Yesterday was a little bit of everything, which I wasn’t sure if we were going to get again! We did some shrines, some shopping, and another very cool themed cafe.
To start the day, me and Megan had to do our laundry for the last time. The hotel that we’re staying in charges an outrageous price for laundry service, so we had to lug our stuff to a local coin laundry building and immerse ourselves in the culture. It was really cool! I was dumb enough to forget to take a picture, but they had these machines that did both the washing and the drying so you didn’t have to move your clothes between machines, which ended up working really well (despite us having to run the drying mode for an extra cycle).
Then, we headed to the Imperial Palace to walk the grounds. We weren’t able to get a ticket into the actual palace, but even just the gardens surrounding it were absolutely gorgeous. It’s really weird to see giant skyscrapers behind the small, ancient buildings nestled into the middle of the city. There’s a specific garden called Ninomaru with lots of colorful flowers and a super cool (small) waterfall that you can walk to the top of.
After the Imperial Palace we headed to Harajuku, right outside of the Meiji Shrine grounds, for lunch. We originally tried following Megan to the mall with the Sailor Moon store, assuming that there’d be some kind of food there, but we managed to lose her and ducked into a different mall instead with an entrance that I’d swear is actually just a portal to another dimension. It looks SO COOL!
The only restaurant in the mall seemed very expensive and didn’t look like they’d have anything that I would like, so at the last second me and Fabian decided to leave and head to a small gyoza place instead. I can definitely say that it was worth it – the dumplings were absolutely delicious and super cheap for how much food we got!
After lunch we travelled into Meiji Shrine, with a long shaded path leading to it and other sub shrines in the area. The shaded path was very comfortable and a welcome change from the sun beating down on us. It was pretty standard compared to all of the other shrines that we’ve visited, but I picked up a peace of mind to keep on my backpack.
After the shrine we were sent off on our own, so a group of us rushed to Shibuya PARCO to visit the Pokemon Center (my 6th) and the other Nintendo Store in Japan. I got a pack of card sleeves from the Pokemon store (no pressed coin because they didn’t have any there 🙁 ) and a Korok coin purse and a handful of gummies from the Nintendo store. I really wanted to do the shirt design lab at this Pokemon Center, but unfortunately the wait was a bit too long for me. Once we had our fill, we rushed back to Akihabara for our dinner reservation!
For dinner, we ate at the Monster Hunter Bar for Fabian’s birthday. It was a super cool Monster Hunter themed cafe with drinks and food! I personally got a couple of different drinks and a steak meal, as well as a very cute set of dango. It was the first time I’ve ever tried dango, and it was definitely a lot chewier than I expected but it was still really good! Pavel also ordered this giant beer that Fabian took a picture with for his 21st birthday that seemed as big as him and it was hilarious.
We went back to Liam and Skyler’s room to watch another movie, this time the new Dungeons and Dragons movie, but we were all so exhausted that we barely made it halfway through before we had to call it quits.
Behind again on my blog posts! It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with them but I’m trying my best. We only have two planned days left after this, which is very very sad :C but I’m happy that I’m staying a couple days after to experience a little bit more!!
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