Following the compass of my heart! Tokyo trip report OCT 13-22, 2016. UPDATED 11/30 - COMPLETE

Hello Everyone!

Just got back from a 10 day trip to Tokyo. It was so much fun

First, here's me.



I'm Anderson. A little bit about me. I'm a 31 y/o Disney fan, living in Long Beach, CA. I have been a huge Disney fan as far as I can remember. Even in high school, most people knew me as someone who was obsessed with Disney. Winnie the Pooh is my favorite character, and I am a collector, so I love to buy merchandise! Shopping was one thing I was especially looking forward too. I am a Disneyland Passholder, and have been for about the past nine years, even while living in Hawaii and Arizona, before moving to California. Obviously, I'm a big guy and I love food, so some of the food will feature prominently.



This guy is also around a lot. His name is Andy. If you look at my last trip report, he's the guy I refer to as my ex. We still remain friends to this day. He is also a Disneyland Passholder, and the reason I came out here. He travels to Japan for business often and was already in Japan when I flew there. His favorite character is stitch, and claims to find hidden mickeys though more often than not I don't think they qualify.

Two of his friends also joined us for two days at Disneyland Tokyo, but I don't think they wanted to hang out with us most of the time necessarily. So I think I only have one picture of them.

Table of Contents!

October 12/13 Part 1. Part 2. Travel Day, Shibuya, Harajuku, Kiddyland.
October 14 Part 1. Part 2. Akihabara, Shinjuku
October 15 Part 1. Part 2. Imperial Gardens, Nakano Broadway, Shibuya Again briefly.
October 16 Nothing Exciting. Accompanied Andy on a trip to buy records 2 hours outside Tokyo
October 17 Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Tokyo Disneyland.
October 18 Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Tokyo DisneySea.
October 19 Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Both Parks!
Bonus Post Merchandise! Everything I bought so far.
October 20 Yokohama Cup Noodle Museum
October 21 Part 1. Part 2. Meiji Shrine, Dominique Ansel Bakery, Asakusa, Ginza, Ikebukuro.
October 22 Part 1. Part 2. Bon Voyage, Kit Kats, Tokyo Disneyland (!) again

Looking forward to reading about your adventures!

Can't wait to hear all about it!

I'm in . Hoping to get some inspiration for my trip next September.

October 12-13. Travel day and first day in Tokyo - Part 1

I'm trying to be detailed without being too detailed, though that is being difficult - I end up including information that is probably not all that interesting.

Summary: Flew from LAX to HND, Arrived in Tokyo, Went to AirBNB, Visited Shibuya.

My flight departed at 12:50 am, on October 12th from LAX to Haneda. I tried my best to pack light and pack things that I could leave behind in Tokyo, so I had only one bag. One thing I noticed about Tom Bradley International Terminal was that it was so much nicer than the regular terminals at LAX. Fancy shops and restaurants - even a sandwich shop from one of the winners of Top Chef.



I flew on ANA, and the flight was okay. The seats themselves had a good amount of leg room, but I do not know how anyone can stay seated on an 11 hour flight without getting up. Fortunately, I had an aisle seat so I could walk around every hour or so. The food on the flight was also just okay. We got a sad chicken sandwich as a snack and pasta for breakfast. The movie and entertainment selections included Finding Dory, so that kept me occupied for an hour or so.

I arrived about an hour early at 4 am on Thursday, October 13th in Japan.



Since we arrived early, I was worried that Andy wouldn't be there when I was there. However, he found me. He had actually just stayed up all night and took a bus to come pick me up from the airport, since at that time there are no trains running. We actually had to wait until 5 am until the first monorail left Haneda airport. Once we were able to board the train, we headed off to the AirBNB that Andy was staying in. It was about an hour train ride.



This AirBNB was huge for the price Andy paid. It had two bedrooms, an office, kitchen, water closet, bath/shower and compared to other places I had stayed in Japan, very spacious. Since Andy didn't sleep at all, and I didn't really sleep on the plane, we both took a nap. Probably a bad idea for our schedule but no matter. Once we woke up, we headed out to Shibuya so Andy could do some shopping for his business. He owns a record store, and goes on buying trips to Japan every few months. Also, we would be heading to Tokyo Disneyland until Monday, October 17, so the other reason we went to Shibuya was to visit the Disney Store there, to get my Disney fix and to buy our tickets.







After we were done with the Disney store, we walked over to a record store for Andy to do some shopping. We found some cute Gacha Capsule machines with Disney related ghosts, and tried our luck. Fortunately, after three tries I was able to get what I wanted. So kawaii!



