Continued from Tokyo Day 2.

It’s nice to have so much time here in Tokyo. We can just wake up late and not be stressed to do everything in the limited amount of time that we have. Maybe we would have like Kyoto more if we had more time there.

The forecast for Tokyo has been rain and scattered thunderstorms. This morning there is no rain, no thunderstorms, only white clouds and deep blue skies, beautiful. Except, damnit, it’s hot!! I guess we’ll take the heat over rain.

A long and confusing walk to the train platforms. We are starting to get a hang of this…sort of.

Some places are walk up left and walk down right, and other places are switched for unknown reason. This is a prime example showing that it’s difficult to walk in crowded Japanese sidewalks. There doesn’t seem to be a strong preference for walking on the right side or left side of the sidewalks, so you are constantly running straight into people and having to dodge. I suspect it’s because there just enough visitors who are from right hand drive countries to screw with the flow.

Waiting for the Yamanote line, the loop train line that goes around Tokyo.

Two short stops later, we’ve arrived at Harajuku. This is supposed to be the area where there are groups of young people dressed up in cosplay costumes. We did not see any today, even though it’s Sunday, the day where they all get dressed up.

Cool. Triumph?

Omotesandō, a fancy shopping street here in Tokyo. Every popular street in Asia is some sort of shopping street it seems.

There was a HUGE line, I am talking like 50 people, almost all women, wait to get into this shop that sells popcorn. Can popcorn really be that good? No, no it can’t.

Despite the wealth here in Tokyo, I haven’t been seeing too many fancy cars, until now. I saw more Porsches here in 15 minutes than for the past two months of travel.

I remember seeing Condomania last time I was here a few years back. Apparently, people are still buying condoms. So, that’s why the birthrate is so low.

Since none of the high end fancy stores fancy us, we decided to turn off into a small side street to stay away from the crowds. This is much more interesting over here for us.

Now is Forever. Couldn’t fit it all inside one frame….well, technically I did, but you get what I mean.

3 car garage!!!! This is a nice neighborhood back here. Lots of nice cars.

Even when you’ve got money, you still get a super tiny parking space. I can’t imagine having to park like that every time you use your car. Speaking of cars, there are essentially zero beaters in Tokyo, and all the other places we visited in Japan. Almost all cars are immaculately clean, and new. Literally, I think we only saw less than 5 cars that were older and beat up the whole time we were here.

At the end of our walk, we arrived at Maisen, the best tonkatsu restaurant, ever!

A short little wait.

So excited!!! This building used to be a public bathhouse.

So many choices of pork. You can pick the different cuts, and the different types of pig.

The tonkatsu I ended up ordering even came with its very own special sauce.

Can’t wait!!

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!!!

Seriously delicious. No other tonkatsu I’ve ever had even mildly compares to this. So tender and perfectly crispy.

RL’s interesting meal. You are supposed to mix some tea into the rice bowl along with everything else.

End it with some orange sherbert. Fantastic meal!!

Look at that giant orchid, I thought that it was fake until I touched it. By the time we were done eating, there was a long line out the door. Beat the crowd!

Shop at LV, then repent for your sins next door at the church right afterwards. I made this same blog comment last time I was here.

All those girls on the left of the sidewalk are all standing and waiting for something. I am guessing it’s some sort of frou frou food place.

There’s this giant souvenir shop right here in this fancy area, and yet most of the items that they sell are very reasonably priced. I wonder if it’s a front for something else…hmmm…

I shoulda bought these two postcards and put them side by side.

Had to take a peek inside here. It was just ok. They had condoms and other ordinary items one would find in a sex shop, but I was expecting to see some really out there crazy thing, this being Japan and all.

More lines of girls, waiting to eat…something.

Seriously, I’ve never seen so many long lines anywhere else in Japan.

No lines for us, we are heading across the street to Meiji Shrine.

Much cooler and also shaded over here. Glad to be out of the sun.

Sake offering.

That’s a lot of ground to sweep.

The hand washing station is occupied almost exclusively by foreigners. There are definitely more Westerners here in Tokyo than everywhere else we’ve visited in Japan.

Oh, a wedding!!

They must be burning up under all those formal clothes.

Everyone enjoys taking photos of the wedding procession.

