Tokyo Saturday + Chill as Sunday

Off to Tokyo again today to meet up with a friend from NZ! She had to leave for her flight at 14:00 though, so it was really only a morning and lunch hangout. So I set off much earlier, and took the 7:17am train. Woke up at 6:15am, got changed and drove to the station. Got some cash out and some breakfast at the convenience store, Slept on the train and arrived at 9:20am. Walked to the hotel my friend was staying at, and then we walked together over to the Ghibli clock which was 9 minutes away from her hotel! I can’t believe I didn’t know about this Ghibli clock until yesterday when I was researching stuff to do in Tokyo. It’s a clock just above a station that was designed by Miyazaki himself! It has music and moves at certain times throughout the day, and we just made it in time for the 10:00am show. It was so cute – just so Ghibli. The music was very Ghibli as well, so Joe Hisaishi was probably responsible for composing it. The clock’s design was super detailed, as is the Ghibli standard, and bore a lot of similarities to Howl’s Moving Castle. After that we popped back quickly to the hotel to get my friend’s pocket Wifi, and then we took the train to Omotesando, to have lunch at Aoyama Flower Market teahouse! We arrived just before 11:00am and luckily there wasn’t much of a line at all phew. Got a seat easily, and my friend ordered the chocolate French Toast with red fruits tea, while I tried the French Toast Gratin (basically a berry, bread and butter pudding), and chocolate tea! The chocolate tea was actually really nice, and kinda just tasted like milk tea. The French Toast Gratin was really good, nice and piping hot! After we finished, we walked over to Shibuya, originally intending to go to Loft (since my friend went yesterday but didn’t have enough time to browse everything) but then realized we didn’t have a lot of time left, so we changed plans and went to take sticker photos instead, before going back to Shibuya Station where she met up with her brother.

After I said goodbye, I walked over to a cute shop I’d found online which was called “Alice on Wednesday” – it was an Alice in Wonderland themed shop with a very cute design. The entrance was a tiny door like in the movie, so you had to bend over and crawl in. Everything inside was very cute and actually decently priced! I thought everything would be quite expensive, since character goods usually are, but it was actually quite cheap. Spent a while browsing everything (it was small but had 3 floors) before leaving for Shinjuku where I was meeting up with a Tokyo friend for dinner. I still had some time to myself before meeting up so I wandered off into the little streets of Shinjuku. Whenever I come to Tokyo I seem to always end up coming to Shinjuku, and always the same spots, so this time I walked away from the usual spots. Ended up in a bit of a more high-class area (all brand shops and fancy shopping malls), but inside one of the shopping malls was a Cinnamoroll café without a line outside (character cafes ALWAYS have a line!) so I popped in to try their food and sit down for a bit. Got their Christmas specials, cheesecake tart thingy, and strawberry milk. I knew not to expect too much since character café’s food never tastes very good (it’s just for the looks). The cheesecake thing was quite decent but the strawberry milk was very average. I probably shouldn't have ordered it but it was cute and I wanted to take a photo of it heh. After that I browsed the shopping mall a bit and bought some socks (now I wish I had bought more of the woolen ones because they’re REALLY warm and comfortable!!!) before meeting up with my friend for dinner at a Korean place. Caught the 19:26 train home afterwards.

10/12 Sunday

Slept in till 8:30am, and then slept in some more till 10:30am. It felt really good to finally sleep in since the past few weekends I’ve had something on every day. Woke up and did some laundry before going to the supermarket to get some groceries. After that I just had a relaxed day at home editing photos and resting.