Shopping in Shibuya
Me and Penny woke up early today to go to Yoshinoya, a popular chain restaurant that serves Gyudon, lightly cooked beef on rice with onions. I spotted on near our hotel so we took the backstreets to find it, and we did. I didn’t get us lost!
We sat down and were almost immediately given glasses of water. There isn’t much choice on the menu, just lots of Gyudon. To give you an idea of what that is, here’s a picture.
It doesn’t look so appealing but it is really tasty and makes a suprisingly good breakfast, really fills you up and gives you energy for the day. It’s one thing to try if you ever visit Japan!
We finished our meal and headed back through the backstreets to the hotel, 5 minutes down the road Penny asked where my bag was… where was it?! I had left it in Yoshinoya, I quickly ran back expecting the worst but nope, it was there. Japan is really safe, you can leave your bags and it’s very rare for someone to steal it.
On the way back, we headed into a Daily Yamazaki mini mart in search for the sandwich i’ve been craving. Sadly, they didn’t have it but they did have a much larger variety of flavours,
I hadn’t seen some of these before so me and Penny decided to get one pack each and share, as you get two in a pack. I got the Banana flavour and Penny got the Blueberry. I also got a bottle of Fanta FunMix Cola+Orange drink which i’ve also reviewed.
We headed back to the hotel eating our sandwiches on the way. The Blueberry one was really tasty, it was like a sweet jam which went really well with the heavenly soft bread and smooth creamy butter. The Banana one was interesting and i’m not saying that in a bad way, it works but it is pretty much mushed banana in white bread.
Just before we got to the hotel, I saw a weird statue. It was a Tanuki (Japanese Racoon Dog) There are loads of these around Japan and i’m not quite sure why, yet.
We met up with Cas at the hotel, who was wide awake and seemed to have beaten his Jetlag. Today we planned on going to Shibuya, we were meeting our friend Hiroe who lives out here in Japan. We bagged up her gifts (sweets and snacks from UK) and headed to the underground station.
It didn’t take too long to get to Shibuya. We first found a locker to put all of Hiroe’s gifts in, we didn’t want to be carry around Chocolate and Sweets in the baking sun for obvious reasons. It’s really handy to have so many lockers in Japan, it’s a shame stations here don’t have that but I can see it being a huge security risk.
We were at the Hachiko exit of the station, it’s named this after the statue of Hachiko the dog, a famous dog from Japanese history. The story is that the dog would wait here for his master every day while he went to work, then the owner died and the dog continued to wait and wait… A bronze statue was made and it has now become a popular and easy to find meeting point. We’re meeting Hiroe here later.
which is right by the famous Shibuya crossing, one of the biggest and busiest in the world. When the lights stop traffic, it’s a huge free for all crossing in ALL directions. I really like this crossing, you can get to where you want in one cross, rather than crossing multiple roads, just run across to where you want to go!
We decided to have a bit of a wander around Shibuya, just seeing what we could find. We didn’t have to meet Hiroe till 6.30 so had a few hours to kill. We first went down a road to the left from the crossing, it was mostly restaurants and coffee shops.
After a short walk, we headed back to the crossing, passing an interesting sign on the way. It was for a Cat Café, this is exactly what it sounds like and it’s totally bizzare. You pay to sit in a Café full of cats! Hidden away on the 3rd floor of a building, we went up to have a look but the acremum time to visit was far too long, one hour at 1450 yen.
We continued down the road and Penny stopped, she then pointed out a really cute looking Puppy shop.
Penny went in and I went with her, Cas waited outside because he is a monster who doesn’t like dogs. I kid, i’m sure he likes them but just didn’t want to go in. The shop was full of incredibly cute puppies and a random cat. I felt sorry for them all cooped up in the little cages, they seemed so excited to see us. Here are some cute puppies for you to look at.
I beat temptation to buy one (I have my own, she’s a nightmare) and we headed on down the road, back to the crossing. We passed a UniQlo which we hurried into to escape the heat. All the shops here have amazing aircon, it’s great to just cool down. UniQlo wasn’t much different to the ones in the UK apart from the staff here are very friendly and look like they want to be working, rather than the ones in the UK who just look and act like they don’t care and hate their job.
