#20260212

I don't know how "I'm going to take it easy on my first full day in Japan in case my body was wrecked by the day of travel" turned into "I'm gonna go to one of the most famously busy places in Tokyo" but uhhh here we are.

I woke up at 5:30am which, like, isn't great but it's only about an hour earlier than I usually wake up so I'll take it. I was extremely grateful that I packed some instant coffee because of course no cafe around me would be open that early for a nice hot coffee. I guess I could have gone to the konbini buuut that's fine. That's why I brought my own! I was also, expectedly, very grateful to past me for getting orange juice and an egg sando for my first breakfast. My review of the egg sando is... oddly sweet? I couldn't tell if the sweetness was from the bread, or the mayo? It wasn't bad, just...sweeter than I was expecting egg salad to be. It still hit the spot!

I had a slow morning (obviously, because what are you going to do at 5:30am), but it meant I had time to iron a few things that had gotten crumpled in my suitcase and figure out what I wanted to do today. I'm really flying by the seat of my pants for the day-to-day of this trip, with just the loosest plans sketched out ahead of time. And by plans I mean bookmarked locations on Google maps, and some reels I've saved on Instagram, and a couple random travel blogs I have bookmarked. I'm okay with that though!

I had my eyes on a cafe that opened at 9 for my second breakfast, but took my time getting ready and doing my makeup so I ended up leaving around 10. Since I packed a capsule wardrobe with black, white, and baby pink as an accent, it meant that packing a condensed makeup bag was also really easy. No clowncore looks for this trip, unfortunately! But I was able to get a few things before I left that makes it an efficient makeup bag. Efficient? Effective?

Not sponsored by Colourpop (I wish).

I am also fully prepared to take outfit photos every day because I tried packing pieces that would make cute outfits in a bunch of different combos. I am leaning into girl cosplay, which I have been enjoying since starting to grow out my buzzcut! So here's the fit of the day (which you'll just have to imagine with my platform heeled chelsea boot Doc Martens:

And can we just take a moment to appreciate my hairstyle as enabled by my extremely talented hairdresser Mo? I am obsessed!

Anyway, after taking my time to get all dressed up I headed to Café Ecla for a french toast + coffee combo to fuel me for my morning.

The french toast was positively swimming in butter which was delicious if a bit rich. Nothing fancy about it but the simplicity worked! It was just under $10 for the combo. The menu had savoury toasts and smoothies as well, but I came in with a goal.

After Café Ecla, I began my slow wander east of Ōkubo. I walked through Toyama Park around Mount Hakone, which is not very high so the name perhaps sounds more grand than it is, however it was still nice to walk around. I can imagine it must be a very beautiful park once spring truly hits and the trees are all green! There were all these river paths that didn't have any water in them at the moment, but had a bunch of little bridges over them which must be quite pretty. I saw some nice photos from the fall, as well.

It was lovely and quiet in the park! Fairly empty, mostly some older folks out for a walk and the occasional group of preschool children all in matching hats with their caretakers.

After working my way through the park I continued westward to the Yayoi Kusama museum. Along the route I briefly detoured by the Ana-hachimangu shrine, since it was an the road anyway. I didn't go into the shrine and only really saw the first few buildings and statues. I took some pictures on my charmera (tiny digital camera), but I realized after getting home that the camera won't connect to the macbook I borrowed from Chloë! :( so I will have to wait until I'm home to post any pics from my charmera, since it also won't connect to my phone. I guess that makes it even more like a film camera...? I also brought my Papershoot (another small ditigal camera) but it was acting up. I replaced the batteries once I got back to the airbnb so hopefully that helps. In any case, slightly less photos from this morning. I did get one of some early blossoms, though!

Tickets for the museum were set for a specific entry time and I was about half an hour early by the time I got to the area, so I ended up just wandering around a bit through the small side streets and alleys west of the museum. It was just interesting seeing the different styles of houses and apartments, and all the little cars and trucks! I love how compact they are. It was a quiet area of the city too so I was mostly by myself.