While Andy did some shopping, I walked around the area without him and wandered about.

Before going further, I must say that having a pocket wifi made everything so much easier. If you don't have free roaming/international data, definitely look into renting a pocket wifi. Andy got one for me from Akihabara and it was a life saver. We could use iMessage/facebook messenger, use Google maps for directions, and gave me reading material while on the trains. The last time I was in Japan, I did not have one, and got lost in Osaka while Andy was shopping. I had to turn on my cellular data for a few minutes and just turning it on cost me about $100 bucks.

During the time, I visited a few stores in the area Tokyu Hands, hit up some convenience stores for snacks/lunch. But my favorite things was visiting the Tokyu Food Show. One of my favorite things about Japan are the basement level food areas. They are often at train stations, but basically they are a little market with dozens of different stands selling different kinds of food. Each stand usually specializes in one thing, some have salad, some just have karaage fried chicken and so on. I wish we had this in the US! I ended up getting some gyoza which were delish!









The other thing down there that I just had to get a picture of were the expensive fruit. There was a small grocery area, but they were selling some expensive, albeit very nice looking fruit. I was tempted to buy a bunch of grapes that came to $40 US, but resisted the urge. I do wonder how good can they be, after all it is just a grape. However, the most expensive fruit was a melon...about $140 for the baby on the center right.



Next up, Day 1 continued.

Following along to relive my trip. We took photos of expensive fruit too!

October 12/13 Continued. Dinner and Harajuku, and a quick stop in Ikebukuro.

Summary: More Shibuya, ate Indian food for Dinner, went to Harajuku and a toy store.

I continued to explore the area Shibuya crossing as Andy record shopped. I don't know if I ever actually got a good picture of the crossing, though I did get a good video from a bridge at the station a few days later. Andy actually took us under the crossing so we didn't even cross it. LOL. I tried to snap a picture, but I'm not sure if this is actually at the crossing or another busy intersection nearby.



I'm a soda fanatic, so I love that there are vending machines everywhere! I was having Diet Coke withdrawals over the course of the trip but there are so many good different drinks there. So as I was wandering, I found one of my favorite discoveries of the trip, Fanta Peach. Oh my god soooooooooo good.



During this time, I also wandered into a few convenience stores, and went to the nearby Tokyu Hands to get a postcard to send to my workplace. Nothing super interesting there, so no pictures.

After collecting Andy from the record store, we headed to and Indian restaurant called Nataraj near Shibuya crossing. Actually, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but Andy is vegan, so that sort of impacted my eating plans. But generally, I try to be respectful of him and not eat meat in front of him. Also because if I do, he lectures me and gets mad, so it's easier to avoid the hassle.

Anyway, we had two kinds of curry, aloo gobi (potato & cauliflower) and sai bhaji (lentil with spinach), along with some rice and vegan naan.



This was a pretty good meal. I haven't eaten a lot of Indian food recently, and I'm by no means an expert, but this was probably better than most Indian meals I've had. The naan was great, and I really loved the sai bhaji. I usually hate Indian dishes with spinach because they always seem really slimy, but this was not. The aloo gobi was wetter than other versions I've had but had a good flavor.

After that, we walked to Harajuku area, discovering that there are still Tower Records in Japan! On the way there we also passed Yoyogi park. I think this is a picture of that



We got to the Harajuku area and Takeshita Dori. Now, I know people think that it's a place for crazy fashion, but I never have really seen it. I think Andy said that it's usually only on the weekend.





The main reason we were there was to go to the Daiso, 100 yen shop. Basically a dollar/99 cent store. I really wanted to come here because on previous trips, they had the most awesome stuff - including tons of Disney toys. This time, however, not so much. In fact, nothing I bought was even cute enough for me to take a picture of. We did pick up some stuff for the AirBNB to make and bring food to Disneyland.

We also saw that they had some insane looking chocolate caramel fries at McDonald's, which I did consider buying.

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After that, Andy abandoned me once again to find a record store. I walked down the street because I wanted to visit Kiddyland. I love Toys and love shopping so it only made sense, though in the end I only bought a pair of Totoro chopsticks with the catbus on it.







For some reason, I thought the Kit Kat store was nearby here, but after learning it was actually in Ikebukuro near our place, I caught the train to head there.



After walking around the Seibu at the Ikebukuro station for a while to find this place, this ended up being actually pretty disappointing. I was expecting to find all the crazy different flavors at this location but no such luck. They had some unique fruit flavors and fancy chocolate varieties, but they weren't all that interesting looking and too expensive for what I wanted. My quest for kitkat would continue for the remainder of the trip!

