Tokyo, March 20
Door: Yaru
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Yaru
20 Maart 2020 | Japan, Tokio
9:25PM JST - “Taking nice strolls amidst the busy streets”
Hi there, back with another update! How was your day today? Hope you all are still healthy and well. Today we took it a bit easier than yesterday. We woke up a little bit later, around 9AM. We had already decided to have breakfast in Shibuya instead of at the hotel and since the breakfast buffet already closes at 10AM we didn’t need to hurry today~ We had found a really nicely themed cafe called ‘Eggs ‘n stuff’ which was really close by the station we got off of.
The cafe was Hawaii themed and the waiters and waitresses were wearing those typical tropical shirts and aprons with those prints on it haha. We got a really nice place. We were seated on the second floor on the balcony outside. We were the only table there hahaha but the weather was so nice we really wanted to eat outside. There was a lot of different stuff to choose from! From pancakes & waffles to omelette plates and sandwiches with baked potatoes. We had a hard time choosing and decided on the spot that we would come back there again to try other stuff hahaha. For now Jo-anne chose the omelette plate of the day which consisted of, of course, omelette, mozzarella cheese, sausages and tomato sauce. I got a plate with 2 BLT sandwiches and baked potatoes. The BLT sandwiches were super tasty! They had poached eggs on top and had made them look like as if it were the top of the bun itself, super cute! We had a nice view over the small street they were located at and the sun shone brightly already. A pleasant breakfast~
After breakfast we decided to walk to Tower Records, which is if you remember a music store where they also sell a lot of K-pop albums, because one of the groups Jo-anne is a fan off released a album just 2 days ago and yesterday they were out of stock and it said that they would be restocked today, so we went on our way. Sadly when we arrived we discovered they were already gone again. Such a shame but maybe we’ll be able to get it at the end of our trip when the hype has died down a bit.
Well we walked around Shibuya quite a bit today too. There’s a lot to see and it’s also nice just walking around and entering shops here and there. Then we stumbled upon the famous Shibuya crossing. You most likely will have seen this crossing. It’s a famous depiction for Japan as it’s always bustling with hundreds of people there. On every corner it has a pedestrian crossing and one going diagonal. It probably wasn’t as busy as it normally would be but it was still pretty crowded in my opinion. It is connected with the exit of Shibuya’s main station thus a lot of people come out of the station and wait for the lights to jump on green. It’s pretty amazing to see such large crowds waiting on every street corner and then cross the street all at once. It’s like stepping on an ant colony and seeing every single ant disperse and going their own way. Very funny to observe too haha. There is a Starbucks located on the second floor of a department store which has perfect view of the Shibuya crossing and naturally we went there to take a break and observe people there.
It’s fun seeing the people cross. Some will walk a certain way and realize they didn’t need to go that way turning around and almost bumping into the person who was walking behind them. There was a man who had 2 small dogs who were apparently very loyal as they both didn’t wear a leash, but one dog decides to stop on the middle of the crosswalk and the owner didn’t notice it at first. So he was almost on the other side and checks behind him if the two dogs were still with him and sees that one of them is still sitting on the middle of the crossing. So he had to go back and pick it up because the dog refused to walk further XD. There are also people who last minute cross the street and need to do a small sprint to the other side. It is always guaranteed that not everyone is off the street when the lights jumps back to red XD You’ll always see at least 20+ people take a small sprint. So we sat there for a while taking a few pictures of course and just observing people.
I had seen that there was a park nearby, Yoyogi park, and since it was such a nice weather we wanted to visit it. We bought some snacks from the convenience store to snack at the park and walked to it! It was super busy and there were so many people pick nicking there. We didn’t bring a blanket but that would’ve been such a good idea. So we decided to go there once again when we would take a chill day. There were also a lot of people sporting there. We at down on the side of the road there and started snacking XD It was super relaxing and chill to be there. Yoyogi park was really pretty and big and there were already a few trees showing its first blossoms. I think it’s a really nice place for cherry blossom viewing and we will surely do that! A lot of people were also playing with frisbees and volleyballs and some were playing badminton. It was such a nice atmosphere and we got so excited that we actually bought a volleyball to use for the next time we’ll go there hahaha. It wasn’t that expensive so it’s okay~ We strolled around in the park and discovered a small dog park within, just a big rectangle with a fence around it so dogs could play without their leash on. It was so cute to see and it made me want to bring Jessie here :,) I miss our doggo. I think Jessie would’ve really liked it to be able to play with so many dogs. There were so many different dogs, we saw; Shiba Inu’s, Jack russels, poodles, pugs etc. and there were 2 like really really huge dogs. We think those were dobberman’s but one had spots like a cow and Jo-anne suddenly said ‘what’s a cow doing here?!’ And I lost it XD that was freaking funny. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Marmaduke’ but those were the 2 huge dogs walking around. I actually would never want such a bug dog, I couldn’t take proper care of it I’m afraid. I’m happy with our little Jessie :) She’s such a cutie.