When I got to the Yayoi Kusama museum, they explained that photographs weren't permitted on 2 (out of 4) floors, so I don't have much to show for my time there! It was a small but interesting museum overall. I didn't know much about Yayoi Kusama before this, beyond her iconic polka dot motifs and her mirror room installations (one of which was at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto for a while, so I did see it while I was living there). I did get to learn more about her art and her history, which was great! The first floor was dedicated to her early work exploring love, sexuality, and femininity through soft sculptures, a few paintings, and photographs/pamphlets/articles about her "happenings." I didn't know she called them that rather than "exhibitions" or "performances," but I really like happenings. I wish I could have photographed some of the soft sculptures, they were great! Some really interesting mixes of stuffed fabric phallic shapes with objects traditionally associated with "women of the home," like kitchen utensils, flowers, fruits, all painted silver or gold in big arrays. The second floor was more of her recent work, extremely large scale paintings in very vibrant colours with faces, eyes, figures, and shapes (of course dots!) composed in dizzying shapes. Or maybe I just found them dizzying after a lot of walking that morning. There was also a huge inflated figure(?) of a girl on a swing holding a bouquet of flowers. I'm talking, like, 12 feet tall at least, suspended in the air. She was also very polka dotted. The third floor was dedicated to one dark room containing a small, illuminated mirrored piece in the middle of the room. This one was very cool, also kind of mind-bending with the perspectives induced by the mirrors, especially in an otherwise pitch black room! I had to be very careful walking around it not to bump into the wall or trip.

Finally, the top floor had a reading section with a collection of books about Yayoi Kusama and her work, some of which I flipped through, and then a sculpture on the open-air rooftop of the building. I reeeally wanted to touch this one, there was something so inviting about it!

Altogether, it was an interesting museum that they managed to fit a lot into despite a relatively small (but tall) space. And of course, the elevator was also decked out in polka dots.

I don't think I necessarily would have sought this museum out if I wasn't staying only a half hour walk from it, but I'm really glad I went!

I had originally planned to get lunch at a place just across the road but wasn't hungry yet, and my legs/knees were a bit tired, so I ended up just walking back to my airbnb (another 1/2hr of walking after being out all morning was not the best solution to sore knees, but it was a short enough distance that transiting felt silly). I stopped by a grocery store once back in my neighbourhood to pick up some fruit and veggies to snack on since I fear I will be consuming a lot of pastries and carbs, and I gotta balance that out.

It being my first experience at that chain I did do a bit of a goof and try to pay the clerk directly but he pointed me to the machine and I clicked mostly the right buttons with my best guesses (I'm talking like a big machine with a screen that takes both cash or card, the 7-Eleven had them too. Pic from the internet of a similar one that the grocery store had:

I'm not accustomed to them yet but I am sure it won't take that many more tries. It's like a self checkout but the clerk still scans your item so it just handles the payment part? anyway).

By the time I got back to my airbnb (I saw a cat on my little street! It was too fast to take a picture though) it was around 1:30 and I was very much looking forward to stretching out for a bit. It's not that I don't walk at home, but I think my knees are still recovering from the 10hr flight and all the sitting in my travel day yesterday. I originally was going to go straight from the museum to lunch to Shibuya to bop around some stores, but I am glad I detoured home instead.

When I was feeling somewhat rested, I had nearly talked myself out of going to Shibuya, but then I bucked up and headed out. Again, I don't know why I thought it was wise to go to People Central at like 4:30... I was on a mission though. I had planned to go to Tower Records, since I learned it's a 10 floor music store with an entire floor dedicated to kpop, and other floors full of vinyl, jpop, vintage and used CDs, etc. I thought I might be able to find some old SHINee albums there, since I certainly haven't been able to find them in North America. I just want to get my hands on some of their first albums! Also, I heard that Stray Kids' Bang Chan's signature is in their section of the store. BUT WHEN I GOT THERE, THE KPOP FLOOR WAS CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS!!! The signs in the store claimed there was kpop on the jpop floor, but alas it was not. I did poke through some japanese citypop, and the anime soundtrack section and thought about getting the CD from Cowboy Bebop or Bocchi the Rock! but decided against it. I did see some kpop on the main floor on my way out but it was mostly new releases, and a lot from newer groups I don't know or groups I don't particularly care about. A bit of a bust!

