Day 12: Aimless Day

Today I really had no idea what to do, so it'll probably be a short post. But don't worry, I actually do have specific plans for tomorrow lol

Anyway, I decided I would go check out Ginza to see if I'd feel disdain for it still like I did last year. Disdain might be a strong word but I definitely felt out of place in my plain t-shirt and jogger shorts. I've mentioned it before but in general, Japanese people seem to be pretty fashionable. And that's just in average. Ginza seems like it must be the center of the world's high fashion industry so everyone there is downright stylish.

I visited the roof of Ginza 6 again since it's a nice vantage point to see the city around you. I actually didn't take any photos but I did like the art installation on the way up.

The Tsutaya bookstore inside Ginza 6 also had a few art installations. I liked the art by samehoshi that was displayed. I checked some of their other pieces online and while I like their art-style and color palette, some of the works feel body-horror-y to me, which I really do not like. To each their own though!

After leaving Ginza 6, I wandered around a few more shopping malls and made my way towards Tokyo Station. On the way, I stopped for a quick bite at Sushiro, which actually might be a problem since I've eaten their like 6 times. I guess it's easy since I know what to do and don't have to worry about messing up an order talking to a waiter or anything. Also despite being a sushi restaurant, Sushiro has other menu items you can order, like french fries or ice cream cake slices. The fries are actually pretty good.

Sorry this photo is actually a few days old

After making it to Tokyo Station, I headed to Tokyo Character Street which is basically a shopping destination inside the station that has a bunch of stores that sell character goods. Shonen Jump, Kamen Rider, Rikakuma, etc. all have their own shops down there. There were a few pop-up shops for otome games but I didn't see anything in particular that caught my eye, so I didn't stay very long. Which was alright by me since it was super packed.

Right across from the station, I stumbled into a small fair area with a bunch of stalls selling food for Taste of Tokyo 2024. Unfortunately, I was still stuffed so I ended up just looking around for a bit and not getting anything. It looked like they were gearing up for a festive occasion since a bunch of organizers were running around frantically (or at least that's what it looked like to me), and I even saw a camera crew walking in.

One final tip from me today since it was a short one. So the other day I actually had to cancel my main travel card due to a couple of fraudulent Amazon purchases I had seen be made on the card last week (luckily I check my transaction history every week or two I guess). Chase said they would send me a new one, but obviously that's not super helpful while I am out of the country so at first I actually thought I might wait to report it. I decided that wasn't really logical because if they started making larger purchases, it would be even more of a hassle so anyway. So my travel tip to you is to make sure you take multiple cards with foreign transactions fees with you if possible when you travel abroad! For me, I take one from Chase and one from Capital One so even if my account itself was having issues, I would be okay. (I guess unless both my accounts got closed or something somehow in a weird tragic occurrence!)

Anyway, no need for us to feel sad or anything about it since it was only like $38 worth of charges and Chase already reversed the charges. If anything it might be a net win since it means I can now put more card skins on my new credit card!