Tokyo Travelogue: Day 2 Harajuku & Shibuya

I'm on a ball really - here's Part 2 of Day 2 in Tokyo :D If you haven't read Part 1, click here. After our visit to Meiji Shrine, the four of us headed towards Harajuku - yes, the famous Takeshita Dori or Takeshita Street lined with everything under the sun! I don't remember how we got there because the bff was navigating but if everything fails, just ask a local for directions! It took us about 10 minutes to walk over from Meiji Shrine to Takeshita Dori where the main street of Harajuku lies.

Our first stop was Harajuku Cube to get our number tags to the Pom Pom Purin Cafe! I will leave the address to the cafe lower down in this entry.

Managed to get 4 number tags for the 1-1.20pm slot - just go up to the staff at the front of the queue for the tags.We reached the cafe area at around 11.30am and had to wait till 1pm to start queuing to get into the cafe.

Admittance to the cafe is based on the number tags so do come early because the Japanese are pretty kiasu in getting the number tags lol. Once the cafe runs out of tags, it means they have reached full capacity for the day!

Since we had time to kill, we explored Takeshita Dori by looking for the famous Angel Crepes!

Gindako is also available in Harajuku

This bright pink signboard is pretty hard to miss (yes, even among all the other shops' fancy signboards) so it'll be very easy to spot Angel Crepes even if it is located in a smaller alley and not along the main stretch of stores. Just keep a lookout while you're walking up and down the street.

The brother, bff and I bought a crepe each while my mother is anti dairy products so she didn't get to try this lol. Omg the amount of whipped cream in it was sooooooo fattening! And the crepes were pretty meh in my opinion. I prefer the crispy type that is sold in Bangkok with savoury flavours xD

The brother ordered a crepe without whipped cream and the staff gave him a 'wtf you serious' look lol! Because it means that the crepe will be pretty empty HAHAHA! Their crepes are pretty much 90% cream and 10% condiments. I highly suggest that you share this with friends because it can get quite jelak after awhile.

人山人海 O.O

We then got distracted by this Calbee store because the smells emitting from the store was just too strong to ignore haha #fatdieus

Ordered a Salt & Butter original chips to share with the bff while she picked up some omiyage as well from the store. The store is located along the main stretch.

And then it was time to queue for our entrance to Pom Pom Purin Cafe. Managed to get in after queuing for another 25 minutes. I'm pretty thankful that my brother didn't kill me for making me do this to him haha! He was more amused at the fact that women bother to queue up for such places (pfffft men).

Address

3F Cute Cube Harajuku, 1-7-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

東京都渋谷区神宮前 1-7-1, CUTE CUBE HARAJUKU 3 階

Truth be told, I am not a Pom Pom Purin fan but this was just too cute to be missed! Somehow everything is more kawaii when you're in Japan xD

The menu back in 2015 >_<

I just checked their website and their menu has actually grown to include a larger variety of food so..... I should totally go back again to try this

It was lunch time so everyone ordered a main each. The brother said he had to take a picture of with the food because never again in his life will he ever come back to eat such cute foods (F his future gf/wife's like lol) but I was all... but the food is shooooo cute *(#@&#*&@!_&_!*@&*!&@@&!_*(@!($&$&^

I had the curry rice and it tasted pretty nice actually. I expected it to taste poorly because that's how such character cafes are (anyone remember the old Hello Kitty cafe at Downtown East in the early 2000s that served food so hideously awful?) but hey, this is Japan so nothing can taste bad really. The curry taste wasn't overwhelming and the rice didn't have the tumeric smell (which I assumed was used to colour the rice).

The drink that the bff and I ordered because it was so blistering hot that day FOL just the usual soda with ice cream though #nvmcutecanliao

Japanese thoughtfulness - basket for you to place your belongings at each table

Ok enough Pom Pom Purin madness cuteness and off we went after filling our tummies with food.

