On this fifth day of our journey some of the most important stages of the entire experience for this 2024 were concentrated. Let's talk about Shibuya, Harajuku And Shinjukuthree of the most famous and important neighborhoods of the Japanese metropolis.
The morning started right from the station brought under the limelight (also) by Person 5. Me and Sciascillo we queued up for a quick shot with the statue of Hachiko — and how could we miss it — and then wander down the main streets. Our goal was PARKthe shopping center that boasts inside Pokémon Center, CAPCOM Store and especially Nintendo Tokyo. The latter was the shop that entertained us for the longest time, although I would have preferred to find merchandise more suited to my strings that didn't cost a fortune. When you happen to go there, in addition to taking photos with the beautiful statues 1/1 of Mario, Link, Inkling and the others, don't forget to try the gashapon dispenser inside. The prizes are reproductions of parts of the controllers NES And Famicom to be used as a fidget toy, really well made and a must-have in every Nintendo fan's collection.
In the shop there are also many amiibo available, more or less rare, at very low prices and don't forget the credentials of your Nintendo Accountbecause at the checkout they will ask you to scan a QR to credit you with very useful gold points.
The ride was incredibly faster at the CAPCOM Storewhich had very little that was interesting (like the gloves of Ryu with sounds coming from the game), and the same can be said of the JUMP Store. As regards the Pokémon Center, inside it was possible to find different merchandise compared to the other points of sale and quite varied in terms of types.
A friend who lives in Japan joined us at the shopping center and then took us to have lunch with aomurice really excellent in a place in Shibuya that I absolutely recommend, Rakeru. After a walk back to the station we finally headed in the direction of the benetta Harajuku and his Takeshita Streetwhich I have been meaning to visit for ten years now.
This long avenue, an icon of Harajuku, is mainly dotted with fashion shops, but the ones that most attracted our attention were those with hundreds of gashapon distributors, along which we spent more than a few yen. The real surprise, however, came on the way back: hearing us speaking Italian a girl joined us and she started chatting with us, until we became friends. She has been living in Tokyo for about a month and she was able to advise us on some things about life in Japan as a non-turist.
We exchanged contacts and finally headed to Shinjuku, with quite a bit of delay. We had to take a look at Kabukichobut by then it was too late for many of the planned activities, as was the experience VR Of Sword Art Online which we decided to postpone to another time. Enchanted by the now famous advertisement of the three-dimensional kitten outside the station exit, we relived some of the most iconic places from the series Yakuzaand then enter the Kabukicho (Millennium) Tower and have fun with some UFO catchers with strangely negligible difficulty, which allowed me to grab the same backpacks as Gundam that I had tried in vain to fish days ago in Ikebukuro.
The evening ended with an excellent dinner based on yakiniku, i.e. meat cooked at the moment on a plate placed in the center of the table. We ate (really well) in an all-you-can-eat restaurant, even though it was really claustrophobic in terms of size, especially for a giant like myself. And once we got out we smelled miserably of meat, luckily we didn't encounter a pack of hungry dogs.
The next day we spent the whole day in the city of Yokohama. Guess why!
#Harajuku #exists
