Tokyo trip part 1: food and shopping

I arrived well and save after my 13-days Tokyo trip! Rick and I spontaneously booked our vacation a month before we were heading to Japan. It was our second time visiting that beautiful country, but then we didn’t have a lot of time to discover Tokyo. So that’s why we decided to stay in Tokyo only during our vacation to see and do everything we couldn’t the first time! Because we have seen a lot already, we were focused on finding great places to eat and shop!

In 2020 the Olympics will be hosted in Japan! You can already see a lot of advertisement everywhere for this event and they do a lot of constructions now to make Japan more appealing for all the people who will come to see the sports events. We considered to visit Japan in 2020 but it will be probably very expensive when you go around that time of the year, that’s why we went now.

The famous Shibuya Crossing: more than a thousand people will cross this street on busy hours. Now it doesn’t look very impressive, but wait until you get there around 8PM: people and tourists are waiting for that light to turn green. The best view is to get across the street and sit in the Starbucks, they have this beautiful view from the second floor on this crossing street.

I’ve already talked about Ichiran in my previous Japan trip travel blog, but this never gets old. I love the whole concept: customize your own ramen noodles and it in your private cubicle to experience the taste and focus on the food. You can find Ichiran everywhere in different areas, be prepared for a long line when you visit the place.

Fluffy pancakes are a hot thing in Japan. When you hear fluffy, be prepared for real fluffynesss and long waiting. These pancakes take a lot of time to be made, that’s why they are so fluffy. They are steamed on a hot plate, so if you are hungry better get a small snack before you order your pancake. Rick found this place which is located in Harajuku named Rainbow Pancakes.

For my trip I collaborated with Gaston Luga to show you that traveling with their backpack can be easy and also pretty! This Classic backpack in the shade Black/Brown was something I picked for Rick to use as his hand luggage and for the days we went outside. You can use my non affiliate code PARLOUR15 to receive 15% off on all their items!

When traveling I like to pack efficient, so that means products I can use for multiple things. The Charlotte Tilbury Glowgasm is one of them: you use use it as a highlighter, blush and bronzer. Not only for the face but also as an eyeshadow! Read here my review about the Glowgasm Palette.

A place we didn’t visit the last them we were in Japan was Odaiba: a place nearby the ocean that is filled with lots of attractions, indoor shoppingmalls and even an indoor entertainment hall. We stayed there all day shopping, playing in the game hall and they had this famous museum that is perfect when you want to take instagrammable pictures.

Teamlab Borderless is a light museum held in the MORI building Digital Art Museum in Odaiba. When entering the museum you have different rooms with light shows, interactive light rooms and perfect corners to take great pictures. I thought it was such a beautiful place but Rick had other thoughts about it (he sometimes doesn’t understand art). When visiting this museum, make sure to bring a camera with you!

At one of the Odaiba shopping malls they had this floor with ramen places that won awards or have a special dish. I don’t know the name of the place but it was pretty crowded here (and then you know they serve good food).

My friend Dieuly recommenced this all you can eat hotpot place (shabu shabu is the japanese name for hotpot) named Nabezo. You pay around 2600 yen (aprox 22 euros) for each person and you can get unlimited veggies, meat, drinks and desserts! They have many locations but we visited the one in Shinjuku.

Nakano Broadway is the place for all anime and manga lovers. It is an indoor shopping mall with a variety of different shops in there: from hentai sections to bookstores and crazy cat bags. It is 40 minutes away from Tokyo but very easy to reach with the subway.

On this rainy day we planned to visit the National Museum of Western Art located in Ueno Park. This park has everything: a few museums, baseball fields and even a zoo! Entree for their permanent collection was about 4 euros, but they also had a special exhibition with Monet paintings which had an extra fee of 1600 yen.

Gotta catch them all! Pokemon Store is a must see when you are in Tokyo. Their biggest store is located in the Sunshine City shopping mall but they also have a few locations which offers limited edition items like Tokyo Station (they have this Pikachu dressed as a train conductor).

When you go to your local supermarket, they might will not offer very special things. Here in Japan their convenient store has literally everything, but you can find also some great gems! Like matcha ice creams, special drinks or like this instant noodle that is created by a restaurant with a Michelin star! This one is available at 7-Eleven.

When in Asia you see many women covered against the sun, most of the time they don’t want to get tanned or get in touch with the UV rays. You see a lot of elderly women walking around with these special sleeves.

Rick’s favorite place to eat was this grill place where you can grill your own meat on this cute mini hot plate. It is so fun and you can depend it you want it to be rare or medium yourself. This place Gyukatsu Motomura is a must visit in Shinjuku, so waiting lines of 30 minute are normal here.

Benefit Cucumber.

The fish market is a great place to get fresh fish of the restaurants there! It is always busy there so if you want to have the best fish, come early.

This beautiful view from the Godzilla building in Shinjuku.

Baseball is a very popular sport in Japan. For only 2400 yen you can visit one of the games and receive a replica sport shirt. We visited the Giants vs Dragons game and we had an amazing view!

After the game we got some Shake Shack! I love their fries so much and they milkshakes, they had this limited edition Japan only Black Sesam milkshake and it was so good.

Protection is always needed when going outside, especially in Asia. Even on cloudy days it can be very dangerous to go outside without protection. I always apply sunscreen on my face but sometimes I do forget my arms and legs. Luckily I still had this Biodermal sunscreen in my bag from the baseball game so I could protect my arms. It is actually for the face but it work just great on the body.

When staying in Japan, the cheapest option is an Airbnb. The first time we went to Japan we had some great rooms from Airbnb but this time we picked a hotel to stay. Our first hotel was from APA which has many hotels in Tokyo and is more like a budget hotel with super small rooms (aprox 17m2). The last two nights we stayed at this super luxurious hotel named Niwa was was located nearby Suidobashi subway station.

I received some cute travel sizes from Molton Brown to bring with me on this amazing trip. I took two of their bottles with me and you really only need a small amount to create a beautiful foam on your body. They smell absolutely amazing!

One day I asked Rick if he could look for a place to have breakfast, and he picked this place in Akihabara which was very popular. I didn’t expect this for breakfast but it was surely fun to eat this at 10am!

Gashapon is very popular: for 100/300yen you will get a small surprise! The reason why they are so popular is that they offer such a great variety of items: hello kitty chain key, Naruto doll, a hat for you cat or even a cute ball.

My friend Pris recommend me this place because her boyfriend loves it: it is Rokurinsha Tokyo Ramen Street. When visiting this place you will always find a line infront of the store that started around the corner. Tsukemen is their famous dish: noodles and soup apart. Grab your noodles and dip them in the soup. So good and the taste is to special!

Animal cafes are everywhere in Japan. The most craziest animal cafe I’ve seen was probable the owl or the hedgehog cafe. I have some mixed feelings about these animal cafes because you never know how the animals are treated by the staff and what their conditions are. Most of the cafe visitors are tourists that are there just for fun and to spend their time there. My first visit in Japan we went to a cat cafe and hedgehog, this time we didn’t visit them.

Heading home in this super comfy Zara suit that I used many times during my Tokyo trip (as you can see in my other pictures). The suitcase was gifted to me by Douglas Nederland and wearing my comfy Isabel Marant sneakers. Traveling in style and comfort!

I hope you enjoyed my Tokyo travel blog, I do have a part 2 coming up about all the bubble tea I had there. Somehow bubble tea is such a popular drink there, and while we walked down the streets we saw many bubble tea stores still being in constructions. Thats why I will dedicate a full blog about this special and favorite drink of mine.

Do you have plans to visit Japan one day?