Back at the crossing we heard loud music coming from a small stage set up outside a shop. I’m not sure how to explain what this thing is but it was dancing to some loud Japanese Pop music and people were watching. I find things like this strange but fascinating at the same time.
We walked down another road to make our way to Tokyu Hands, a large department store that is one of the best things to check out in Shibuya. It isn’t very far from the crossing.
On the way we stopped off in a Club Sega, which is an arcade. This one mostly featured token games and slot machines. Token Games are large coin pushing machines, you put a token in and you can win some more, repeat until you need to remorgage your house.
There are loads of these types of Token Machines, they’re really interesting and we will play some another time. We didn’t spend too long in here, me and Penny played Air Hockey which was fun despite me beating her a million to 3, or something like that. The table had a screen which showed the score and provided other distractions to make us miss our shots.
It was nearing midday so we went for a little bit of lunch. We decided to go to the ‘Milky’ brand cafe. I don’t know much about the brand but I think it’s popular Japanese Ice Cream / Deserts, you should recognise the mascot.
The restaruant was on the 2nd floor, so we had to go up in the elevator and it opened straight into the restaruant. The place was quite empty apart from a table of middle adged Japanese women. We decided to get desert because it was so hot. Me and Cas got Melon Soda Floats and Penny got a Sundae with just about everything in it.
We left and started to explore some of the backstreets. These are full of small restaurants, music and cloth shops. It’s quite a trendy part of Japan so there is quite a lot here for the younger crowd.
Randomly, we noticed a sign for some interesting Pizza. Burger and Choco Banana Pizza from a place called, Shakey’s. We didn’t try it but it was something we hadn’t seen before. Choco Banana one does seem interesting…
We continued walking around the backstreets until we eventually arrived at our first destination, Tokyu Hands, the department store that makes household items interesting!
This shop is made up of several floors which are each split into sub floors, A, B and C. It’s a small building but crams a lot in. I took a whole bunch of photos in here, mostly things that I found interesting. I’m going to post a mini gallery of them all and just write about them in order.
1. Paper Craft moving kits. You build these and can turn the handle to make them move! 2. Lemon Powered Buzzer, the Japanese have figured how to get power from the best fruit in the world, amazing! 3. Leather and Animal Hide, notice the Armadillo? Creepy. 4 and 5. Stamps, loads of them! 6. Tons of Stickers! 7. Robot Memo Clips and Shaped Paper Clips 8. Pen! 9. A robot alarm clock, it rolls around the room when it goes off, forcing you to catch it. 10. Kero Clock, just because frogs are cool. 11. Shaved Ice Kits and syrups! I want one.. 12. Coin Banks. 13. Coin Turtle, so cool! 14. Puzzle Games. 15. Colour Soduku Puzzle Game. 16. Rubix Cubes. 17. Stacking Game Display. 18. Octopus Hat! 19. Garu Garu Kun (Ice Snack I like) Shampoo and Body Soap?! 20. Humping dog…
Tokyu Hands is a lot of fun. There is so much in there, you could spend ages just looking at all the cool things. Even boring stuff like Kitchen Utensils becomes interesting. I love that shop! By the time we left it was 3pm so we decided to get a small lunch, this time, actual food. We wandered up and down the street looking for somewhere to eat.
We eventually settled on a Japanese / Chinese place. If any one can read the name on this sign then good for you, I can’t understand it at all but it isn’t a problem because there are pictures and always plastic food displays outside the shops to show you what they sell. I really like this, it makes food window shopping possible!
We decided to order Gyoza, Edame (Pea Pod things) and what I think is crispy flat Gyoza but i’m not sure.
The Gyoza was really tasty. It’s a popular and very cheap Chinese food, it’s like a dumpling with a pork(?) filling. I’m sure someone can explain this better via Google. The flat stuff wasn’t good at all, it had the texture of a dog snack, I don’t know why I know this… Edame is always good!
