Today was my first full day in Tokyo and I was excited. There was an entrance to the metro across the street from my hotel.
Most of the stores in Tokyo don’t open that early, it’s like 10 or 11. So my plan for the trip was to start each day at a shrine or park before hitting the other places. The first stop of the day was Nezu Shrine. Took the metro, got a tuna mayo onigiri for breakfast from 7-Eleven. The route I took was great because it wasn’t just walk down a main street and turn, I was walking through smaller streets where people actually lived.
Nezu Shrine was on my list, but it wasn’t a high priority. Right before I left, I found out they have an Azalea Festival each April, so it became a must do. The grounds and the shrine are incredibly beautiful. There’s lots of trees, and water, and a torii gate path.
The Azalea Festival opened at 9:30 and I got there about 8:45, so I was really early. It was great though since there weren’t a lot of people around and I was able to leisurely explore the entire area.
9:30 rolled around, so I headed to the Azalea Gardens. Even though the flowers weren’t at peak bloom, what was there was still really pretty.
There was still hardly anyone there, so I was able to walk around with ease. I heard it can get pretty busy, but it ended up being the perfect time to visit.
After getting my fill of azaleas, I headed to my next destination. Akihabara. That’s the nerd haven. Video games, anime, figures, electronics, Akihabara has long been home to those kinds of stores. It was still early in the trip, and I had a whole convention to go to still, so the plan was mainly do some window shopping.
Right outside of Akihabara Station was the Tamashii Nations store. I was tempted by some of their Star Wars figures, but I don’t have any of those figures and it would’ve been an expensive rabbit hole I got myself into. I did buy a couple of figure stands for 6-inch figures that have the Star Wars logo on the base and are exclusive to that store.
Another place I was excited to check out was Yodobashi Camera. This store is crazy. It’s kind of like a Best Buy on steroids. They’ve got almost everything. Computer parts, TVs, video games, toys, appliances, stationary, stereos, cameras
Let’s face it, stores in America are pretty sad now. Seeing the sheer variety of options reminded me of how stores used to be. Anybody could find something that interests them here and you could spend a lot of time just looking at everything. I found the toy section and bought a couple diecast cars before leaving.
I went to Yakiniku Like for lunch. This was the first place I found that had a large drink option, so I was happy to get a good-sized soda finally. I ordered a few meats and it was really good, they also give you free refills of rice, which I took advantage of.
After lunch, I made my way to a few different stores. Kotobukiya was neat to visit; I bought a cup there that’s one of my favorite purchases. Super Potato was really cramped and having to Google Translate all the spines to search for games was a time-consuming pain. Mandarake, Lashingbang, Jungle, Animate were fun to look around, but I didn’t end up buying anything. These stores are all vertical, so I was just going up and down stairs and it was starting to get to me.
I popped into Taito Game Station to check out a Japanese arcade. Played a couple games, Taiko no Tatsujin (a drumming game) and Wangan Midnight Battle (a racing game). I’m not good at claw machines, so I tried one, lost, and left.
The only store left on my list at this point was TamTam Hobby Shop. This was a really good store for diecast cars. They had a bunch of the Asian brands besides Tomy; PopRace, Hobby Japan, Mini GT, Tarmac Works, GCD. I bought a couple more cars here. Writing this now, I’m thinking “why was I so surprised at how many cars I had when I was packing?” It was getting close to the golden hour time, so I walked over to Ueno Park.
Lots of other people had the same idea. There’s a lot of Sakura trees there, so it’s a very popular spot.
It was a really pretty spot especially at this time of day so I can see why so many people were here.
The previous days had been a good amount of walking, and this day added a lot of stairs to the mix. I wanted to explore more of the park, but I was physically exhausted, and I just wanted to sit down and eat and rest for a bit. Marugame Seimen is an udon place I had on my list that was nearby, so I went there for dinner. I got it with some chicken and tempura shrimp, and it continued the good food experience. The broth, noodles, sitting, it really hit the spot.
I hit up another toy store, Yamashiroya, and the Hard Rock, for my keychain and shot glass and called it a night.
Day 6 looked great.