A Dark, Lonely Shinjuku and Ikebukuro

It's been four days now since the quake. Our town has been very quiet. There haven't been too many trucks coming by, but the earthquake hasn't stopped the baked sweet potato vendor from coming by twice since. The shelves are still empty at most of the convenience stores and supermarkets everywhere.

Since yesterday was relatively quiet and warm, I decided to head out to Shinjuku and then to Ikebukuro.

I went around 2:30 and the trains were pretty much empty.

Surprisingly, Shinjuku Station seemed even more empty. Usually there is at least three times as many people walking through this walkway over the Marunouchi train line. As it had been a day when people were instructed to stay home, the only ones out were pretty much only foreigners and couples because it was White Day, a day in which guys give girls gifts for what they received on Valentine's Day.

I stopped by Shinjuku ALTA to buy some cosmetics for a customer. There weren't that many people in there, but there usually isn't. I took this picture of the Liz Lisa display as seen from outside. So cute!

Then I headed over to Ikebukuro. Unsurprisingly, there were still plenty of people riding the JR lines. As you can see though, the lights on these buildings are not turned on. Since it had gotten cloudy, Ikebukuro seemed like a very dark place.

There were not so many people on the street heading to Sunshine City either. Normally these streets would be filled with shoppers. But no music played as you walked through the street, there were no maids handing out fliers for their maid cafes. In fact, there were hardly any people advertising their restaurants at all! Normally the street is lined with people shouting at the top of their lungs about the special deals and services their restaurant offers, but yesterday there were absolutely none. Surprisingly the arcades were still open, but only for a limited time.

When I got to Sunshine City, most of the stores were closed shut as in the picture above. It was a bit shocking to see store after store in this condition. I went over to the ALTA side and there were still up and running, luckily. I couldn't find what I was looking for though, so I backtracked and headed outside to Animate.

Pictures of Animate that I managed to take from the outside. I got inside of it just minutes before they closed at about 5pm I think it was. A lot of stores were closing up shop at 4 to 6pm. It was the strangest thing though, since they had an anime-sounding guy come on to tell us that they were closing and hoping we could meet again. Then they played this song about parting and meeting again. They played this over and over on a loop in order to drive customers out of the store. It was a bit surprising they let us all the way up to the fifth floor though as Donki had the stairs leading beyond the second floor blocked off.

A vending machine outside of Animate. Apparently the drinks taste horrible though.

After I checked out a few other nearby stores, I decided to start heading home.

Cute advertisement of fat kitty on top of an arcade.

All of Ikebukuro was so dark it felt so strange. Normally the entire place is so lit up that you might not even notice that it's night time. I was glad I had gone back to the train station when I did though, since I managed to catch the very last train out before they shut down the trains for an hour. When I got to my station, I stopped by McDonalds and grabbed us dinner. Walking home I noticed there were a lot of restaurants closed. Those that had remained open were completely empty. The area I live in, which can be a bit bustling in its own right around the "Ginza area," kind of felt like a dark ghost town.

Today we're staying inside for the most part again. Pretty much all of the major shopping malls have been closed again, too. Luckily there were no blackouts yesterday because of everyone's efforts to conserve energy. I hope today is the same.

Christmas Lights in Ikebukuro

I realized this is over a week late and I should be doing other stuff, but inspiration strikes at the oddest times. So, let's rewind to Thursday of a few weeks ago (12/9), when after a crappy day Daniel sprung me with a surprise outing to Ikebukuro. The reason? The need to buy a Christmas present at Tokyu Hands.

It was hard not to immediately notice the Christmas lights once you stepped outside of the station. There were other displays, but I didn't get a chance to snag a picture.

A rather blurry shot of the entrance across the street to the road that leads to Sunshine City amongst other shopping attractions, such as the Sanrio Store.

Along the way, I noticed a bunch of bouquets in front of a new game center. This was a sign that the arcade was brand new and had just recently opened, probably during that very week. I think the arcade was simply called Game!. Naturally, we went in and checked out what prizes there were to be won in the UFO catchers.

Oh the prizes we came out with! We got super lucky, since Daniel was able to win two regular-sized Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma and a jumbo one. The jumbo one is so nice, soft, and plushy. We didn't even end up spending that much to win him.

Before heading to Tokyu Hands, we took a stop inside the entrance of Sunshine City for some Burger King. It was a good thing we went too, since I was about ready to kill for a hamburger or any kind of American food that day.