Headed back to the AirBNB, and got ready for the next day. Next day: Akihabara and Shinjuku.

Anderson, looks fun so far! Funny cute little dolls---lookinf forward to reading more...

October 14: Akihabara, Shinjuku Part 1

The next day we decided to head over to Akihabara with Andy's friends. For the most part, we had been using the Subway station nearest our house (Kanamecho), but instead, Andy's friends wanted to show us something on the way to Ikebukuro Station. I hate to be insensitive to other cultures and be one of those rude ignorant American tourists. But this...







...was HILARIOUS!

These small statues of naked toddlers just seemed to be in a random strip of green walkway on the way to the station. There may have been some explanation signs somewhere, but we didn't see any. We actually found another one nearer to our place when we were walking back one night.

So off to Akihabara (or Electric Town) we went.



I can't say that most of my days were super productive with actual plans. In fact, I was a little worried because I had barely made any sort of decisions, done very much research, or made any plans, at least compared to my previous trips. I'd say I got more done this time anyway, but much of my time was just spent wandering around, admiring the architecture, signs, and so on. So I don't have an explanation of everything we did.







We all did go to a store that just sold Gacha/Capsule toys and found some interesting things there. Of course, I couldn't pass up buying a few for myself.





We also went to Yodabashi camera. A GIGANTIC electronic store with a huge variety of stuff. There is even a floor dedicated to toys and novelty items, so again, of course that is where I headed. I also like to collect cute, Disney themed chopsticks, so that is what I ended up finding there.



Next up: More Akihabara, and Shinjuku.

Fun TR!
Those Tsum Tusm are so cute! Good thing I am not in Japan right now, or I would want to get them all...
I don't usually pay attention to those capsule games, but I might have to try one of those next time...the toys are cute and at least you know you will get something, unlike the arcade games.
And I am so wanting to try the pumpkin and chocolate sauce fries! Too bad those are for limited time only for Halloween!
Looking forward to reading more!

Hey - I'm super stoked on this TR.

I'm also vegan so if you could list the names of the places you and your friend ate at and how he fared I'd really appreciate it. I've added Nataraj to my list already!

Love to know the record store name as well - I'm a collector myself.

OldSchoolReasons said:

I'm also vegan so if you could list the names of the places you and your friend ate at and how he fared I'd really appreciate it. I've added Nataraj to my list already!

Love to know the record store name as well - I'm a collector myself.

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He mostly visited disc unions. There are many all over the city.

Nataraj - has locations in Ginza and Shibuya. It's vegetarian but has many vegan options.
T's Tan Tan - Tokyo Station. Amazingly good vegan ramen!
Hayama Natural Table Bojan - Asakusa, near Senso-ji. It's omnivorous, but they have a few vegan, macrobiotic options.
Kamakura Fushikian - Akihabara. I wasn't too impressed but Andy liked it
Disneyland has two options - East Side Cafe and Center Street Coffeehouse
Disney Sea - Ristorante di Canaletto

October 14: Akihabara, Shinjuku Continued

We split up with Andy's friends because they insisted on going to get some tonkatsu. Secretly, I was a little jealous, but I went with Andy to eat vegan food with him.

We went to this place called Kamakura Fushikian which was very close to the station. He had enjoyed it before I arrived and wanted to go back there since it was easy to find.





So you could get an entree with two salads. We both got curry soup, along with miso soup, rice. There was some sort of bean salad, a tomato noodle salad, a mashed potato like salad, and bean sprouts. Honestly, I wasn't too impressed with this place. The curry flavor was not that good, and the salads were meh. Andy still enjoyed it though.

Now the plan from here is that I would go with Andy's friends to Asakusa and Omote-Sando, but Andy and I got in a fight and had to talk things out, so that didn't happen. So instead, I followed Andy to the next record store in Ochanomizu. The area was just up a hill from Akihabara.

They had some cool little restaurants under the trains here.







While in Ochanomizu, I just walked around until Andy was done at the store. In Ochanomizu they have a ton of stores selling musical instruments. I love that there was even an ukulele store. If you didn't figure out by the 808 in my screenname, I'm from Hawaii and even played a kamaka ukulele as a child.



After that, we headed back to the house to make dinner. We had brought some tofurkey sausages from home, and bought rice, veggies to make fried rice at the AirBNB. Once we had fuller bellies, Andy went to see a Jun Togawa concert in Shinjuku. We had to walk through what Andy was saying was the red light district of Tokyo. So we literally walked past dozens of love hotels on the way there.



