day 55! takadanobaba, ikebukuro

So far, I haven't done anything useful with any of my "free" days, so I resolved to spend at least one day making a difference in someone's life. That's right..shopping!! I decided to go back to Ikebukuro, to Sunshine City where Kurt and I saw that fashion show. I somehow remember the stores being generally more affordable, and Kurt and I didn't get much of a chance to shop around due to time constraints, and spending too much time gawking at the fashion show.

Snapped this photo across from Takadanobaba station. I noticed this mural way back when we first got here (hard to miss it, really), but hadn't taken a picture up until now. It's a really awesome mural, I think all of the characters are from Astro Boy. :) I'm not sure what ties Takadanobaba has to Astro Boy, but all of the street lamps here have pictures of Astro Boy characters under them as well. Kind of interesting flair.

Once I got to Ikebukuro station (it's only two stops from Takadanobaba), I wandered around a bit, trying to explore the neighborhood. Found an interesting so-called "garage" bar, which is just a bar in the basement of some building that has live music most days. Made a mental note of it, since why NOT get some free music while having drinks? :)

Found a 7-11 and went inside to see if they had a printer hooked up to the internet. Kurt and I had gone online to retrieve some of our purikura from the internet....some of the purikura allow you to go to a website and you can get a digital copy of one of the purikuras you took for free. But to get all of them, you have to pay a monthly fee (and have a Japanese phone). We were excited to just get the one though, and there was also an option to print them out! If you select the option it uploads the image to a database somewhere, and then you can go to any 7-11 with a printer hooked up to the internet, and get a print of that pic for 200yen. :) Not cheap, but was curious to see how it worked! So anyway mission was successful, got 2 prints of our purikura. B)

This sign caught my eye, "Girl's Game Shop"? What does that even mean. A whole store full of Nintendogs? hehe. The name of the shop, Stellar Wars, doesn't reveal much either. So I went upstairs to check it out. Turns out, it's pretty much what it sounds like...it's a game store (mostly PC games) but the subject matter of the games is more geared towards girls. Not as in cutesy stuff, or Barbie's Fun Day or something, but like pretty guys battling each other with their hair and weird Japan shit. :) You know the stuff! Also a lot of beautiful boy on beautiful boy sexy times. Regretfully there were signs posted everywhere about not taking pics, and lots of security cameras too, so I couldn't manage to get a good angle to take a pic of the place. :(

Sunshine City! This next part gets boring. I wander around, check out a few stores. It was surprisingly fast to find things that I wanted. Weird, cuz when I walked around with Kurt and just window shopped, I really wasn't feeling any of the current fashion trends! But I guess even though I don't like what's hot right now, they'll have other styles and older things on the racks still, and once I started browsing it went alright. :)


But seriously isn't that outfit that's hung up over there kind of weird?? Big orange shirt with a crazy long multi-layered skirt, and a lacy wraparound on top. So bizarre.

Shopping is thirsty work, so I went to a pearl milk tea shop (emboldened by the success of our last pmt no doubt) and got a "coffee chocolate milk". Not a milk tea, it's just milk. Erm. :/ Ok the drink itself was good I guess (but who could mess up choco milk?) but the pearls were just poo. :/ Utter poo. Not chewy, not squishy, no taste..........I can't live like this. T^T

Ok since I have nothing interesting to say about my shopping times, I thought I'd ask for fashion opinions from you guys. :) Took pics of a few things that are pretty popular right now, but that I'm somewhat undecided on (in general, not whether or not I would wear em).


FOR EXAMPLE. These straw hat things. If I saw them on the shelf I wouldn't think twice, they kind of look like old people's gardening hats don't they?? Even the paisley prints remind me of mothballs and golf clubs. But then you look at the sample pic they put up, with the cute girl wearing one of these hats, and it's actually pretty adorable! I dunno. Pretty sure I would never buy one but, on the other hand, when I see that pic I am somewhat reminded of cute little girls going to Sunday school or something. Thoughts??

Here's another. Ankle length socks with a lacy fringe at the top.

Actually this is probably a better pic of them, since this is how they look when worn. Girls seem to like to wear these with ankle-height brown boots (chunky brown heel), or inside high-heel mules (that's a type of shoe, not a donkey), or high-heel strappy sandal type shoes. And unlike the straw hats, this is EVERYWHERE, everyone seems to be wearing these. I do think it looks pretty cute on them, but I dunno! In theory I would think they were butt ugly. ESPECIALLY inside strappy sandals. Who wears socks inside sandals? :S I guess that just goes to show that there are no absolutes in fashion. Thoughts??

