this about Ginza: if you're young (teens-20's), Ginza is NOT the place for you to shop. Ginza is geared more towards ladies over 35. But I must say, their car dealerships put our (American) dealerships to shame. While we use massive Costco-sized parking lots, they use multi-level buildings that are as hi-tech as a James Bond movie.
Jian and I went to the Nissan dealership in Ginza. Ok, culture check! We call them dealerships. In Japan, they call them "galleries". We went to the Nissan Gallery and we got to see the new car "Dualis". Which is just the newer, better, more upgraded version of the Murano. So, as many of you may or may not know, Nissan also does car racing....and I mean Super GT (Touring style racing) etc. Nissan has an official sports car racing tuner division called "Nismo" and an official sports car racing team called "Xanavi" (pronounced: Zan-av-ee). At the Nissan dealership, Jian bought himself an official t-shirt from Xanavi / Nismo. Those two brand names are some of his utmost favorite in sports car racing. In case you don't know, you can RARELY OR NEVER get this stuff in America or on the internet. Unless you like buying bootleg stuff. So of course, he nearly creamed his underwear when he saw all those official goods in the shop.
After Ginza, we took the metro back to Shibuya, then the JR line back to Shinjyuku. We ended up going to Takashimaya Times Square, which is supposedly the largest shopping mall in Tokyo. Well, it may appear large from the outside, but it's actually not that big once you're inside. Why? Because the shop Tokyu Hands takes up about 1/4 of the building itself, and there's a 7-floor Kinokuniya bookstore in the next building (attached by a walkway bridge). By the way, Tokyu Hands is like an all-around home store. It's like a cross between IKEA, Home Depot and Costco. This store is 8-floors, and each floor has a different department (ex: 1F=furniture, 2F=home cleaning supplies, 3F=stationery & giftwrap, 4F=lumber & home repair supplies and so on).
Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention one more thing for the day. The first and only Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in Japan is located right in front of Takashimaya. The lines are incredible, and people will wait up to 2-3 hours just to buy a dozen donuts. I mean, you don't just buy one lousy donut. I've seen people with at least 3 dozen donuts at a time! It's insane!!!!! No matter what time of the day it is, the lines are ALWAYS 6 miles long. Jian and I walked by and we couldn't help but laugh. There's a Krispy Kreme in practically every city in America maybe more, and we don't even notice it. We just pass by it along the freeway and not even think about it. In fact, we even try to avoid it (due to everyone going on diets). But, here in Japan, it's like a powerful drug and all the customers are riding on its high.
Hello cholesterol, goodbye Mister Donut. Out.