After a delicious fast food meal, we headed back outside and next door to Tokyu Hands. We headed upstairs to the furniture floor, and Daniel bought us two comfy chairs. Our desperate need for back support in our apartment has now been solved. I'm so thankful. T-T Daniel even bought a pink colored one for me, and green for him. With that and our winnings at the UFO catchers, I was feeling much better after!

Yesterday

Waah, September's almost ending! Yesterday it was thundering in the morning and we thought it would rain all day, so we brought our umbrellas with us shopping. Luckily it didn't though. Also, I got the results of my Japanese placement exam! I tested into Japanese 4 (of 7 levels). Basically it's the class that bridges the gap between intermediate and advanced Japanese.

For the rice harvesting festival, I needed to get some rain boots and a dark long graphic t-shirt or something  that could get dirty and wouldn't be stained for life, so we headed to Ikebukuro since PARCO is still having their sale.

The first store I ended up checking out was Liz Lisa again since I saw they still had the lucky grab bags. I was hoping there would be no incidents like the misunderstanding that happened the day before, but the girl who rung me up the day before was there and she recognized me, pointing me out and saying I was the girl who came yesterday. As a result somehow though I ended up getting royal treatment?? I guess I've been accepted by them.

Today not only did I get this special gift bag, but...

I also got an actual regular shopping bag! And the girl who rung me up was even nice enough to wrap it up in plastic so it wouldn't get wet. She also gave me an advertisement for some special set they'll be selling next week, which involves a coat, a dress, and some panties-protector shorts which are actually separate from the dress for about $60 less than the normal price for them would be. She even talked to me and asked me about myself and stuff in Japanese while she wrapped everything up and stuff. Gosh, how nice. I almost asked to take a picture of her because she was so cute, but I didn't in the end.

I didn't get to find out what was inside of the bag I bought until I got home. What I got was...

This white Marilyn Monroe shirt. It's actually really nice. It was originally 5,145.

And I also got this adorable dress. It bunches up weirdly around my boobs though, but it looks great if I use the shawl I got with my dress from Cecil McBee. This dress originally cost 9,345 yen! I can't believe if it's a size 0 too. Good to know I can fit into a Japanese size 0, though I needed help to get it off.

Surprisingly, I got the same skirt I got from the day before again in this bag. Now I have 3 things I want to sell. I made sure to go for a light one this time so I could make sure I didn't get a purse again. I was hoping for two tops or two dresses.

Anyway, after Liz Lisa I browsed through all of the other shops and ended up choosing this top from Cecil McBee:

It's not something I'd usually buy, but I like it. You wear it off shoulder with this tank top underneath:

Pretty simple, and I can easily replace it with a different tank top if I want to.

After that, we looked around for some rain boots, but all the ones I saw there were really expensive, so we figured we'd go look at Sunshine City instead. On the way though, we stopped by the arcades so Daniel could try out the UFO catchers. He ended up winning another Rilakkuma~

So cute! This one's bigger than the other 3 he won and doesn't have a keychain.

After that we decided we were hungry so we went to a place I don't quite remember the name of anymore, but it had Ginza in the name. I got small spare ribs:

Very yummy~

After food we continued on our way to Sunshine City, but I spotted a shoe store having a closing sale so we checked them out and I found some rainboots!

They're black and sparkly.

We made it to Sunshine City but didn't go very far. I was already done with all my shopping and Daniel decided he just wanted to head to Uniqlo to get the few things he wanted to buy.

But I did pick up this cute cheap umbrella from a store called Shazbot. It's really long though, which I wasn't really expecting. At least it'll keep me super dry since it's so big.

So, we headed back to the Uniqlo that was right near where we had lunch. I got a crepe at Sunshine City before that though, which ended up almost becoming super messy. Didn't take a picture of it though. At Uniqlo, Daniel got some new clothes, including some pants. The pants were a bit long though, so we had to wait a half hour or so for Uniqlo's seamstress to tailor them to size. We grabbed a few drinks at McDonalds while we waited, headed back when it was time, got the pants, and headed home. Boy I was pretty tired.

When we finally made it home though, I started coughing and my head feeling really icky. x.X I was afraid I was getting sick, so I ended up falling asleep really quickly and early last night. Luckily I haven't really been coughing today.

Sunshine City

Well, about 40 minutes after my last post yesterday I headed to the above-ground station (we usually take the subway) to hop onto the Seibu-Ikebukuro line so I could meet up with Nicole!

At the station, I managed to see the Galaxy Express train!

Unfortunately, since we both had already done some running around that day (me with going to Shinjuku and her on her BL hunt in Ikebukuro), we weren't up for too much more.