Ah. Stopped by this one store that had more "particular" clothes. I wouldn't go so far as to say cosplay, but as you can see from this dress, they definitely looks like maid outfits or something. Very Alice-in-Wonderland. And well, I love Alice in Wonderland so I had to check it out. But the sales girls here have an annoying habit of glomming onto you when you enter the store to try to sell you stuff. A lot of times, it is useful, since they show you other "features" an article of clothing might have that you wouldn't have known otherwise -- like the pair of boots I bought, you can unbutton certain buttons and fold the cuff higher or lower to make different length boots, awesome! -- but other than that it's just a nuisance, imo. :S That's another reason I came to Sunshine City, cuz it's a "cheaper" place maybe? And busier, so there's less of a chance of someone trying to help you shop.


In any case it was mostly true here, but this store, as soon as I started admiring a dress, a girl came up to me and started saying "oh, it's cute isn't it..." (no shit why else would I stop and look at it) "very frilly and so nice for the summer..." (boy they definitely hit a gold mine when they hired you didn't they). Ok so I'm just being mean, she was actually quite a nice girl, just SUPER awkward. Like I'd be looking at something and she'd pick it up off the rack, say a few things about it, and I'd be like "sou desune..." and then we'd stand there and smile at each other. Staring deep into each others eyes, smiling and nodding. !?!??! Get me outta here.


Part of the reason I hate the sales girl thing so much in Tokyo is that I don't have the conversational savvy to get them to eff off. I also can't respond to their comments well. (them: "This shirt is so <adjective I don't know> and <another one>! It would be perfect for a summer party, if you <gibberish> don't you think?" me: "....hai." -_-;;) Case in point, I couldn't get that girl's gaze to stop burning into my soul so I finally asked if I could try it on. And then she said someone was already in there so would I mind waiting? If only I'd said yes...... The other girl took maybe 20 minutes to finish trying shit on while another sales girl praised and beamed and encouraged her from the sidelines. I had to walk around their tiny store and pretend to keep being interested in their outfits while waiting to try on a dress that I didn't want. Well, I thought they were cute but I can hardly picture myself wearing that at home. :|


To make matters worse, "my" sales girl would not stop dogging my footsteps, and making remarks on the clothes I was fake-browsing. :p And before you know it, we are adding another outfit to my pile of things to try on. lol! It was getting ridiculous. I was actually contemplating making a run for it. We did have one "moment" though, where she was like "oh you like milk tea?" (indicating my cup) and I was like "oh yah I love it" and she was like "me too, I always go get some before coming work" and I was like "oh from that shop over there?" "yes" "teeheehee". 


And then back to staring deeply into each other's eyes.


Anyway it all ended eventually, I tried on the clothes, they looked terrible, she asked from outside how it was going, how was the size, and I said "I'm fine!!" and then she yanks open the curtains and I screeched (thank god I had clothes on) cuz while the dress was on, I didn't have a shirt to wear inside it so my bra was hanging out. AGH. One of my worst nightmares, random strangers seeing me naked in a fitting room. :S

Ok we need eye bleach to get that image out of everyone's head. Cute penguins!! :3


This was at a "home implements" store inside the mall, KIND of like a Target but everything is adorable. Can you guess what the penguins are for? They're...feet coolers! I think behind the little penguin head is an ice pack or something, you put them in the freezer, and at the end of the day if your feet hurt you can wrap the penguins around em. I would buy em for my mom cuz of awww but then I didn't cuz of cha-ching.

Awww sheeples! No further explanation needed.

I really liked these boxes. :) They're storage boxes? The top is a lid, it's a simple enough design. But how cute would it be to have a bunch of these in a kids room to sort toys or something? It would be a tiny village, with a cake shop and a flower shop and a bus and all....man. They have all the cute stuff in Japan. Americans don't know anything about cute X< 

Speaking of cute though, you haven't seen cute yet. oh. my. god. This shelf full of tiny bite sized plushies was the frickin cutest thing ever!! Look at all the different kinds of cows. X3

And baby boars!! And there were dolphins and octopuses and bunnies and so many more. I wanted all of them, but at $3 a pop for these tiny little things I just couldn't justify the cost. :( I did get a few as gifts though, stay tuned for the family photo!

More adorable little chachkis.

I ended up buying a few things there, and I thought it was cute, cuz they have these little styrofoam rolls at the cashier, and they tape them up around the handle of the bags. Since they know people will be buying larger things at their store, and the bags get heavy, they can protect their customers' hands from getting cut by the bag. It's little things like that...little bits of thoughtfulness that make the Japanese hospitality industry the best in the world (imo). :)

On my way out of Sunshine City, passed a Burger King (that same branch was there 4 years ago, it used to be the only BK in Tokyo that I knew of but now I do see them here and there) and had to take a pic of this weird snack. I think it's French toast + ice cream?? Hehe. So even though it's the same company, fast food places always do add their own little cultural flair I guess. :)

Ikebukuro is a pretty big station, here are some large department stores that popped up around it. Both Seibu and Parco are pretty big companies that own many department stores. :) Didn't get a chance to look in them cuz I'd already spent too much $$ (at least I didn't buy more shores) but maybe next time.

