Tokyo, Day 10 – Last Time Shopping

This was our last day in Tokyo. As I already wrote before, we had planned our last minute shopping on this day. The day before we had written down the things we wanted to buy, so we knew exactly where to go. The places we needed to go were Akihabara, Shinjuku and Harajuku and we decided to go to Akiba first.
We woke up early and got dressed. The weather seemed more cold than the days before, so we decided to dress up a little warmer (as in: a cardigan and a sweater, but hey). We had breakfast downstairs, went to get our things and went on our way to the Otaku district!

The big orange clock! It’s funny, sometimes I see it in other people’s pictures too.
It makes me smile every time.
After sitting in the metro for a while, we got out at the station. Of course, since we had been there before, we knew where to go this time.

Colourful Electric Town! Ignore my… well, me. XD
We walked past all the colourful storefronts and I noticed there were so many things I hadn’t seen the first time in Akiba!
First, we went to Laox, the store with the big souvenirshop on of of the higher floors. We spent more time in Laox than we had thought, because they had so much wonderful things! It was like tourist-walhalla, haha! We browsed all the shelves and walls to pick some nice presents for family and friends. I don’t even remember all the things we bought: it was just too much!

Only a small selection of the keychains they had hanging.
I think we bought at least twenty of them!
For my group of friends I bought two different kinds of keychains (one with two tiny owls and one with a smiling cat), both with a 5 yen coin. This coin is supposed to bring you luck, which I really liked. ^^ For my mom we bought keychains with a Geisha-doll and a lantern with a little bell attached to it. For myself I bought a tiny ball-shaped kaleidoscope one. We also bought a cat-shaped mug, a cat dressed in a kimono, two cute sleeping cats on a red pillow (what’s with all the cats? We’re actually dog people, haha!), sushi-shaped erasers (so cute!), a pen and pencil with a macaron on it and a kokeshi doll for my mom. When I asked her before our trip what kind of souvenirs she liked, she showed me both a parasol and a kokeshi doll. We got both!

Laox, for all your touritsic needs.
After speaking to a staffmember (a man from a different country, I believe it was India? He was really nice) we left Laox again and walked on to Don Quijote, to buy my dad’s puzzle. Somehow we actually managed to find it again. You really have no idea how maze-like this store is!

The Tokyo puzzle! You can see a bit of what it looks like once it’s finished at the bottom.
When we left Don Quijote, we passed a hall with lots of games and machines to win prizes, including one that had alpaca plushies! We tried to win one, but unfortunetaly we weren’t very good at the game.
We decided to go back to our hotel to leave our bags there (the Laox one was really heavy) and to take a small break. We had spent more time in Akihabara than predicted, so a little rest wasn’t such a bad idea. We walked back to the station after buying a bottle of water from the same row of vending machines as a couple of days before.
We arrived back at our hotel around 1:00 pm, where we took an hour long break.
At 2:00 pm, we left the hotel again. We had decided to do Shinjuku next, but this time my dad decided to take another route, by walking past the robot-skyscraper. I had no idea how he wanted to walk, so I just followed him.

The robot skyscraper. I swear, every time we looked at it, we
imaged mechanical arms coming out of it or something.
We passed a lot of colourful vending machines and we also saw a zeppelin! The streets we crossed weren’t particularly interesting, except for one restaurant we passed where they sold ice cream cone-shaped pizzas called ‘Konos’. I had seen pictures of them on the internet, but they were even cooler in real life!
Suddenly, before I even realised it, we were standing on the crossing almost in front of Closet Child! I was really, and of course happily, suprised! I almost skipped up the stairs in the tiny hall.
Although not much had changed, I still enjoyed myself so much at Closet Child! I just loved that place so much and they had so many beautiful things! Had I been skinnier, I would have bought everything, seriously! I also managed (oh bad me) to snap some pictures inside this time!

Some of the many Angelic Pretty dresses!
After browsing everything again, I decided to try the white Milky-chan of the Fawn jumperskirt I had seen last time too. I had asked what was written on the lable, since it was highligthed with pink and the shop girl had shown me the waist ties had different buttons. Normally this would have bothered me, but somehow it didn’t now. So I tried the dress on and I really liked the look of it! I love the Milky-chan print and the white version is really cute! I think my dad liked it too. It had the matching head bow so I quickly decided to just buy it! I think I also bought accessories, but I can’t always match my purchases with the right day. XD Anyway, I bought another dress!
After buying I also saw a pretty Melty Chocolate head band and I doubted about buying it (it made me start panicking a little, really), but in the end my dad told me not to buy it and he was right.
We crossed the crossing and walked all the way to MaruiOne to visit Angelic Pretty again. I really wanted to buy the pink star-shaped bag I had seen and I was really hoping they’d still have it. I had seen it at first at Angelic Pretty in Laforet Harajuku, but I didn’t buy it back then because it had a little flaw (or at least, in my memory). We went up the escalators again and went straight to Angelic Pretty. This time, we didn’t browse all the shops again: we had a goal now. XD
I was really happy to see they still had the bag! I took it from the cabinet and held it, afraid someone might take it before me. I looked around for a little while and then went to the checkout. The shopgirl wrapped it prettily, put it in a bag (still not a big one, haha!) and walked me out of the store, where I thanked her. ^^