When we were done strolling around we decided to go to a Mega Don Quijote which is like a cheap store with a lot of everyday stuff and important for us; a lot of cheap candy :D we want to try a lot of Japanese candy so we bought like €18 worth of candy hahahaha we’ll review them online sometime XD probably somewhere next week. It was around 4:30 then and we decided to go back to the hotel to chill for a bit and look for dinner around the hotel.
We took the metro back and I’ve got to say the metro system here is so nice. They’re always on time and they have a really nice system to getting in and out of the metro. They actually have automatic fences around the whole railway as to prevent dangerous situations I guess. That’s something I think is very cool of Tokyo. We didn’t see that in Osaka but here they have it as I think it’s a lot busier. They’ll have gates which will automatically open and close and the metro stops exactly in front of these gates. Also at a lot of stations they’ll have spots on the floor where they point out where to wait for the doors and they’ll mostly be located just at each side so when the metro or train stops the people on it have time to first get off and then the people waiting can get on. I’ve been in London an there it’s actually always guessing where the metro will stop but here it’s really nicely regulated. It gives space and order through the blur of people.
Well for dinner we walked around the neighborhood of our hotel. Like I said before, we’re in a business district and in the evening it’s really calm in comparison being in one of the bigger entertainment districts in the evening. We had to do some searching before we found a nice place to have dinner at. It didn’t really help that I didn’t get a lot of input from Jo-anne and she kept saying ‘I don’t really mind anything’ :) girlie, I’m bad at making decisions too, help a girl out please. In the end we stopped at a place who served noodle soup. I got Wonton noodle soup with thin noodles and Jo-anne chose a noodle soup with roasted pork. The bowl we got was really big and I’m quite full now hahaha. So that’s what we did and discovered today.
All in all a pretty chill day. Less walking than yesterday and mostly enjoyed today’s weather and nature in Yoyogi park :)
For tomorrow we want to explore Ikebukuro~
Goodnight for now. Byebye!
- Yaru
Hi there, back with another update! How was your day today? Hope you all are still healthy and well. Today we took it a bit easier than yesterday. We woke up a little bit later, around 9AM. We had already decided to have breakfast in Shibuya instead of at the hotel and since the breakfast buffet already closes at 10AM we didn’t need to hurry today~ We had found a really nicely themed cafe called ‘Eggs ‘n stuff’ which was really close by the station we got off of.
The cafe was Hawaii themed and the waiters and waitresses were wearing those typical tropical shirts and aprons with those prints on it haha. We got a really nice place. We were seated on the second floor on the balcony outside. We were the only table there hahaha but the weather was so nice we really wanted to eat outside. There was a lot of different stuff to choose from! From pancakes & waffles to omelette plates and sandwiches with baked potatoes. We had a hard time choosing and decided on the spot that we would come back there again to try other stuff hahaha. For now Jo-anne chose the omelette plate of the day which consisted of, of course, omelette, mozzarella cheese, sausages and tomato sauce. I got a plate with 2 BLT sandwiches and baked potatoes. The BLT sandwiches were super tasty! They had poached eggs on top and had made them look like as if it were the top of the bun itself, super cute! We had a nice view over the small street they were located at and the sun shone brightly already. A pleasant breakfast~
After breakfast we decided to walk to Tower Records, which is if you remember a music store where they also sell a lot of K-pop albums, because one of the groups Jo-anne is a fan off released a album just 2 days ago and yesterday they were out of stock and it said that they would be restocked today, so we went on our way. Sadly when we arrived we discovered they were already gone again. Such a shame but maybe we’ll be able to get it at the end of our trip when the hype has died down a bit.
Well we walked around Shibuya quite a bit today too. There’s a lot to see and it’s also nice just walking around and entering shops here and there. Then we stumbled upon the famous Shibuya crossing. You most likely will have seen this crossing. It’s a famous depiction for Japan as it’s always bustling with hundreds of people there. On every corner it has a pedestrian crossing and one going diagonal. It probably wasn’t as busy as it normally would be but it was still pretty crowded in my opinion. It is connected with the exit of Shibuya’s main station thus a lot of people come out of the station and wait for the lights to jump on green. It’s pretty amazing to see such large crowds waiting on every street corner and then cross the street all at once. It’s like stepping on an ant colony and seeing every single ant disperse and going their own way. Very funny to observe too haha. There is a Starbucks located on the second floor of a department store which has perfect view of the Shibuya crossing and naturally we went there to take a break and observe people there.