Once I walked Andy to his concert venue, I again just continued to explore. I am so entranced by all the lights and sounds.



So much so that while walking around, I knocked over a bike. While trying to pick it up, I ended up knocking the entire row of four bikes down. I decided to just walk away at that point, as the dude nearby was starting to laugh at this dumb American. As I continued to walk around, I went to the station, and found Andy's friends who were looking for these churro like things from a store called Zakuzaku. After about 30 minutes of searching, we finally found them.



I don't know if they were worthy of making a special trip for, but they were pretty good. Sort of more like a hard eclair than a churro though.

With that done, I met Andy and we headed back to the AirBNB.

Next up: October 16: Imperial Gardens, Nakano Broadway, and Shibuya again

October 16: Part 1. Lunch at Tokyo Station and Walking Tour

We got a pretty late start to the day. We didn't leave the house until 11:30 am. Once we got up, we decided to head to Tokyo Station for ramen.

For the past two years, I have been really on a ramen kick. There are just so many places here in Southern California that I could try so many new kinds. At one point I had eaten ramen for at least 5 dinners during the week, so I really wanted to try have the real experience in Tokyo. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have many opportunities to eat on my own without Andy. I also don’t eat meat in front of him – out of respect for him and out of not wanting to get into a fight. I did have a couple opportunities on my own, but I was a little intimidated about going in and the places were full. They even had the vending machines, but I was too hesitant. Next time…

Anyway, Andy did tell me that there was a vegan ramen place at Tokyo Station. I was skeptical, having tried several vegan bowls of ramen and not being impressed. But as I was in the mood for something ramen, I agreed to head over there. It’s called T’s Tan Tan.



When we got there, we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table. I was sort of nervous, as I was hoping to join a walking tour that left the station at 1 pm. We got into the restaurant about 12:40 pm and ordered right away.

I got a White Tan Tan ramen with gyoza. Andy got a bi bim bap and fried chicken.





This was actually amazingly good. I was pretty shocked by how good it is. Without a doubt the BEST vegan ramen I’ve ever had and better than a lot of the non-vegan ramen I’ve had. The bi bim bap was also really good. The not-so-appealing brownish stuff on top is the faux tan tan meat mixture, and it was so good with the rice. The other sides, were also pretty good.

After inhaling my ramen, I walked to the Maronouchi Central Exit to meet up with the free walking tour. Andy did not want to come, but instead found a pay phone so he could schedule luggage pickup for his friends.

I had found a list of free walking tours with English speaking guides here. This was the only one I could take advantage of. I had wanted to do more, but didn't get a chance. About 60 people were already gathered and volunteers were waving signs. The group of 60 was split into 6 groups or so.

While this is a great opportunity, I wish I had sneaked into another group with a guide that spoke the best English. I had a hard time understanding our guide and he was a bit soft spoken. I must not be a very good listener, as I don't remember very much about what was discussed. But it was nice to have any opportunity for them to point out things to us.

It started at the exit, and he explained a little about Tokyo station.



As he continued with the tour, he explained more information about the buildings we past as we walked toward the Imperial Gardens. He said something about having to build new structures upon older buildings vertically like this Bank building.



We also passed through this courtyard with fountains that was meant to celebrate the Prince and Princess's marriage.



Once we finally arrived at the East Imperial Gardens, we were able to see the complex surrounded by a large moat. Again, the tour guide explained a lot of information but I was not able to retain all of it.





They give you an admission ticket tile, that you return upon leaving.









So at this point, Andy had called me and caught up with us. He is easily bored, and wanted to get going to our next destination so we left the tour. They do note that this is okay to do, on their website and before the tour starts. So we headed back to the station and went to Nakano.

Next. October 16 - continued

I didn't know about the free walking tours! Thanks for the info; I have some friends visiting me soon and I can't sightsee with them the whole time they're here, so having some English-friendly options for them is very useful. Also good find on the vegan ramen shop; I had no idea there were this many vegan options in Tokyo.

October 16: Nakano Broadway

After leaving the tour, we headed on the train to go to Nakano Broadway.



Andy's friend was meeting us here, so as was par for the course, we ended up waiting an hour or so until he arrived. I walked around the area and took in the sights.



Checked out Don Quijote and saw these delicious looking squid snacks. /s



The station itself had a cool mural.



Found a bakery with Totoro baked goods. So kawaii!