Another secretly taken picture. They had the Twinkle Witch set on display for Halloween!
I might be mistaken, because my memory abandoned me on this point, but I believe we went to Tower Records Shinjuku again. We did visit it on this day, but I’m not sure if it was right after MaruiOne. Let’s just say this is the right order, okay? ^^
So we went to Tower Records, where my dad bought the cds he wanted, including the one from the artist he didn’t know. I decided to buy two Sound Horizon cds after all. I decided to buy Seisen no Iberia, which has the song on it that made me fall in love with SH and Roman, my favourite album up until now.
After we left Tower Records, we eventually decided to have dinner early. It was a little late in the afternoon, but that gave us the chance to go to Harajuku in the evening. We didn’t want to go to bed too late, since the bus that would take us to the airport (we had already bought tickets for it at the hotel) would leave at 7:00 am.
We wanted to eat something we really liked, so we decided to go to the egg-restaurant again. We both loved it so much there, this would be a great goodbye-dinner!
We both decided to take the same as last time and we certainly didn’t regret it.

Seriously, if I was a good cook I’d make this every week!
After finishing our dinner we returned to our hotel, where we left our bags, put on some socks (it had become colder) and left again.
First we went to MyLord again, so I could buy a pair of Dolly Wink lashes (I chose No. 1, ‘Dolly Sweet’). I also bought a couple of glittery beads bracelets in different colours in a shop completely dedicated to this kind of beads. It was a really awesome shop!
We left MyLord again and crossed the street to enter Shinjuku Station via the entrance we had taken on the first day (and of course on other days). I had seen the cutest watch ever in a shop called ‘Sherry’ there. It has two macarons, cookies and whipped cream on it!

The row of adorable watches! Mine is on the far right. I swear I’ve seen a
picture of the one with the unicorn underneath it on Tumblr!
I doubted between the macarons and Eiffeltower, but I prefer buying Eiffeltower-related things in Paris. The only downside of the watch: the little wheel to change the time is right underneath the wristband, which makes it hard to turn. XD I love my watch nonetheless and my dad is really good at taking the band out anyway.
So, we could cross my watch off the list too. Then we proceeded to Harajuku!
When we arrived at Harajuku, the sky was completely dark. This meant we could see Harajuku by night too! I was so happy!

Takeshita-dori by night! I love this picture, it was so crowded.
When we walked into Takeshita-dori, I suddenly remembered the Purikura room, so I suggested to take some pictures. I chose the most pink and girly booth of all. XD

This wasn’t our exact booth, but we had the same kind.
Can it get any girlier? I don’t think so.
To be honest, Purikura was a lot harder than I thought! I had no idea what to do and what buttons to press, so I asked a staffmember to help us. He guided us a little (in broken English, of course) and then we could take pictures! The first one turned out especially funny, since my dad’s eyes were closed. But the rest of the pictures were really cool, our eyes were really enlarged! Then the decorating process started and we added everything we liked to the pictures while the clock was ticking. My dad was actually much better at it than I was! Suddenly I made a mistake, but I had no idea how to erase it. So I panicked and ran back to the staffmember before our time was up! It turned out that when the time stopped, we could actually keep on decorating! XD When we were finished, we got two sheets of pictures. I love them so much!
We went back up the stairs and walked on, when I saw the ManiaQshop was opened this time!

For all you ManiaQlovers!
I browsed the shop shortly, but I thought the prices were a bit too high after all, so I left again and we walked on to Closet Child.
CC Harajuku hadn’t changed much either. They still had the Memorial Cake OP, but I didn’t take it. I did browse the accessories cabinet and bought some accessories, including a Milky-chan of the Fawn necklace that matched the bangle I had bought before. I doubted about getting the other colour of the necklace too, but in the end I didn’t do it (thanks to my father again, haha).

Closet Child Harajuku by niiight~!
We continued our way and looked at the enlightened shops while we made our way to Laforet. Harajuku was really lovely by night. There were so many people and it was just really pleasantly crowded.
We arrived at Laforet and went straight on to Angelic Pretty. I looked around for a bit and ended up buying three pairs of socks: one in sax blue with pink bows on it, one in white with pink bows on it (initially I thought they were the same, but it turned out they were different after all, which I liked) and a plain lavender pair with lace. The shopgirl was lovely and I regretted to leave. We walked back to Harajuku Station via Omotesando. We decided to walk up the stairs of the bridge that went over the road to take some last pictures.

Bye bye Harajuku…
To be honest, I cried a little… Of course I wanted to go home to see my mom and brother and dogs again, but we just had such a great time! My dad was really sweet and hugged me. ^^ Then we walked back to the station.

Buying our last metrotickets. I actually bought extra ones just so I could keep them.
When we arrived at Shinjuku Station, we bought some black sesame aka peanutbutter ice cream before we went back to our hotel. The streets were so wonderful at night, sigh… We also bought some bread and rolls at Hokuo, for the next day.
We went back to our hotel, took some last pictures of it (like we hadn’t taken enough) and went upstairs. We decided to pack most of our things in advance, which turned out to be quite an adventure. Although we had an extra suitcase, stuffing a big, heavy coat, two dresses and lots of other things into it, combined with our clothes was still a challenge. But somehow we (or rather, my dad the packing genius) managed to pack everything! Then, after talking to my mom on Skype, we went to bed. The next day would be a travelling day and we needed our energy. I sighed while I realised this was our last night in Tokyo, Japan.