Though, I did manage to check out the Sanrio store a bit closer this time. Didn't buy anything though, so we headed off to a store called Animate instead. As it's name might imply, it was 8 floors of anime, manga, goods, video games, and everything in between. There was so much stuff. @_@

I got myself the first issue of a brand new shoujo magazine called Aria.

Since I bought it at Animate, I got this really pretty folder.

Inside it had a special sheet with the autographs and drawings by all the authors in the magazine. I've only managed to read the first three chapters in here (2 chapters and a oneshot), and I've enjoyed them all so far. Issue 2 will be coming out on Saturday, so can't wait to go pick it up!

After Animate, we headed over to Sunshine City again to get food...except we weren't really hungry. At first we got drinks at a place I think was called Dippin' Dan just so we could sit down, and then after browsing through Uniqlo for a bit everything started closing so we headed up to one of the upper floors to grab some food. We checkd out what all of the restaurants had to had and settled on a place called Ducky Duck.

Hard to see the logo, but it was pretty cute. I wasn't too hungry still (I had eaten a ham and cheese sandwich before I left and a bag of lightly salted potato chips) so I ordered some cake!

It was called Chiffon Symphony or something like that. I can't quite remember anymore. It was good, but not as good as the cake I had at Shibuya.

We decided to call it a night after that and headed home our separate ways.

Ikebukuro

After taking a nap, we headed off to the train station around noon. I told Daniel we wanted the Nerima station, but he thought that the Nerima station was actually where the Ekoda station was, and so there was a bit of confusion with the trains and we ended up being a bit late for meeting up with Nicole, but luckily she was running a bit behind herself. After much confusion in the Ikebukuro station about where we'd meet up, she finally found us.

First off we went to the Hello Kitty gift store, though I only just did a quick run through it since Nicole wasn't sure if the lunch special for the restaurant she wanted to take us to would be over soon or not. So, we followed her and went to a Japanese Indian restaurant that was down a little alley way a few blocks away from the Hello Kitty store.

I just went with Daniel's recommendation and ordered curry with mutton. Such a huge piece of naan though! It was really good, although a little bit spicy. I only managed to eat half of the naan though. The restaurant was rather interesting though, since it had a large TV screen playing Bollywood music videos.

After that, we checked out a few of the arcades like the one above and Daniel and Nicole tried their luck on some of the UFO catchers. Unfortunately, today was neither of their lucky days. I didn't really like any of the prizes, so I didn't try my luck.

Afterwards, we headed into the Ikebukuro Tokyu Hands since I asked Nicole to show me a good place to find cute school supplies, and the floor they have there was what she recommended. We didn't buy any stationary or school supplies yet, but we bought two adorable sponges that you can dress up, slippers that look like lions and the bottoms are actually dusters, a pillow for sitting on, and the vibrating pig pictured above. It was just too cute and since my feet hurt all the time, I figured they could use a way to get a massage. I was also eyeing the portable comfy chair (which really were comfortable) but decided I'd sleep on it and decide whether or not to get one later. One thing I really do miss is back support.

I tried to look for a phone strap since my phone still needs one, but Tokyu Hands didn't really have any I like. I need to find a more recent fandom from which I could buy some goods from!

After Tokyu Hands we were taken to Sunshine City, a multifloored mall.

I discovered that there's Toys R Us's in Japan. After walking around in Tokyu Hands, my feet were hurting and I was starting to feel a bit tired so we sought out a specific cafe. But to find it, first we took a look at the restaurant listing in the mall...

So many restaurants!

Apparently Sunshine City has its own indoor theme park.

Sanrio was having a summer festival in Sunshine City. The children in the pit of blue foam are searching for prizes hidden on the bottom.

We got a bit confused on which floor the cafe was actually on at first, but eventually we arrived at Cafe La Mille. We had to wait a bit to be seated, but eventually we got in although it was in the smoking section.

Since it was Lady's Day, a waffle set was 10% off, so I ordered what's pictured above to share with Daniel. It was pretty good, although the drink I ordered and expected to taste like chocolate and cookies actually tasted like coffee (I'm not really a fan of the taste of coffee).

Nicole had invited us to go see the new Ghibli film, but by that point I was feeling pretty worn out and decided it'd be best if we went home. We headed back to the station, but we weren't sure which train line we were supposed to take back to Ekoda. I ended up having to ask a police officer at the information desk for help, but we got the right one. After we made it to Ekoda, we headed home...or so we thought. We ended up going the entirely wrong direction for a long, long ways. It took practically forever to get home. My feet were even feeling numb on the way home.

Boy, the vibrating foot massaging pig sure feels good now. So glad I bought it.