It’s fun seeing the people cross. Some will walk a certain way and realize they didn’t need to go that way turning around and almost bumping into the person who was walking behind them. There was a man who had 2 small dogs who were apparently very loyal as they both didn’t wear a leash, but one dog decides to stop on the middle of the crosswalk and the owner didn’t notice it at first. So he was almost on the other side and checks behind him if the two dogs were still with him and sees that one of them is still sitting on the middle of the crossing. So he had to go back and pick it up because the dog refused to walk further XD. There are also people who last minute cross the street and need to do a small sprint to the other side. It is always guaranteed that not everyone is off the street when the lights jumps back to red XD You’ll always see at least 20+ people take a small sprint. So we sat there for a while taking a few pictures of course and just observing people.
I had seen that there was a park nearby, Yoyogi park, and since it was such a nice weather we wanted to visit it. We bought some snacks from the convenience store to snack at the park and walked to it! It was super busy and there were so many people pick nicking there. We didn’t bring a blanket but that would’ve been such a good idea. So we decided to go there once again when we would take a chill day. There were also a lot of people sporting there. We at down on the side of the road there and started snacking XD It was super relaxing and chill to be there. Yoyogi park was really pretty and big and there were already a few trees showing its first blossoms. I think it’s a really nice place for cherry blossom viewing and we will surely do that! A lot of people were also playing with frisbees and volleyballs and some were playing badminton. It was such a nice atmosphere and we got so excited that we actually bought a volleyball to use for the next time we’ll go there hahaha. It wasn’t that expensive so it’s okay~ We strolled around in the park and discovered a small dog park within, just a big rectangle with a fence around it so dogs could play without their leash on. It was so cute to see and it made me want to bring Jessie here :,) I miss our doggo. I think Jessie would’ve really liked it to be able to play with so many dogs. There were so many different dogs, we saw; Shiba Inu’s, Jack russels, poodles, pugs etc. and there were 2 like really really huge dogs. We think those were dobberman’s but one had spots like a cow and Jo-anne suddenly said ‘what’s a cow doing here?!’ And I lost it XD that was freaking funny. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Marmaduke’ but those were the 2 huge dogs walking around. I actually would never want such a bug dog, I couldn’t take proper care of it I’m afraid. I’m happy with our little Jessie :) She’s such a cutie.
When we were done strolling around we decided to go to a Mega Don Quijote which is like a cheap store with a lot of everyday stuff and important for us; a lot of cheap candy :D we want to try a lot of Japanese candy so we bought like €18 worth of candy hahahaha we’ll review them online sometime XD probably somewhere next week. It was around 4:30 then and we decided to go back to the hotel to chill for a bit and look for dinner around the hotel.
We took the metro back and I’ve got to say the metro system here is so nice. They’re always on time and they have a really nice system to getting in and out of the metro. They actually have automatic fences around the whole railway as to prevent dangerous situations I guess. That’s something I think is very cool of Tokyo. We didn’t see that in Osaka but here they have it as I think it’s a lot busier. They’ll have gates which will automatically open and close and the metro stops exactly in front of these gates. Also at a lot of stations they’ll have spots on the floor where they point out where to wait for the doors and they’ll mostly be located just at each side so when the metro or train stops the people on it have time to first get off and then the people waiting can get on. I’ve been in London an there it’s actually always guessing where the metro will stop but here it’s really nicely regulated. It gives space and order through the blur of people.
Well for dinner we walked around the neighborhood of our hotel. Like I said before, we’re in a business district and in the evening it’s really calm in comparison being in one of the bigger entertainment districts in the evening. We had to do some searching before we found a nice place to have dinner at. It didn’t really help that I didn’t get a lot of input from Jo-anne and she kept saying ‘I don’t really mind anything’ :) girlie, I’m bad at making decisions too, help a girl out please. In the end we stopped at a place who served noodle soup. I got Wonton noodle soup with thin noodles and Jo-anne chose a noodle soup with roasted pork. The bowl we got was really big and I’m quite full now hahaha. So that’s what we did and discovered today.
All in all a pretty chill day. Less walking than yesterday and mostly enjoyed today’s weather and nature in Yoyogi park :)
For tomorrow we want to explore Ikebukuro~
Goodnight for now. Byebye!
- Yaru
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