Japan - Tokyo - Day 3

- Saturday, October 3rd 2015 -

HUGE nerd post up ahead!  If you're not interested in anime, TURN BACK NOW!!!

Another morning up bright and early to find Ikebukuro's famed Otome Road.  The first attempt, we left bright and early to find it.  Walked around for ages without any luck.  We'd probably gotten there by 9:30 and turned around around 11:30 after two hours of having no luck and lightly arguing about this places existence.  I'd never have visited Ikebukuro if I hadn't heard about this "Female's Akihabara" area online.

Looks promising, but wasn't the right place.

SO CLOSE. It wasn't Animate. Didn't really have what we were looking for.

Defeated we'd returned to Shinjuku, getting food in us and revisiting the Alice Cafe for some photos.

Alice door in more detail.

Their food display

Inside the Alice door.

Halloween is big in Japan.

Then back to the hotel to to furiously google how to find this place. Irritatingly, we had turned around JUST before we would've been in the right area!  You have to walk beyond this bridge and cross the street, we'd turned around at the bridge, so frustrating!  Instead of going down to Harajuku like we planned, we turned around and went back to Ikebukuro, now with a better idea of where we're going.

Photo promoting  Free! Starting Days.

Take two.  Keep going!

This here starts Leanne's failure at navigation.  I can navigate amazingly when I'm in a car helping someone else.  No problems!  Public transportation?  Walking around?  I have this obsession with going left.  Always left, never right.  Though sometimes I'll go straight.  Later found out this is genetic, "Ranger Rick" is my dads nickname, apparently it comes from getting lost and turning left a lot.  OH WELL, Good thing Emma's got a better sense of direction than I do.

We found it!

Emma purchased one of these things for us. It was a ton of fun TBH.

Where we gambled and got the above photos of us done.

I spent a lot of time failing at games here actually.  I think this was the actual place I gambled away ¥800.  Didn't walk out with anything I think.

The holy grail of otaku culture.  I had high hopes for this place.  And following this picture is going to be a dozen or so pictures of things I have no idea about and am a nerd for. View their captions!

When I actually started squealing.  Because we finally found the Animate Cafe and shop.  There were TWO actually!! A bigger store!

Swallowtail is the Butler Cafe.  We wanted to go, but it was booked solid until we were out of Tokyo :(

Beautiful artwork, snapped a photo so I remember to look it up!

I'm a huge fan. Seeing all them laid out like this <3  For those who don't know, it's called Kuroshitsuji, or Black Butler.

This was by the staircase.  Hello.

I want to know more about these.

I really like Ai's character design.  Seeing him on elevator doors made me happy.

In the elevator. 

Touken Ranbu is SUPER popular over there right now.  I really wish I knew more about it so I'd buy ALL THE THINGS

Anyone know who this is? I like him and saw him in a few places.  Torn coats.

Leaving the Animate shop (pretty sure this was the second shop, but really I don't know). What a happy looking lead character.

 Satisfied and losing light, we went back to Shinjuku again!  Where we'd probably go find food which I don't remember much about. It was nice and warm the entire day, so dresses were worn all day and most of the evening.  It was so refreshing as I'm usually a jeans/hoodie kind of girl where I live.

Anyway, city lights!

The Jumbo sign was a bit of a landmark to where we were.  That and the Samsung TV's.

 

We walked through “Memory Lane” twice. Crowded alley with food vendors on either side, crammed into narrow spaces that go back, barely enough room to sit.  Lots of blogs on this place, look them up if you're curious to know more about its history! 

Snapshot of inside one of the food stops that were big enough to get a photo of.

The lady looked at me and turned away, I didn't even notice the dude until later, hah!

Tourists stopped Emma to ask for her photo

Random dresses.

 Left: Busy lit up streets.  I do believe we had Crepes around dinner time and had our real meal at a Japanese BBQ place. Japanese BBQ is interesting, cooking your own raw meat and having guys try and get you to eat cow tongue is a little different!  On the right I think we found the Robot Cafe! 

 Drinks were had at a Hawaiian bar, Emma had a Tequila Sunrise.  I had... something delicious and fruity.  There was actually sand on the floor!  One thing I never got used to was that smoking was allowed indoors (and their lack of garbage bins on the streets).

To the right is my outfit for the day/night.  Socks are always in.  Always.