The crowd grew even more omg. Anyway, we went to the large Daiso store to find some food items that my brother's friend wanted him to help bring back to Singapore and we just roamed the store to see what other special items the Japanese stores sold that weren't available in Singapore.

Whoa. We totally need this in the Singapore stores please haha! But in Korean/Chinese words thanks ^^

Last stop before we left Takeshita Street - Alta!

We came here for this really. Disney + Paula (& the bff) = TIME TO SPEND MONEHHHHHHHH!

Seriously, I died at the moment I walked up to the second floor to the Disney store lol. It is just so huge!! *inserts OMG face* And princess themed too!

Tsum Tsums are only available at Disney stores by the way. The people from Disney Japan are plain evil because you cannot get Tsum Tsum merchandise from the parks so they force you to come to their stores and spend even more money on top of the money you spend inside the theme parks HAHAHAHAH! #OkI甘愿

I really wanted to buy her back but my luggage was quite full already and I had to save space for the stuff from the parks T________T

Washi tape also Disney-fied - I bought 2 rolls of each design #fail

I walked out of the store empty handed because I knew we would pass by another Disney store in Shibuya and I didn't want to lug all the items. The bff did pick up this item from a random box lol. She was super lucky because she managed to get the Jasmine one which was her choice (Meiji Shrine worked here too lol).

Apple why you put the earphone jack at the bottom of the phone else I can buy one for my iPhone..... UGH!

Anyway, left Takeshita Dori after spending close to 3 hours here. Didn't buy any clothing items because nothing caught my eye and they were pretty pricey. Headed over to the Craftholic store (Jingu mae 3-23-6, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan) to have a look and bought a pouch for myself! I do not patronise Craftholic stores in Singapore because I find the range pretty small so I was surprised by how much more designs were available in the Japan outlets.

Then to an Adidas store because there were banners promoting adidas lined all along the main road. We took quite some time to locate this store because directions taken from online sources were bad. Anyway, managed to get there and we went crazy haha! #adidasfanalways

By the time we left the adidas store it was dark already and we just trudged on towards Shibuya. Yes, we had been walking non-stop and our feet were really dead by then. We even managed to walk towards a Burberry Blue Label store to buy a handbag for my mother and then to Tower Records in Shibuya to buy Japanese albums.

Time to grab some grub so Ichiran Ramen it was! Shibuya has a ton of food outlets to choose from (I spotted Genki sushi too!) but we really wanted to try Ichiran Ramen due to recommendations from friends in Singapore. Went to the outlet nearer to Loft because the other outlet in Shibuya had a crazy long queue to get in. The queue was much better at this outlet so we decided to join the queue there.

Address

Koyasuwan Building B1F 13-7 Udagawacho Shibuya-ku Tokyo-to 150-0042

You then order from the vending machine and customise your noodles however you like on that piece of paper that the staff will hand to you. Hold on to the paper + the tickets that you've ordered from the machine and hand them over to the staff only when you're seated at the booth.

Again Japanese thoughtful-ness!

He is single and available, anyone interested? XD

You get the hard boiled egg ahead together with a small sachet of salt

The ramen gets served directly to your seat at the booth and water is self-served from the tap that is available at each seat.

Best.ramen.ever.

I don't normally drink the soup when I order ramen because I find them pretty oily but I finished half a bowl of this ramen broth because it was soooooo yummy!

Found an A Pink pop-up cafe right in Shibuya #kpopeverywhere Took this to show my cousin who is a huge fan but I think I haven't sent this to him yet lol

Shibuya crossing! Didn't manage to people watch at the Starbucks nor see Hachiko (we did the next day actually haha) that night.

We called it a night at close to 10pm and took a metro back to our hotel on the Fukutoshin line. Thankfully there was a direct line back to Higashi-Shinjuku because we could barely walk by then due to the long distance we covered by foot that day.

And that's it for Day 2 in Tokyo! Will be back soon with the next instalment of my Tokyo trip.