Today we hit up Shinjuku. Ryan's about had it with me on shopping and has made the executive decision not to go to Kyoto and Osaka. We'll have to come in the spring or fall some other time as he really can't take looking at more Japanese shrines, temples, castles, and pretty gardens. He wants to do stuff, and no, feeding deer and monkey's don't count
He's also vetoed the Onsen as being naked with a bunch of Japanese men seems to be out as well.
Today's schedule consisted of:
Getting lost in downtown Shinjuku trying to find the Nuskin Offices at the I Land Tower
Finding Ryan's favorite bakery and trying some lemon bars, a banana pastry, and a blueberry puff. Surprisingly even I ate the banana pastry.
Heading up to the Tokyo Metro Government Building to get the big view of Tokyo
Buying a coca cola flavored Hi-Chew. Ryan said no on buying the Ramune (kinda a bumble gum tasting soft drink) flavored one.
More shopping .. which is where I lost Ryan literally.
I took Ryan to a Japanese department store (all 14 floors of it). Japanese department stores are very much more like upscale malls. Each designer has a little section, that is partitioned off with walls sometimes, but is definitely its own look and style, with its own sales person. The Odakyu department store right out side of Shinjuku station was no different. As I'm super cheap in America, splurging here would be an $80 shirt, not an $800 dollar shirt. Needless to say, when Ryan said, "you shop the next 3 floors, and I'll find you when I'm done with men's." I didn't end up shopping and headed up to the 6th floor to wait. Ryan headed down and began searching the floors. He of course didn't find me as I was sitting by one of the three escalators in this uber department store, not shopping as he had thought.
After all of the fun in Odakyu we headed over to Time's Square. It's not really Time's Square as there's not a square, just some big buildings next to the train tracks and a large overpass…. speaking of train tracks. We saw the saddest housing ever. The houses were made out of shipping containers, and were right along side of the train tracks. Seriously, we took the photos to prove it, check them out, not pretty at all.
For lunch today Ryan wanted Udon, so we found this little place across from GAP in Time's Square and bought a meal from the vending machine, then handed the ticket to the cook. Ryan ordered Udon noodles with a curry sauce on top. I ordered Udon with tempura, and veggie tempura on the side. Overall it was pretty good for about 4 to 5 bucks each person. We've taken to taking photos of the restaurant names, as they're rarely in English, so we have no idea what they're really called.
More shopping. . . Ryan was very unhappy by this point in time, and I think was plotting my death. I explained the prior days activities were centered around his fun, so this was the take part of give and take

He doesn't buy it and says he'll be extracting payment for today's torture at a later date. As I'll be paying for it, I figured why not and I dragged Ryan through the large Japanese book store until I found the floor (there were 7) with the Japanese bento books. While he pointed out that I don't read Japanese, really do you need to read cute?! I hope I'll be able to start making bentos again with this new found inspiration, and my cute bento box.
We also hit up GAP, so far I'm having great luck at US stores in Japan. Things on the sale rack here would never be in LA. Turns out my size comes to my advantage on the sale racks. Where in the US only S and XS are left of the good items, it's quite the opposite here. All the size 7 and 8 shoes were left, and normally those are the first to go. Now this final photo is a bit blurry as I was running pretty fast. Remember when I explained how stores are more like malls. Well so is GAP. The escalator to the basement floor was boys/girls so I thought like H&M, floor 2 was even more women's and hopped on the escalator. It turns out it was floor 2 of the mall structure, and I was promptly greeted by several different "stores" and their sales people saying irashaimase! I shoplifted in Japan! Ryan discreetly walked a few feet behind laughing and whipped out his camera to get the proof needed.
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