We continued to search the backstreets of Shibuya some more when we came across a Mandarake. This store is a MASSIVE underground (literally) preowned store for geeks, it sells Manga, Anime, Collectable Figures, Games, Music ect.
There was SO much stuff here, it was quite overwhelming to think there was this much Manga in Japan. Obviously we couldn’t buy any of it but it was interesting to have a look around.
Leaving Mandarake, the heat really hit us, so we hurried into a near by arcade to take advantage of the aircon. The arcade was like all the others but less busy. I managed to find the newist music game, Project Diva that didn’t have a large queue waiting to play it, rare opportunity to play so I did.
The music in this game is all Vocaloid, it’s basically vocal music that is computer generated. I won’t try to explain more because i’ll get it wrong, Google time for you! The game is HUGELY overrated, it’s one of the most boring music games to play and is pure fan service. By that, I mean the biggest sell of the game is the mascots dancing aroud in the background while you play. Worth a try though!
It was getting a little cooler outside so we continued to explore Shibuya, we had a quick look in HMV and then headed to Tower Records. Me and Penny didn’t really fancy exploring so left Cas too it and went off on our own for a bit.
Penny decided to go look around some clothing building and I decided to go to an Arcade. I found a small one called “Game” which was full of music games and not busy at all!
We met back at Tower Records and went off to try and find a popular second hand clothing store that Penny wanted to look in. On the way we saw some really strange Japanese Graffiti, it was quite disturbing to read “Kill your Baby”, “Satans Bride” and “I am the Midnight Killer” scrawled on the walls.
The shop we were looking for is called RagTag. It’s a second hand store for designer clothes so was still really expensive. What surprised me, aside from the insane prices was the fact that all the clothes looked like new. People really take care of their stuff here. For example, the shoes had no scuff marks, me and Cas had to look really close to see anything wrong with the stuff here.
It was time to go meet Hiroe so we made our way back through the streets to the crossing. It was around the time most people left work or were coming into Shibuya for the evening so it was really busy.
We waited at the Hatchiko statue for Hiroe, it was then like a game of “Where’s Wally” trying to spot her. Cas won, he saw her first. She had brought her friend along, Takako.
Hiroe led us to a restaurant that she had chosen, it served Okinawan food which is mostly pork based dishes. Okinawa is small island of Japan.
The restaurant was really nice, it’s one of those places that is hidden away from tourists, we were the only english speaking people in there so it was nice that Hiroe took us to a place like this.
None of us had an idea what the food was, the menu was all in Japanese and had no pictures. Thankfully, we were with experts, Hiroe and Takako ordered us a whole bunch of food, naturally there are a lot of pictures, i’m going to post them in sets so have a look at all the images then read the description below.
First up was “Umibudou Shima Dou Fu Salada”. I’ll admit, it didn’t look nice, almost like something a dog rudely leaves behind but I decided to give it a try. I’m not a food critic so don’t expect an in depth description of tastes and textures but this was really tasty, can’t really compare it to anything but it sort of tasted of Red Bean.
The next dish didn’t look good at all, it all looked very fishy too me. The dish was called “Go-Yei Chan Puru”. Can you see the mini grape looking things? That’s a type of seaweed, it was incredibly salty and popped in your mouth (No, not like pop rocks) It had a strong sea salty and ocean flavor, can’t say I liked it much.
Something fried then arrived at our table, looked good. Then Hiroe opened it, it was purple inside! This was “Purple Potato Coroke”, I hesitated to try but i’m glad I did, it was really tasty. The potato was sweet and kinda fluffy, went well with the cripsy texture of the coating.
The main bowl arrived, it was “Okinawa Soba Noodle”. This dish is popular in Okinawa, it is a big bowl of Soba (Thick) Noodles with a large lump of pork and other green vegetabley things. It was very tasty, the noodles had a porky taste from the water and pork. The pork was very soft and easy to eat. I really enjoyed this.