A quick people watching video near an entrance of Ikebukuro station.

Went back to Takadanobaba and since it was still early, went to get my daily honey latte at Excelsior. Started reading A Thousand Splendid Suns, well, re-reading since I read it a long time ago. It's such a pleasant read...I must have stayed there an hour or two sipping my honey latte. :)

Coming out of the station it was close to 6 or 7 pm. I snapped this pic of all the Waseda students gathering in this circle area of the station turnaround, getting ready for another night of partying.

As I looped around the turnaround to go home, I noticed this girl kind of staring at me. Shrugged it off, kept going, but then I felt a hand tapping my shoulder. Turned around and there she was! I was like crap did I forget a bag or something? I mean, people in Tokyo don't usually approach other people ever, short of an emergency.

Took off my headphones, and she started saying how something about a hair salon and something something contest, something hair cut. Had to focus real hard, but eventually I got the gist of what she was saying: She's a hairstylist at a nearby salon, and she wants to enter some contest, and needs a person who would be willing to let her cut their hair for the contest. After the contest is done, she'd be happy to "reset" their hair, free of charge of course.

Well obviously I had a ton of questions, but it was hard for me to express them well. Like what is it that she needed me to do exactly?? She kept saying "moderu san" (model-san), so I was like oh god do they want me to catwalk somewhere? PASS. And if I agreed to it what sort of obligations would I have, exactly? Also when she'd stopped me she'd assumed I was Japanese, but it quickly became clear that it wasn't. So she asked how long I'd be around, and could I come back a month after the contest to get my hair re-styled back to its original form. And I said no, I would only be there a couple more weeks so it wouldn't be possible. :(

She showed me a pic of the hairstyle she wanted to do, and it looks kind of....like a brown helmet?? It's really stylish, like, it's even two different colors. Half of it is brown and half of it's blonde, and the bangs aren't even on both sides. It's pretty cool looking but it's REALLY short. I was a bit taken aback but of course really intrigued. But still confused about what it is she wanted me to do exactly. I dunno. It would be really interesting to see what the contest is like, and to be able to try a really different hairstyle free of charge, while maybe helping someone else out. What really made me hesitate though, was that I had JUST gotten my hair done. TWICE. And you guys remember about the cost. And how long it had all taken. And from the looks of the haircut, all of the permed parts would get cut off with this new style. I'm not sure my conscience could take that sort of a blow...(nor my wallet)...

She could tell I was hesitant, and kept saying that she would try her hardest to make it cute, and it definitely wouldn't look bad. I think she thought I was afraid of the extremity of the style? But it really really wasn't that, it really was just about the money and how it would be such a waste.... I tried to tell her as much. Anyway she said I didn't have to give her an answer right away, but could we exchange information, and take a few pictures of my hair? So I said sure, and she snapped a few shots.

I was feeling pretty paranoid cuz the whole thing was such a strange encounter. A random person stops you and wants to cut your hair for a contest? Chotto...it sounds a little too outrageous to be true. I kept looking out for possible cons. Like when taking pictures of my hair, she offered to hold my bag for me, and I was like oh nonono, you're just going to run off with it aren't you. -_- lol.

Well, in the end after we parted ways, I felt pretty weird about it. Kind of excited and curious?? A new opportunity discovered, doors opening, it's kind of fun. But a bit bittersweet because I couldn't shake the thought of, what if the whole thing is a trick. I still don't have a clear picture of what participating in this contest would entail. Hm. I don't know. And the perm?? How can I cut off a $100 perm? T^T After hours spent sitting in the chair, getting hooked up to that monstrosity of a machine. Overall though, I'm leaning towards doing it. I guess I just have..that sort of a brain. I don't know. I know I'll feel terrible about the wasted money, but I would feel way more terrible if I shut that door out of fear, and never got to see that alternative future. There's a good chance that the haircut will be way worse than now, since I'm getting used to this girly look, but it's worth the risk, I guess. :) 

In any case, there were still many questions left unanswered, and Meg-san said she would call me tomorrow to follow up, so for now I don't have to make a decision. :D Wooo procrastination.

Or so I debated back and forth to myself, while eating yakisoba that I bought at the supermarket, for dinner. Yum! I could eat deli foods for the rest of my stay and be content. :3

It's easy to be content when you're surrounded by this much cute. :3 Unfortunately most of these lil critters won't be staying with me....only the walrus is mine. 

So it was maybe a frivolous day, full of shopping, but it was nice. Headphones on, bopping to music, going from store to store trying on whatever I like....it was a good day. ^^ With a bit of a twist to the ending....