Adventures of Nom Nom: Tokyo Day 3: Tokyo Tech & Shibuya

Tokyo day 3 marks the official start of Boyfriend's collaboration meetings. While exploring the area around our hotel, I found a cute little bakery to grab breakfast at. Japanese pan-ya are influenced by french baking but twisted with Japanese and modern ingredients. They serve everything from coffee, tea, traditional french rolls, pizza biscuits, hot dogs in croissant, and Japanese azuki bean stuffed mochi. Plus it's fast and easy. Just take a tray and pair of tongs, pick what you want, bring it to the counter and pay.

Nom nom

My Ginger honey tea, azuki roll, and mochi... to go

Boyfriend and his half finished cinnamon sugar croissant

Yum!

After breakfast, we met up with the collaboration members and took the train to Tokyo Tech. The University was only a few stations away from our hotel and only a block from the Ookayama station. Funny enough, Boyfriend's friend, Evan, asked how to pronounce the long Os in Japanese (you just extend the pronunciation) and Ookayama had 3 Os at the beginning. Hee hee.

Entrance to the building for meeting

Once I found my way to the university, building and meeting room that we were to rendezvous I headed to Shibuya for some marathon shopping.

Since we got an early start, I managed to arrive in Shibuya before the stores opened at 10 am. I heard that one of the perfect spots to people watch is the Starbucks overlooking the Shibuya crossing. The coffee shop is literally right above the intersection. It was still morning and although I'm not the biggest coffee fan, this Starbucks only sells tall-sized coffees due to the prime real estate. It was fun to try to decipher the Katakana characters to choose the flavor I wanted.

Car traffic

Light traffic of morning commuters in Shibuya crossing

My soy latte

While I was walking over to the department store, I did some exploring and more people watching. Low and behold right across the street from the shopping/ eating area, a line waiting to get into the Pachinko place. I didn't go, thanks to my previous experience which can be summed up into two words: sensory overload. All the noise and bright lights and smoke is like Las Vegas to the 10th degree. No thanks, I'll focus on the shopping.

Pachinko!

I started shopping at 10:15 am sharp at Shibuya 109, a 10-story monster of a department store. I had my coffee in me and I was ready to take the Tokyo shopping experience by the horns. Little did I know what was in store for me.

First of all, the department stores in Tokyo are insane. Instead of having one floor for women's clothing, another for shoes and another for men's clothing, each floor hosts around 10 mini boutiques specializing in a certain aesthetic or type of merchandise. Imagine a mall that's 10 stories and full of 12 foot by 12 foot boutiques without doors. Now add loud pumping (mostly American) club music. You got yourself a good time.

An all pink boutique in Shibuya 109

Secondly, the sales people are very passive. When I enter a store in the US, I usually encounter sales person in my face with a greeting, an explanation of the current promotions and said sales person constantly asking if I'm ok, if I need help, if I would like a fitting room and giving suggestions. In Tokyo, they just announce "Irashaimasei!", roughly meaning "Welcome" in their teeny tiny mouse voices. Then they just announce the current sales openly to anyone who is listening. No eye contact, no direct conversation, just what I came to interpret as "50% off!" There were even some stores with people shouting sales through cones and turning brightly colored signs, in the department store!

Third, I am too big for Japan. That's it, there's not much else to it. Japanese clothes are designed for young, hip, fashionable Japanese women. Loosely that translates into a size 2 in America. After some Goldie-Locks style research I discovered I'm a 23cm-23.5cm in shoes, a M/L in stockings and a "L" in Japan. Quite difficult considering most things are "XS" or "S."

I spotted one of those crazy cute dressed up doll girls

After several hours, I managed to find a few pieces that suit my body and my wallet. I stopped at a Don Quijote for a quick musubi lunch and headed back to the hotel to prep for our dinner plans.

The Atre department store in Tokyo is a train station based chain that is located in multiple stations. In this department store above the Oimachi train station was cute and comfortable and not as crazy of a shopping experience compared to Shibuya 109. You could even get your nails done there. Seriously, they have a nail place on every floor. It was funny to see all the Disney and Hawaii themed merchandise, since I expected everything to be Sanrio. Maybe there's a copyright issue, I don't know.

The aisles in Atre

Ho brah!

I wish I would've bought some of their incredibly adorable jewelry from the shops. However, I didn't purchase anything because everything was so dainty and delicate that I was afraid to break something. Bull in a china shop. Plus, the chains seemed a little small and I was worried that what are meant to be necklaces appeared to be chokers on me.

While walking around, I noticed how cute the Japanese advertisements were. Everything is cartoons or animals. Kawaii!

When we went to one of the many 7-Elevens in Tokyo, weird, we discovered another experience. It was like a drug store on crack.

Japanese eye creasers

I also went to the grocery store at the foot of our hotel. So many good-looking foods. I wanted to buy them all, especially the meats. Delish! Too bad our hotel didn't have a kitchen.

Salads that made me drool

I spent about an hour in the hotel room to take a shower and goof off on my Kindle when I looked at the clock and it was almost time to leave for Tokyo Tech. Oh no! I wasn't dressed nor did I have my shoes or makeup on. In my head I was to become one of those tragic cases of running to the train only to be left waiting at the station for the next shop. I rushed and luckily caught an express train to Ookayama and made it to campus 20 minutes before they were going to head out to dinner. Phew.

For our collaboration meeting dinner, we walked down a small food area near Tokyo Tech to a beautiful restaurant where you take off your shoes and sit in one of those sunken tables. Boyfriend was concerned about how satisfied he would be after a meal that cost roughly $50, I'm assuming he was thinking about the possibilities of high price tag and small plates. We actually ate more than our full and had a fantastic time. Silly enough, my favorite part was the presentation, so Japanese!