Truth be told though it was actually pretty tame LOL. To my greatest boon and misfortune, I bought(was bought) a new pair of shoes to replace my stanky and useless old pair I brought that I thought would SURELY be fine for another couple months (they died in like 1 week). And
while yes, the New Shoes were and are SO much better like it's actually INSANE how much better these are, they took a HOT minute to break in, so while I WANTED to walk even more than I did and explore
crazy amounts of stuff, I was forced to only see a handful of super
cool things instead, woe is me :(
It did hit different just wandering around, all by myself. I'm not a big planner on trips, so usually I'll just find something that seems interesting and walk around the area for the day, which is what I ended up doing A LOT. But by yourself, without people to share good and bad experiences with, it definitely felt a little more solemn, at least this week for me. But anyways, enough about SAPPY MUSH EMOTIONAL GUNK, here are some cool things I did that week :)
After my parents left and I hit up my hostel, I went back to Akihabara, the Electric City again to see what it was like at night, and boy howdy was it electric. It's one of those places that is just, so
overwhelming both in scope and in things happening, it's honestly kind of hard to walk the streets sometimes. There's people advertising their maid cafes every 5 steps, people window shopping for figurines,
restaurants and the quiet TAKATAKATAKA of pachinko balls from behind the windows. I really liked the AI English voice trying to convince you to come into some of the maid cafes. On some
corners there would be just a voice and it would say things like "Our maids are SO Happy To See you. We promise They Will do Their Best to give you a pleasurable experience" in the most uncanny
text-to-speech, AI type voice, felt like some blade runner shit. I also hit up the GIANT Bic Camera and Yodobashi camera stores just for the bit as well. Bic Camera was cool because they had a section where you
could buy vocaloid packages which was really neat, but the giant Yodobashi Camera was actually freakily big. Like Costco always feels a bit unnecessarily large, but look at this photo. That is 9 floors of
electronics, home goods, toys, games and restaurants. Exploring this REALLY felt like some Bladerunner shit or something, it was so overwhelmingly big.
I also picked up two (2) more scrimblo bimblos that night, freeing them from the clutches of the Gachapon Machines. First is this blue tulip character that I ADORE, and then this Gatito with the Gateau that I'm assuming is part of some comic strip or something??? I'm not entirely sure but I loved them dearly and was excited to have travel companions again :)
The next couple days I just took pretty chill, wandered around the imperial palace a bit, drank some matcha, visited Meiji Jingu and the neighboring Harajuku :) Harajuku was WAY too chaotic for me though, especially Takeshita street, apparently it used to be more chill once upon a time, but now it's STUPIDLY busy with tourists, me included. It's meant to be a more "trendy" "fashion" center of Tokyo, and I can kinda see that with all the Sanrio stuff and vintage stores, but it just wasn't for me :/ I DID however manage to snag another Scrimblo Bimblo while in the area, this little blue freak who looks EERILY similar to FinFin, so he got added to the collection.
Another big thing I did this week was hit up the island of Enoshima! It's this super cool little island off the south coast of Tokyo, and it has a bunch of cool unique things to check out :) I am however insanely glad I did not come here with my family. Stairs were already a point of contention within our group (no one liked them but me), and Enoshima is like 80% stairs, so we would've had some issues for sure LOL. But it was a really interesting destination! It has it's own culture and history of how the island was made, it's own very unique town layout due to the flipping stairs everywhere, it's far enough away from the city you can actually BREATHE and ENJOY some piece and tranquility, and it even has Big Birds that will swoop and try to steal you food allegedly (I did not have this happen to me but there were signs. They also had their own beer that was very delicious, and their signature rice bowls made with whitefish bait which was delicious and hilarious. I'm sad to say, the place I went to served GIANT bowls, but, the fool I was, opted for a combo dinner that came with soup and a really yummy seafood custard and just a REGULAR SIZED BOWL of rice with whiting :( I mean it was still delicious but obviously it was the Giant Bowl, so kind of feeling ripped off. Out of all the temples and shrines and stuff we saw though, Enoshima definitely has one of the coolest, being the Iwaya Caves. Basically back in the day, the locals would use these caves to pray to their gods, and brought in/built a bunch of small statues and even a shrine in the back of one! It's a crazy cool spot to get to, you basically have to climb over the entire island and then cross a big bridge they've had built to allow for easier access. I'm very doubtful if the locals still use this as a site of prayer, but now they've got the caves much more structurally supported and it's really simple to get in and view all the beautiful shrines with a little candle to help lead your way. While the initial shrine IS really cool, they've also added this second guy in the back of the second cave. Once you reach the back of the cave, there's a "special guest" waiting for you, and if you clap you hands, "something will happen". I don't want to spoil it in case you, the reader, ever DO go, but let me tell you its WORTH IT, ITS SO AWESOME, YOU WILL BE AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT AMAZED. I've included a picture of it below, but I'm not telling you which one it is so you'll just look at it and go "oh thats kinda cool". But yes, the history of the island is also really engaging, and they include a bunch of plaques to read before entering the cave to fill you in on the lore of the place, which I really appreciated. Would HIGHLY recommend going, it's extremely chill AND cool, don't know if you'd need a whole day for it, but it's absolutely worth the trip.
I also hit up Shibuya again at night a couple times to check out the live music scene. I didn't go to any clubs per-se, as the ones nearby had pretty expensive entry fees and no artists I was keen on listening to, so I ended up frequenting a spot called the Ruby Room, where a bunch of local and foreign acts would play most nights of the week. It was a really fun time, it seemed like a really tight knit community and everyone was just dancing around and having a good time. It had total dive bar vibes, and the ONE thing I will not get over is having to smell people's nasty fucking cigarettes because they just allowed smoking indoors???? For some reason??? But it wasn't very common the nights I went fortunately, and it was still a really fun time :D
I think that's most of the major stuff I wanted to bring up for my last little week in Tokyo? I had some good ass coffees, one with an extremely cute latte art on it, courtesy of HatCoffee near Asakusa (they were so chill I loved those guys), I played a lot of rhythm arcade games, I made a PACT to rescue Hatsune Miku from one of those fucked up crane games when I return, and I did a LOT of browsing, staring at all the nerd shit I wanted so badly to buy but couldn't. I'm really excited to go back with friends, as there's quite a few things I'd really liked to have done with a group but didn't have the confidence to do myself (maid cafe, don't hate me). So looking forward to a return trip whenever that happens ;)
Anyways! Hope you have had a lovely day. Or WILL have a lovely day, idk when you're reading this. Please make sure to watch Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie as it is now released on streaming I believe and you'll really like it I hope :) Okay! Goodbye!!!