“So-kini’s fly” was next, it’s Spare Pork Rib. This was really nice, one of my favourites. It’s basically Pork Rib on the bone but is coated in what I can only describe as, the Skin on Fried Chicken with a hint of lemon. It was incredible but there was hardly any meat on the bone. Tasted a lot like Chicken, so much I kept calling it Chicken.
More fried stuff next, this was “Tempura”. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before. We had Tempura’d Spam (Yup, really), Go-Yei (Seaweed thing), Shrimp (or Prawn?) and Onion. My favourite was the Spam Tempura, it went so well with the sauce!
Finally the last dish arrived, it certinally was a case of best till last. This dish is called “Bibinba”, it’s similar to the Korean dish, “Bipimbap”. The bowl was full of rice, meat, green vegetabley things and some other stuff topped with a raw egg. The waitress (We all agreed she was too cute for her own good) then mixed it all up.
This was incredible. It all mushed together so well. It had a spicey meaty taste, which meant Cas didn’t want to finish all of his because he’s not a fan of spice. I ate his left overs because it was that good. I need to learn how to make this!! (Hiroe, are you reading? ;)
Desert time! Hiroe had ordered serveral dishes for Desert. First up were the two SUndaes, Bleu Seal (Not Seal as in the cute animal!) Ice Cream with Sa-Ta-Andagi and also, Black Sugar Sundae.
Phew, that was a lot to write about and now i’m hungry again. Dinner was amazing so I have to really thank Hiroe and Takako for taking us here, I really enjoyed Okinawan food and i’m so glad I got the chance to try it. Thank girls!
We stayed in the restaurant for a while chatting and drinking Beeru. I had a drink which was really nice, Honey Sour, or something, I forgot the name but i’m sure Hiroe will remind me ;)
Hiroe recieved lots of snacks and food from us all, Cas got her loads of Kettle Chips, I got her mountains of Haribo and Penny got her lots of Chocolates and Liquorice, she was well happy with her food haul!
While here in Japan, we’ve been planning to visit Mt. Fuji. Hiroe has been planning the trip for us and wrote up a little plan of our 2 day trip. Here’s a photo of her plan, it’s really cool, check out all the little pictures. Thanks again Hiroe for a great plan!
I won’t detail the plan, i’m writing way too much as it is. In summary, AWESOME! We left the restaruant and headed out to have a drink. We decided to go to an English Themed pub, it’s quite popular, Hub.
The place was really busy, there was some sort of sporting event on that everyone was watching… Tour De France, yeah, seriously… We were quickly shown to a table and given a large brown bag to put our bags in, how thoughtful! We were drinking Mango Beer, it’s really good, incredibly sweet, it’s just Mango Juice and Kirin Beer but a perfect mix.
I think it was Hiroe who ordered one of the most bizare pub snacks i’ve ever tried, Deep Fried Spaghetti. I’m not sure why an ‘English’ themed pub does this, first time i’ve seen it!
I really didn’t like this but I was so curious about it I kept trying it. I tastes EXACTLY like uncooked Spaghetti, it’s very strong and snaps in your mouth leaving a really salty taste over the top of that Spaghetti flavour. It wasn’t good but everyone else seemed to love it.
We spent quite a while in the pub and then headed off to make sure we’d catch the last train. On the way back we saw some super expensive and oddly shaped Melons. The one at the back costs over £100.
Shibuya seemed to be alive at this time of night. It’s a popular night life spot for the young trendy crowd. We all headed back to the station which was quite busy, assuming everyone was trying to catch the last trains. My expert navigational skills got us on the train that would take longer but at least it was in the right direction.
Today was a lot of fun. It was nice to casually wander around Shibuya and then also take our time looking around Tokyu Hands, easily one of my favourite shops in Japan. Meeting up with Hiroe and Takako was great, it was nice to see Hiroe after so long and good to meet her friend who would also join us on the Fuji trip. Had a great evening filled with amazing food, company and beeru!
I’m ending this post with a big thanks to Hiroe and Takako for a wonderful evening, thanks girls, we all had a lot of fun, can’t wait to see you again soon!