Anyway, the real reason for visiting here was to go to the Nakano Broadway mall. It's basically a collectible mall with tons of stores featuring toys, figurines, comics, and so on. Andy's friend is a video game collector. Andy himself collected Japanese style monster toys for years. During my last trip in 2012, we came here and I found so many Pooh related items and even vinylmations, so I was excited to come back again.

Unfortunately for me, I couldn't find much that I really wanted. I thought about buying that Mr. Potato Head bucket as it was only 800 yen, but I didn't know if I'd have space for it, and I was hoping that I'd be able to get a Pooh popcorn bucket at the park.







One of the Mandarake stores had these awesomely grotesque heads. They looked so cool!



After browsing the mall for a few hours, I decided I wanted to go back to Shibuya. Andy showed me a bridge in the JR station to take a picture of Shibuya crossing.



I then proceeded to visit the Disney Store so I could complete my stamp card for buying tsum tsums. After our first trip to the Disney Store a few days before, they gave us a stamp card that if you filled up you got a prize. On the first visit, I bought four, and so I went back to buy more. I filled out the stamp card, and it turned out that you got a postcard to send in for a prize. Oops. Fortunately, another of Andy's friends who lives in Japan were willing to let us have the prize sent there.

After a leaving the Disney Store, the last thing I did that night was go to Loft, which had some cool, and interesting items like these sweet, Mount Fuji glasses.



Weirdly though, they also had these...



I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that they had a pretty prominent display with Vladimir Putin calendars.

Those are some fun, interesting finds! That calendar does make me wonder how the rest of the months look like...

I think T's Tan Tan is the restaurant I tried to go to...but could not because I got lost. We ended up at another ramen restaurant that serves great veggie noodles and regular noodles, so we were happy. It's called Soranoiro at the Ramen Street, maybe your friend knows it.

Looking forward to reading what your Halloween finds at Disney were!

October 17: Nothing Exciting really happened.

So today was a mostly wasted day for me.

As I have said before, Andy buys records. He had previously met someone at a store who was looking to sell some of his collection. After keeping in touch with that person, Andy was wanting to make a trip out to his house about 1.5-2 hours outside of the city to buy some of his collection. This guy was a little strange during messenger conversations with Andy, so I went with him as a sort of backup/protection. Indeed, I can confirm this guy was weird, making tons of inappropriate and offensive jokes, but he ended up being friendly and was all talk.





Anyway, I guess I'll use this post to talk about my love for the convenience stores! I wish our 7-11s had snacks as good as Japan's. I ate food from 7-11 so many times, and family mart and Lawson. They have tons of different foods, including rice balls/onigiri, bentos, and even fried chicken/karaage and it was soooooo good. Even their egg salad sandwiches were better than what is at our local convenience stores.









Next up: October 17: Day 1 of Tokyo Disney Resort! Tokyo Disneyland. Many parts probably since I can't seem to pare down my report and details. LOL

Just letting you know I'm following along! I too was in Japan last month...haven't gotten around to staring a trip report yet though.

I am currently at the part of your report where you are showing a picture of your sushi cat keychain from the Gachapon machine. I played the same machine...though I played the one in Tsukiji. I was so bummed though...the first cat I got was lame. It was the only cat not dressed as sushi...it was wearing a backpack. I guess it was supposed to be a lunch bag. I was determined to get a cooler sushi cat so I put in more yen...ONLY TO END UP WITH THE SAME LAME BACKPACK CAT!

Also, I was in Harajuku on a Saturday. There were a few people here and there dressed up but not that many.

MomoMama said:

I think T's Tan Tan is the restaurant I tried to go to...but could not because I got lost. We ended up at another ramen restaurant that serves great veggie noodles and regular noodles, so we were happy. It's called Soranoiro at the Ramen Street, maybe your friend knows it.

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Ooooohhh. Thanks for the tip! I am definitely going to try it next time.

jelloarms said:

I am currently at the part of your report where you are showing a picture of your sushi cat keychain from the Gachapon machine. I played the same machine...though I played the one in Tsukiji. I was so bummed though...the first cat I got was lame. It was the only cat not dressed as sushi...it was wearing a backpack. I guess it was supposed to be a lunch bag. I was determined to get a cooler sushi cat so I put in more yen...ONLY TO END UP WITH THE SAME LAME BACKPACK CAT!

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That stinks! I tried my luck at another Disney Gacha machine. It had little squeeze toys that I thought were bouncy balls. I wanted the Pooh one, but got Woody THREE TIMES IN A ROW!