#bought a bunch of my favorite movies on DVD because we love physical media in this household

[yellobb]

Got my projector set up in my bedroom 🥰 very cozy vibes

[charlesandmiranda]

Last days in Tokyo: 2/12

Waking up in Kawasaki after dinner with our friend, the imminent ending of our trip was really starting to weigh on us. It felt like we'd been there for quite a while, but at the same time, each day was so jam-packed and blew by so quickly, it seemed unreal that we would nearly be through with our visit.

First and foremost, we spent the morning before checking out of our hotel totally reorganizing our luggage -- we had several other bags stuck inside our main two pieces of luggage, and we filled them with stuff we'd bought along the way -- again, mostly additional winter clothes for ourselves, but also souvenirs (both for us and others), as well as incidentals we'd picked up along the way. We took our two main bags and filled them with only the bare minimum amount of clothing we'd need for the rest of our trip (pair of jeans, couple of t-shirts and sweaters, socks and underwear, etc) and filled everything else into one of these bags. We left plenty of room in the luggage we WERE keeping with us because Charles planned to buy some guitars before we went home. When all our ducks were in a row, we took this very full duffle bag on wheels to the nearest office of a luggage transfer service. After filling out some paperwork, they took our bag and sent it ahead of us to the airport, where it would be waiting for us upon departure!

Next we snagged breakfast, and my sweet tooth was kicking in HARD. We started off at another MisDo, and then moved on to Hoshino Coffee, a cafe chain. The inside of the one we went to was incredibly fancy. It definitely has more of a sit-down restaurant feel than a Starbucks does, but with a clear focus on their coffee blends.

Charles had a beef curry omurice, and I had a vanilla soufflé with chocolate sauce.

Then it was time to hop on the train back to Shinjuku, our home base in Tokyo. We initially wanted to possibly spend another night, if not the remainder of our nights, in the Manga Art Hotel from earlier, but they had booked up on one of those two nights, and I was pretty adamant about wanting to spend our last nights staying on one place, so we found an apartment to rent for the final two nights. It was in Kabukicho, sandwiched between nightclubs and love hotels, only a short walk from the Hotel Gracery where our trip began, so it all kind of came full circle!

Back in Tokyo and killing time til we could check in to the apartment, we visited the Godzilla store again, to pick up a few things we'd seen at the beginning of our trip, but didn't want to have to carry for two weeks. I personally was EXTREMELY TEMPTED by a bunch of merch they had that crossed over Godzilla with Hamtaro (?!) which was a cartoon I liked a lot as a preteen and teenager. I also sunk SO many hours into a Hamtaro game boy game, you would not believe.....in the end, I decided to get this clear file (basically a thin clear folder) and a couple of buttons, although there was an embroidered tee I seriously flip flopped over whether or not to get for a loooong time.

In that same shopping center that had the Godzilla store, we checked out the Surugaya (a chain of used anime and pop culture goods) on the 5th floor again, and found a few more treasures that were cool to see -- especially an uncommon action figure of Sadako from The Ring, and the Japanese versions of some movies -- Martyrs, which is one of the favorite movies of my friend Kim, and Frankenhooker, one of *my* favorite movies. It was so funny to see them next to each other like that! It's interesting to see that physical media is so popular there, and that these DVDs were around $250 and $100.

In about the time it took us to finish up looking at things, it was time for us to get into the apartment. We unloaded our luggage and took a break (by which I mean, I was exhausted and needed a nap). For dinner, Charles wanted to go to this "Hell Ramen" restaurant that is well known for having especially spicy ramen! I personally did not need something that spicy, and given Charles' gastrointestinal proclivities, I was absolutely not about to let him have something that spicy....but going to visit it and having one of the milder dishes sounded fun!

We walked through Koreatown to get to it, which was very cool and colorful, but...when we got to the Hell Ramen shop it was closed. It was slightly discouraging but we passed no lack of delicious looking places getting there so we decided to try a yakitoridon place -- sadly I neglected to take a pic of the outside (by this time I think I was so wrapped up in trying to enjoy every last bit of the time we had left, I was.....not so good about taking pictures). However, I did have this delicious yakitoridon (chicken and I believe garlic? over rice in a bowl!) Also pictured: charles had some fried cheese, and fried tofu topped with natto)

We also decided to stop in at an incredibly inconspicuous bar with an easy to miss sign that caught Charles's eye:

The bar was entirely about tokusatsu, giant monster and masked hero series like Godzilla, Ultraman, and Kamen Rider (we may have mentioned this concept in an earlier post!). The owner had built many of the props himself and had a giant collection of toys and statues. It was sort of like a host bar, where you pay inflated prices to talk to hosts that entertain you and make conversation, but the conversation was all about giant monsters and the prices were very cheap. I ordered the employee choice drink and they asked who my favorite good guy from a tokusatsu series was. I said Jet Jaguar, the giant robot from Showa era Godzilla, and they made a Jet Jaguar colored drink. It was a fun place and very easy to miss from outside.

We were very close to Golden Gai, there tiny bar area where we like to stop in. 250 or so bars are squeezed into about two blocks of narrow streets. The bar we like best was closed, so we stopped in at another rock bar and ended up making friends with some locals. The guy in the photo is an anime quality control person, checking the animation and comparing it to the character models to make sure it doesn't look incorrect.

Before we went back for the night, we saw a bar that previously was for locals only, now with a sign that said tourists welcome. It's memorable because it's called Bar Troll. We stopped in for a bit, the bartender was out of his mind drunk and talked to us almost entirely using a stuffed animal. We spoke with some other Americans while we were there. Odd little place.

After that, it was definitely time to call it a night! Our journey is almost at an end, I hope you'll keep coming back til then!