MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Tokyo Trip
Day 8 - October 21 2024
The districts of Shibuya and Harajuku are quite close to each other and were both high on our list to visit, so we started our late morning taking a quick subway ride to Harajuku.
A popular dish here is Japanese souffle pancakes- thick, soft, pillowy pancakes are topped with whipped cream, fruit, chocolate, whatever! They take a minimum of 20 minutes to make because they are cooked low and slow to steam the meringue batter. We wanted to try some while we were here, so we stopped for an early lunch/late breakfast at Happy Pancakes in Ometesando.
Mike ordered the lemongrass lime pancakes with grapes (grapes are everywhere here and super large!) and I got the mixed seasonal fruit pancakes and a tapioca passionfruit soda. They were quite busy, so we were told before sitting that the food would take 30 minutes to come out. They were super fluffy and not too sweet. Very tasty!
After a very brief walk in Ometesando, a district next to Harajuku that has some malls and shopping streets reminiscent of Rodeo Drive, we were in a neighborhood much more to our liking. Unique and artsy shops, thrift stores, and cute cafes lined the side streets outside the main are of Harajuku. We stopped in to a cool sticker shop with everything designed and made by local artists and got some fun stickers, earrings, and a tote.
Not too long and we were walking the most popular street in Harajuku. It was definitely more geared towards tourists and we didn’t find many interesting shopping, but I did get the gigantic rainbow cotton candy. I mean, how could I resist??
Next, we took the subway to Shibuya main station. Shibuya is famous for the Shibuya crossing, or Shibuya Shuffle- the street intersection right off the main train station, which is the busiest intersection in the world.
After crossing, we made our way to lunch. We were lucky enough to have heard about this spot from a local’s guide we found online talking about how this shop makes a unique Japanese curry and we had to give it a try. It did not disappoint! We got one with egg and one extra spicy. The rice is shaped like Mount Fuji!
Shibuya is known for it’s endless shopping malls, so we started walking towards one in particular Mike wanted to hit. But first, we needed to hit the Don Quixote store. These stores are famous here and are what you would expect if Amazon built a store to sell all the random stuff on their site, from expensive electronics, to cheap plastic toys. It’s a weird experience walking through the narrow aisles and up the 7 floors to the most random assortment of goods. Mike visited one when he was out here years ago and wanted to again. We stopped by the location in Shinjuku yesterday, but it was so busy, we got in and out super quickly. This one was bigger but just as busy. We walked around each floor just to check stuff out, but only walked away with an ornament.
Mike wanted to go to the specific mall here because the top floor has a Pokemon store (we are getting gifts for a friend’s kid), a Nintendo store (for Mike), and a CapCom store (also for Mike). These shops were BANANAS. The line to check out at the Pokemon store wrapped around the side of the store, and then zigzagged like the queues in the Disney parks!
Once we got all the gifts we came for, we started walking back to the station. We had a giant shopping bag at this point that was bursting full and we were shopped out, so we took a couple subways to get back home to rest our feet for an hour.
Soon enough, it was dinner time. It was hard to decide whether we wanted to go somewhere new or go back to the first meal here, a ramen and gyoza restaurant. Since, when we inevitably come back to Tokyo, we probably won’t stay in this same district, we felt it was unlikely we would be back to that first restaurant we liked so much. So, we decided to hit it one more time. We both got the chicken and pork ramen and gyoza. It was tasty, but it didn’t hit the same. I think it tasted super good the first time because we hadn’t had all the amazing meals we have had since!
As we were walking back to the hotel, we saw a pastry shop was still open…and I can never resist dessert. We got a couple items and we should have just kept walking. 🙁
