harajuku – The Engen's Japan Cultural Exhibition 2k18!

Today was to be the day for us to head to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan. We started our morning normal and collected all our things and headed out into the wild Japanese sea of people. Finding the best JR train route to Mitaka, we easily maneuvered our way to the new town, now becoming pros of the railways and subways. We took a beautiful walk along a canal until we arrived at the Studio Ghibli Museum, filled with anticipation.

Maker:0x4c,Date:2017-11-8,Ver:4,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar01,E-Y — Mitaka!

Once we got to the gate, we quickly noticed the lack of people and found a sign at the gate that stated they were closed on Tuesdays. Doh! Turns out we bought our tickets for Monday and well… we failed to update our itinerary…. Ahhhh!! Can’t have a trip with out some swift change of events.

We gathered our wits and headed back to our AirBnB where we started game planning how we were going to go see the Museum the next day. The new plan cost more than the original, but it included some places we did not have on our itinerary to visit…Whew crisis adverted!

Studio Ghibli museum from the outside… We’ll back for you tomorrow.

Since we were back in Shibuya earlier than expected we decided to go on a mission where we walked two miles one way to Harajuku for the Sailor Moon Makeup store and the One Piece Official store, it was a night of bright lights and massive landmark fashion department headquarters!

Tokyo is embracing the Akira / Olympic 2020 connection strongly

Plenty more pictures below from our urban adventure, next up is ACTUALLY going to the Studio Ghibli museum, along with a few other sites around the city such as Hotel Gajoen Tokyo and the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum!

Maker:0x4c,Date:2017-11-8,Ver:4,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar01,E-Y

Maker:0x4c,Date:2017-11-8,Ver:4,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar01,E-Y

Our first plan for a full day out of our base in Shibuya was to head to Akihabara (Akiba) and Harajuku for some shopping and site seeing. These districts are widely popular for their massive shopping centers, fashion and otaku culture bases. Since our JR rail pass was now expired, we had to pick up a Suica card which is a card you can preload money on and use for the JR East rails that run through Tokyo.

So on the agenda for the day was shopping!! Time to get rid of that yen before our journey back. We hopped on the Yamanote line that circles around all of Tokyo and stops at all the major hubs. Our first stop for the day was Akiba since it was on the other side of the loop from Shibuya. By the way, the Yamanote is a JR rail, which is covered by the JR pass and makes it super easy to get around Tokyo.

Not only is Akiba the most known for Otaku merchandise, it is also an electronic gadget mecca. Prior to us visiting Japan we had agreed a goal of ours was to purchase a nice camera, so we googled the area to filter the many electronic department stores to choose a place of purchase. Our search lead us to Yodobashi Akiba, a 9 story Colosseum of electronics. Each floor featured a different type of product, so we made our way to the 3rd floor for cameras.

Yodobashi-Akiba-02

After a few hours getting lost in the department store for a few hours we finally made our purchase on a Canon g9x Mark II, then it was time to get some grub.

Our big purchase, now to take even better pictures of our trip going forward!

After shopping and checking out the many maid cafe’s in Akiba it was time to head to our next destination the ever so fashionable Harajuku.

This kawaii gashapon clock sums up Harajuku

Harajuku is the modern day fashion capital of Japan. Lets just say, we felt very under dressed. Loads of people and shopping, we loved it so much we actually walked from Shibuya to Harajuku the next day (they are only a stop away on the Yamanote line).

After two hours of shopping the main streets of Harajuku, we went to Yoyogi park for an evening stroll before heading back to the rails for Shibuya. The park was absolutely stunning as the sun was setting.

Once we arrived back in Shibuya it was time for a traditional Sukiyaki meal. This was the most expensive meal of our trip and well worth it. A little intimidating for our uncultured taste buds, but I must say the raw egg is very complimentary to the meat!

Tummys full it was time for bed, Ghibili Museum to look forward to the next day…or so we thought. Stay tuned and enjoy the photo dump below of anime and fashion related experiences while visiting these two hubs of Tokyo! Thanks for stopping by!