TacoCat’s Travels #64 (Japan 2.0): My First Claw Machine Win! 🎊

Hey Hive/Steemit!

If you didn't catch the last couple of posts, this series is about our trip to Tokyo (again) way back in August 2016, when we went there for a short international exchange program called Promoting Asian Leadership (PAL) with Keio University! The program was a week long, but we went there a few days ahead of time to explore and revisit our favourite places.

Last week, we finished up our day-long trip to Tokyo Disneyland! And we were fortunate enough to catch 2 parades! What a great end to magical day. 😊

2 August 2016. Tuesday.

We were pretty tired from our long day at Disneyland, so we slept in and just hung out in our apartment for quite a bit. By the time we left it was in the evening, but that was fine since we didn't want to walk around in the sweltering heat anyway.

When we got to the station, we noticed something a little different! The pink monkey mascot had shrunk!

This was him just 2 days ago:

And this was him today!

He looked so cute! :3 I would have loved to get a keychain or stamp of him or something. I wonder what his name is; I hope it's something as cute as he looks! 🙉

We didn't have time left in the day so we decided to head to a nearby station to walk around and get some dinner. And we ended up heading to Akihabara! Which I'm sure everyone knows is a buzzing shopping hub famed for its electronics retailers, and venues specializing in manga, anime, and video games.

When we arrived at the station, we decided to check out the department store (which I believe was Mitsukoshi) whose basement was connected to the station. The department stores' basements are always known as the food sections so we just took a gander around.

Coincidentally they were selling a lot of Snoopy-themed snacks and merchandise! I've always been a huge fan of Snoopy and the Peanuts comics ever since I started reading them in the newspapers when I was around 10 years old or so.

Turns out they were having an event with Snoopy for a couple weeks at the department store! What a happy coincidence!

We didn't end up buying anything even though the snacks looks really cute. They were pretty expensive, and I think even if I did buy something I wouldn't want to eat it anyway.

We were getting hungry so we went upstairs to street level and decided to take a walk to find some grub. And just as we were leaving the building, we saw this cute little doggo!

It was a small little pommie (aka pomeranian)! :3 And she was wearing a cute dress and doing tricks! I'm not sure why, but it was so cute I had to snap a photo real quick before she went away.

We crossed the road and looking back, I saw that the department store had a huge banner on the side of the building that was advertising the Snoopy event they organised!

I don't think I've ever seen a Snoopy event in Singapore, and I know that Snoopy is a much bigger thing in Japan for some reason, but I was so happy that he got recognition here. Japan even has a Snoopy museum (which we will be visiting soon)!

We decided to go off the beaten path down the street and look for a yakiniku place since I was in the mood for some meat. And while walking down a random street we spotted this beautiful mural!

I guess the restaurant must've specialised in Singaporean food because that's the national symbol of Singapore - the Merlion! The painted cityscape was really well done and the orchids (our national flower) surrounding it were really pretty too!

Singapore is a really small country and before Crazy Rich Asians came out I think nobody outside of Asia really knew about us. But it was such a cool thing to see on a random street in Tokyo we had to grab a photo with it:

I'm not sure if that restaurant and mural is still there to this day but it would be nice to go back and find it again!

After walking for a bit we managed to find a small little yakiniku place! And the best part was that it was completely empty!

I guess it might've been a little early for other people, but hey I'm not complaining.

We didn't really know what type of meat to get, so we just ordered their variety set which included 6 different types of meat. Then we could try them all and order another portion of whichever I liked best.

I can't remember which cuts were these, but I think they were all pretty good! Some were a bit tougher than others, but we still managed to finish the whole plate. It was a nice first dinner, and was made even better because we practically had the whole restaurant to ourselves!

This was the shop btw.

Anyway, after that we made our way to the main part of Akihabara, and decided to stop for some dessert!

Beard Papa had a special cold Shiro cream puff for summertime, so we decided to try it, along with another special vanilla glazed cookie cream puff and our regular cookie cream puff.

So this was our usual order:

And the specials had to be put in a bag along with a cool pack:

We tried the vanilla glazed cookie cream puff, which was just a sweeter version of the regular one:

And finally, the Shiro cream puff, which was kinda like mochi:

After all those sweet treats, we headed to the arcade, where I tried my hand at the Pokken arcade game:

And we found a neko atsume claw machine, which we decided to try!

I really like neko atsume and all the kitties are so cute! :3 And guess who won on the second try!

We hung around for an hour and a half playing various games and taking some photos at purikura (aka Japanese photo booth). And ended our day with gyudon for supper!

A perfectly yummy meal after a chill, fun day. That's really what holidays are about.

Thanks so much for reading!

To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!

Check out my previous post in this series!

TacoCat’s Travels #63 (Japan 2.0): Parading around Disneyland! 🏰

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