Shopping & Eating, Tokyo Style

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| 08-May-2014 |  After “fighting” with the blog upload until midnight last night (don’t try to do this half asleep!), I was happy with the late start this morning.  We rolled out of the apartment at about 8am and headed to a nearby food court where we’d seen some good looking pastry yesterday.  We may have sampled more than we needed, but we’ll be on the go all day.

P1000794The shops in our first destination, Shibuya, wouldn’t open until 10am so we used the time to explore the Ameyoko Shopping Arcade. It’s a mess of winding alley-like streets covering several city blocks adjacent to Ueno Park. Part street market, part flea market, part fish market, and a little sketch, it was just waking up. And by sketch, I don’t mean that in the American “I might get shanked” kind of way; more in the “how on earth did this hodgepodge evolve” kind of way. Knock-off stalls, men-only DVD lounges, gambling joints, some upscale retail, gaming arcades and 5-seat eateries; we’re heading back tonight to check it out in its full neon splendor.

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We eventually hopped the Ginza subway line to its final stop: Shibuya; this was the start of today’s shopping adventure.  We hit Tower Records (yes, *the* Tower Records!) and an amazing gift/housewares/stationary store called Loft.

From Shibuya we headed north back to Harajuku to hit Big Love Records which, in addition to being a record store is also a label… and serves beer!  We took a break for lunch at a random location – a small Airstream trailer on a platform about 4 steps up from a pedestrian-only street off Omote-sando where we walked yesterday. Lovely spot with excellent burgers. From there we continued on to Shinjuku for Disc Union, a huge multi-location indie record/CD store. Laden with treasures we took the subway back to Ueno.

For an enormous city, getting around has been reasonable – not overwhelming at all. We had a bit of confusion with subway transfer on the way back to Ueno: there are actually two separate subway systems operating in Tokyo. Yes, seriously. Anyway, our tickets were rejected at the transfer point and the attendant quickly sorted it out, helped us get the correct tickets and sent us on our way.

Picked up fresh sushi boxes and a ham sandwich from Matsuzakaya, a nearby department store; beer from the convenience store and headed back to the apartment for a break before heading back out into the neon-emblazed evening for people-watching.

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Breakfast pastry.

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Some of the haul from Loft, an absolute mecca of stationary, home goods and gifts. I could have spent hours there but I used the full hour I had  to pick up some lovely stationary and textile gifts.  I absolutely love finding that perfect something for friends.P1000818

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The aforementioned Airstream and some very, very tasty burgers. And you know Pleep knows his way around a burger. And beer.

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The vinyl haul from Big Love (also a label) and Disc Union. All Japanese bands or distributed on Japanese labels.  Should make for good “Life in the Vinyl Lane” fodder in the coming weeks.
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Shibuya crossing – if you’ve seen the movie Lost in Translation, this looks familiar … except in daylight.  There is advertising flashing across the buildings and it even blasts audio at you. Very odd.

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The basement of Matsuzakaya is home to gourmet bakery, sweets, fish and deli counters with a dizzying array of pre-packaged meals, bento boxes and other takeaway meals.Jeff and Norberto selected two bento boxes with a variety of nigiri-style sushi and beer from local brewer Kirin.  I had a ham sandwich – it was delicious but not particularly photo-worthy.

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Our dinner view, however, is definitely photo-worthy!!
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Ameyoko Shopping Arcade at night.

Oyasuminasai! (Good night!)