After that I headed to the LINE FRIENDS store on the hunt for a BT21 plushie. I decided a while back that I want to collect all the kpop little characters designed by idols I like that are bunnies, but I still didn't have one of BTS' Jungkook's bunny character (he's called Kooky), despite BTS being the first in the whole game to design characters (and now it's a huge thing for like every group). I inevitably also found other little guys I wanted there.

This rate of acquiring trinkets is absolutely not sustainable for my whole 3 weeks and the size of luggage I have. But in my defense, the big one was a freebie!! The store was apparently having an event where if you spent some amount of money on BT21 items you got a free BT21 plushie. I have no idea what this is supposed to be though. It's Suga's character Shooky but like, why is he wearing a hood? Why does he have boots? Why doesn't he actually look like Shooky? I don't know but he's mine and I love him. The frog isn't a BT21 character, but I couldn't resist a frog.

I got jumpscared by Stray Kids' Felix's Tambourins ad on my way to the stationary store on my list:

But finding Loft (the stationary store) was easy. It was like 6 floors of home good, cosmetics, and stationary but I was actually only there in search of glue tape so that I could start junk journaling all my receipts and tickets and whatever while I'm here. I only went to the stationary floor and I was dazzled and awed by the amount of lovely things they had - so many stamps, stickers, journals, washi tapes, PENS, it was absolute heaven. I couldn't afford to get distracted though! I succeeded in getting only the glue tape and a littol gift for a friend (secret). After that it was time to navigate back home, and Shibuya had only gotten busier. And my knees (and now hips?) were getting sore again.

I haven't ever tracked my steps before this trip but I thought it would be fun, and apparently after I got home from Shibuya I was already 16,500 steps in. Which I've heard is like, a lot for the average day. I might need to take it down a notch if I don't want to be cane-bound for most of my trip. Sometimes I do forget that I am technically disabled. Until my illness disables me. Sooo we're gonna try working on that. My only plans after Shibuya were to rest and get dinner before meeting up with Jesse, so that's easy!

I headed to an abura soba place at the edge of my neighbourhood for dinner. I did shamelessly seek out abura soba places, not knowing anything about the dish, because Yunho from ATEEZ won't fucking stop talking about how good it is. The place I went had you order on a machine which printed a ticket that they gave to the kitchen, and despite their generous instructions something still went wrong and I ended up paying twice for an order and also the order that was given to me was not what I input... but they obviously refunded me for the 2nd bowl I did not want and after embarrassing myself by not being able to work a machine (for the second time today) I didn't inquire after the side dishes or drink I had intended to order. It was fine. The abura soba was good! Soba noodles with a soy sauce and some toppings (green onion, garlic, bamboo shoots, seaweed), seasoned to taste with vinegar and chilli oil. Soupless ramen! It was tasty and what I needed to energize me to stay up late.

Then I met Jesse (a friend from my Master's at SFU!) in Shinjuku after he finished work, obviously meeting up near the famous "3D" curved cat billboard (my video won't upload but it's this one):

We went to a bar at his recommendation - Torikizoku, a chain where every food and drink is ¥390 (El Furniture Warehouse vibes - those that know will know). We snacked on some cabbage seasoned with sesame oil and I had a beer, and then a "shandy gaff" because I loved the name.

It was just a beer mixed with ginger ale, but it was surprisingly refreshing! It was great to catch up with Jesse, who I hadn't seen in uhhh many years. I don't know exactly how long, but probably 3 years. At least 2. The vibes in Torikizoku were pretty good, it was busy but had a bunch of nice booths tucked away. There was a couple right next to us who were canoodling pretty obnoxiously, which happens I guess, though they were moderately easy to ignore.

We wrapped up around midnight and started the jaunt back towards Ōkubo, Jesse walking me part of the way since it was somewhat in the direction of his place. I'll see him again on Saturday for a little day trip!

By the time I got home and showered, and at the time of finishing this day's post, it is just after 1am. Suffice it to say I'm exhausted! All this after waking up so early?? And with a final step count of ~21,500 (which, again, I know nothing but sounds like a lot).