Japan Trip 2018 - Part 5: Shopping and fun in Tokyo

Akihabara
Back in Tokyo and spent our afternoon and evening in otaku-city Akihabara, we went to the Animate cafe again to see what theme they had going on and it was Persona 5 Destinyland (which is a play on Disneyland), so Nick was happy to go because he played the game before (and the Royal version again last year). Besides that we played some arcade games. It is always fun what new fancy arcade machines and games they have around.

Some Persona 5 cafe decoration, don't they look cute?

 

Some cool fishing game

Akihabara by night always looks cool!

Moomin Cafe

Next morning we went to the Moomin Cafe that was in Tokyo Dome city as well, so only took like a 10 minutes walk. I like Moomin quite a bit for nostalgic reasons and because the serie is so random and cute yet interesting at the same time, so I thought why not have breakfast here. You might wonder why there is a Moomin Cafe in Tokyo, but the same can be asked for why there is a Pokemon Cafe or why a Hello Kitty Cafe etc. It's the character/anime thing, people love kawaii characters in Japan and Moomin became quite popular too.

In the cafe you can also sit with one of the huge plushies they have. If you feel like it you don't have to sit alone this way. They also had a nice souvenir shop from which I bought some small things.

Ikebukuro

After that I don't really remember what we did exactly, it might be that we went shopping somewhere else but that we didn't take photos. At a certain point though, at the end of the afternoon we went to Ikebukuro again, because hey it is one of our favourite shopping places. This weekend was the weekend before Halloween and to our surprise there was a huge event going on at the terraces of Sunshine city and the park next to it. Lots of cosplayers were gathered for Halloween, so we had fun looking around.

Of course we also went to the Pokemon Center and the Axes Femme shop. Nick found a very happy Pikachu plushie while I saw a nice discounted dress that didn't exactly fit me but was too cheap to let go (and I could easily alter it so that it would fit me).

Me happy to see more Pokemon

The Axes Femme dress, one of the few lolita stuff I bought on the trip.

Yomiuriland

On Sunday Nick really wanted to go to Yomiuriland, this is an amusement park near Tokyo. It is a lot smaller than Disneyland though, so no comparison with that. What is cool is that from the nearby station to get to the park you can take a gondola lift (cable transport) that brings you over the hill to the entrance. It saves you some walking but also gives you a pretty nice view!

Some kind of transforming car near one of the rides.

I have to say that the entertainment and rides in the park itself is really more meant for kids, so I wasn't really impressed with that. The big reason why Nick wanted to go though is because they illuminate the whole park when it gets dark (from Autumn to Spring), that means christmas/fairy-lights everywhere, it is kind of magical. They call it "Jewellumination and yes it is indeed very pretty. They also have a nice small parade including light effects as well. You can imagine that when we traveled back with the gondola, the view from above was amazing. 

Almost dark, so the lights were visible now.

One of the views from the Gondola.

The day after this we had one morning left in Tokyo. We would take the airplane elsewhere to Japan in the afternoon. This morning we took the chance for some last shopping around Shinjuku and Shibuya. Took a photo near the Hachi statue and went into Shibuya 109 for the cool Momeru Mignon photo spots. And that was all of Tokyo for this Trip! But fear not, there is more to see in Japan, see upcoming blogposts. Read part 6 here: http://dreamsweetie.blogspot.com/2020/08/japan-trip-2018-part-6-hiroshima.html

Always fun browsing at Don Quijote

Mandatory picture with Hachiko, the dog our shiba inu Kairi always gets compared to because people think it is the same breed. (it is not, Hachi was an Akita Inu, not a Shiba!)