Seriously blue skies today. This blue sky is barely shy of the blue sky in Tibet.

Looking at the moss on this tree.

Moss!!!!! and RL.

Of course, time for our single serve soft serve green tea ice cream.

I photo bombed RL, who was trying to photo bomb my ice cream photo. Hah!

Then as further punishment for trying to photobomb, RL has an incident with her ice cream.

Look at the blue sky!! Alright, enough walking around for now, we are heading back to our hotel to chill.

This is about as extreme of dress up we saw here in Harajuku. I think maybe the police has been cracking down on them loitering around.

Back in Shinjuku, where we saw a Kani Doraku restaurant.

Beer Hall!!! There are just endless possibilities for eating and drinking here in Shinjuku.

Women only capsule hotel.

LOL!!! We laugh every time we see one of these posters.

RL got some of these sweet candy at the shrine. Beautiful, but too sweet. It’s like pure sugar.

Literally within an hour of us getting back to our hotel, the blue sky disappears to be replaced by ominous dark clouds.

It starts pouring.

Then it starts POURING, sideways!!

I guess we dodged that bullet! Came back to our hotel just at the right time to avoid being soaked by the rain. It’s so nice to stay in dry while it’s raining outside.

It rained hard, but it did not rain for too long. Time for dinner, and afterwards we want to check out a jazz bar. Apparently, there are a lot of jazz connoisseurs here in Japan, and there are a lot of jazz bars to support their music habit.

Walked by this rotating sushi place…couldn’t refuse.

Sea urchin roe.

We ate some sushi, got half full, then we left to look for the jazz bar.

It didn’t take long to find the alleged location of the building, but we couldn’t quite figure out where it was located inside the building.

Finally, RL spotted this little tiny sign, out of the hundreds of signs here. Samurai, here we come.

We go up an old small elevator to the top floor and come upon this door.

The decor inside this bar has one theme, cats.

Look at the record collection! This place is run by a husband and wife team, just like the jazz bar that we went to the other night. I love all these small mom and pop bars and restaurants here in Japan.

Trying some shochu mixed drinks. Pretty good stuff!

Seriously, cat themed. Notice the Tibetan prayer flags.

Also has a little corner for a small nail salon, heh.

More food!!

More shochu drink!! This one is mixed with oolong tea, good stuff. I didn’t have straight up shochu, so I couldn’t tell you what it tastes like, but I do know that it doesn’t have a strong taste, like whiskey, or something like that.

Loved the nice jazz music and the crazy car decor inside. There are so many of these little hidden gems all over Tokyo, it’s incredible.

Back out roaming the streets of Shinjuku.

We ended up at a Taito Station, the giant multistory arcade. And by multistory, I mean literally like 5 stories of games and arcades, etc.

LOL!!! Only in Japan! You want a thick busty girl, well here you go. I guess since almost everyone is skinny here, curvy girls are in demand.

On the second floor, it was devoted to what I think was costume rental, then you can take photos with it. There are no photos allowed, but I did get a photo of this right outside costume place. Japan discriminates blatantly , and they get away with it.

While we are here, I decided to try my luck yet again at a claw crane machine.

Holy shit!!!! OMG!!!! No joke, two tries and I managed to get it!!!! AAAHHHHH!!!! Couldn’t believe it!!!!! Wait….fuck, now we need to figure out how to take this giant stuffed animal home….OMG, can’t believe we managed to win the biggest stuffed animal in the place with only two tries!! No need to wonder why RL married me, I am a winner. Obviously.

This being Japan, not 5 seconds after we win the giant prize, a staff from Taito Station greets us with a giant plastic bag for our prize. Nice!! We proudly walked out of the place with envious eyes all upon us and our giant prize. Winning!!

While walking home, I hear splashing sounds…it’s not raining. Source of the splashing sound. Mind you, this is on a very busy pedestrian street. Seriously, there are so many restaurants and shops here, couldn’t you just go use one of their restroom? LOL!!!

Seriously, how are we gonna take that thing home? It’s like 4 times the size of RL’s head.

News!!! Tourist in Japan gets crushed by giant stuffed animal won at Taito Station….What have we done!!!! We need to somehow get it back home…

To be continued at Tokyo Day 4.