Day 2: Ikebukuro

Note: day 0-3 were written at the same time, so forgive me if there is accidental foreshadowing etc.

Ok even though I did the exact same thing on the second day of my trip last year, it's purely a coincidence! I haven't actually planned any of the stuff I want to do daily and rather have one large list of things mapped out on the Tokyo map so when I started the day way late, I just picked something I felt would be manageable.

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Maybe unsrurprisingly after I spent like 6 or 8 hours in the sun yesterday, I had gotten slightly sunburned. Weirdly, it was mostly on one arm, I guess because most of the time in the sun was in the afternoon and most of that time I was walking in the same general direction? IDK. Either way, I had bought sunscreen on the way home and actually applied it this morning. Little did I know I would only be outside in the daylight for like a total of 15 minutes.

I ended up heading to Ikebukuro since I remembered that it had a ton of anime-themed things to do. Akihabara probably has more, but since I'm staying closer to it this time, I figured I'd probably be back a lot more anyway. I first went to Sunshine City since it has a giant Pokemon Center and a huge Bandai Namco store.

I didn't really do too much other than walk around and play some crane games (and spin Pokemon Go PokeStops), but it was nice overall. I was a bit surprised how busy it was at 2 in the afternoon on a weekday though. In addition to the usual Pokemon-themed decorations around the mall, there also was a life-size exhibit of Emilia and Subaru from Re:Zero for some reason.

I also randomly saw some kind of boy band performance, but I didn't have the best view.

After leaving Sunshine City, I stopped by Sushiro for some good old-fashioned conveyer belt sushi. Really good, definitely reccommend. I spent the next few hours looking around. P'Parco and the other department stores were alright with things like the Evangelion Store or Tower Records as mainstays but also with a few pop up shops, mostly around Sanrio characters and anime targeted at a female demographic, so I wasn't super familiar with most of them. Second hand stores like Mandarake, Lashingbang, or Surugaya are pretty cool and had some nifty things but in general the target a female demographic as well, so I wasn't super interested in most of the stuff. There is stuff for everyone though, especially if you like something like One Piece (which I am not personally a fan of).

Since I'm visiting as the days are getting shorter, I'll probably spend more time outside during the dark than I did last time I visted, which is cool because I think a lot of Tokyo looks really cool after dark.

Somehow even though I swore I would walk less than I did yesterday, I still ended up walking over 17k steps. My legs are definitely going to be feeling it later. Shopping steps are also a lot different than steps to get somewhere. I'm not sure if better or worse but I guess we'll find out.

Sorry for the short update but there will be more content tomorrow!