Random musings of an otaku

The group should be heading to Tokyo today. I didn’t receive a phone call from Sensei so I don’t know what time to expect them. I decided to head out and do something. I didn’t feel like spending the day shopping again so I wanted to head somewhere I haven’t been yet but wouldn’t be an all day ordeal.

I took a quick look at a site I have been using to find shops in all the new areas I have visited this trip. Ebisu seemed like a good choice. There wasn’t too much information about what was here so I did some exploring.

This is right outside the sky walk connected to the station.

Random pic down the street from the same spot.

Random flowers.

Smoking area filled to the brim of smokers.

Neat little resting area.

Cool looking building near the resting area.

Stumbled across the Yebisu Beer Museum.

Couple random pics from inside.

You can purchase some tickets to do some beer sampling. I don’t really care for Japanese beer so I didn’t bother.

Better picture of the resting area.

Farther picture trying to include the overhead cover.

Random pic of the main plaza area.

Another random pic from the plaza area.

Sapporo corporate offices.. I think.

Some pics of the side of the Sapporo building.

The park like area by Sapporo building is kind of cool.

Another random pic.

Interesting looking building.

Elementary school I came across.

More random pics.

A small shrine completely surrounded by all these tall buildings. I almost missed it.

Mmm… Japanese KFC. This is the red hot chicken stuff I’ve seen advertised here. This was not hot at all :(

After eating, I headed over to Shibuya. No pics because this was more of an informal visit. I wanted to find the Mandarake to get an idea of how much cash to take here when I come again. However, I couldn’t find it. Shibuya is a crazy place.

That’s it for now.

I’ve been knocking a lot of stuff off my list to visit. Today I decided to visit Ginza. I’ve never been here before so I figured I would shoot for the Apple Store and Sony building and see what else I stumble across.

Random pics of the first intersection I came across after leaving Yurakacho station.

Walking towards the main road in Ginza.

So many high profile shops here.

A pic of the Sony building. Too lazy to rotate it.

Found an interesting shop window.

Sapporo Beer Hall. The oldest one in Japan. I didn’t expect I would come across it.

Look at da cute dog sign!

Hakuhinkan Toy Park. This place was awesome. Some of the toys I didn’t really care for but there was some cool stuff in there.

I swung back around to eat lunch at the Sapporo Beer Hall. The gothic style patterns inside were cool. Here is a mural at the back of the hall. This place was also pretty expensive to eat at :(

Couple random pics.

Zomg.. Apple Store. Hi Hal.

Found this cool Windurstian ring from FFXI at the store.

I walked back to the station after a little bit more wondering. I stopped by the HMV store near the station. Lot’s of CD’s and DVD’s here. I may have to swing back by and hit up the sale they are having.

I started off the day trying to find a place to wash my clothes. I didn’t want to pay the exorbitant amount per item at my hotel. A guy at Guest Relations told me there was a coin laundry nearby the next train station. I looked at him puzzled because there are several lines that go through JR Shinagawa. I was like which one was it >.> He left and came back a few minutes later pointing it out on a map.

I went off on my merry way to get my clothes and figure out how to get there. I realized that it wasn’t that far at all and not even worth riding a train to get to the next station. By the time I got to the train, I could have walked there.

I decided to stop by McDonald’s to enjoy breakfast first before I went off. I saw they had something called the Mega Muffin which I don’t think is available in the states. Here is a pic. This thing is massive lol.

I noticed the trash receptacle was a bit more complicated than the ones back at home :P

After eating, I started walking to the coin laundry place.

Along the way, I found this funny curry restaurant under the train tracks.

I snapped a few more pics along the way.

Here we are at my destination. Nice little coin laundry place.

It was going to take 40 minutes for the wash cycle to finish. I figured I should stroll around a bit until it was done.

Ahoy! Thar be a whale!

More random pics

After I finished getting the clothes washed, I headed back to the hotel.

There is two train tracks that cross the road which should be in a picture above. On my way back, 4 trains decided to cross one after the other, two on each side. It was fun waiting for them.

7-11!

Picked up a snack at the 7-11. Green tea flavored diet coke and melon pan!

After snack time, I made my way to Shinjuku to visit the Square Enix Store. I didn’t take many pics along the way because I was trying to find this store. Apparently, it’s difficult to find. I almost passed it. After crossing the street from Shinjuku’s south exit, just stay on that part of the sidewalk all the way and you will eventually reach it.

Square Enix Store was dangerous. I spent so much money :( I had a problem with one of my credit cards because if I sneeze in the wrong direction, they like to lock my credit card -.-

I also saw some footage from upcoming games. Apparently, not all of them are available to the public yet. I saw some footage from the new Kingdom Hearts PSP game Birth by Sleep, Versus XIII, and a handful of other games. Birth by Sleep looks cool.

By the way, this store is awesome. They have lot’s of cool crap to look at. I may have to swing by again to pick up a few more cd’s before I go.

Enough rambling about how awesome that place is. On my way back, I snapped a few pics of all the pretty, tall buildings. I also stumbled upon a Gamers branch here and dropped more money :(

That is one busy crosswalk to the station. Look at all the people.

It was running a bit late and I figured after dropping almost 600 bucks, I should probably stop for the day. I wrestled some grub at the usual place. I figured I should diversify my diet a little so I added some fruit to the mix and got some cool orange juice (no pun intended).

That’s it for today. Until next time…