The usual season for Hanami is early April when most of the sakuras blossom. Fortunately, there exists a species known as kanzakura which bloom in late February. V and I had been planning on going to Shinjuku Gyoen where we've heard that these kanzakura can be found and hadn't quite gotten around to it yet. It's been quite warm lately and the weather appeared to be favoring us, but on Friday night there was this crazy crazy windstorm and we suddenly got quite afraid that there wouldn't be any flowers left on the trees.
This is exactly what we feared and we only hoped that the sakura had survived the wind's onslaught. Shinjuku-gyoen is a beautiful and well-kept garden that is full of families, children, and no alcohol. This didn't bode well for the beer I brought with me. It's also a paid entry park and the quality of landscaping shows.
We walked around for a bit looking at the empty trees that would surely be full of flowers come april. And then out of the corner of my eye, we spotted a glimmer of pink...
We did it! We found the sakura. Looks like everyone else found it as well, but there they were in all their unfettered glory. We stuck around this area, joining in with all the old people and their gigantic cameras. Cameras are enormously popular in Japan. I always wondered how there could be so many camera stores, but Japanese people clearly buy way more cameras than the rest of the world. This group of trees were pretty but amazingly the best was yet to come. We ventured out into a bit of a remote path so that I could illegally hanami by myself. And by hanami I mean drink...
Not suspicious at all. I took my time making sure I wasn't seen by anyone other than photographic evidence, and we continued on once I was done.
Mission success. We walked around aimlessly and I'm not sure how we did it, but we found it, the best tree of them all. This sight alone made me super glad that we decided to visit the park.
Yay.
After the beautiful sakura, I suppose we owed it to Shinjuku Gyoen to check out what else it had to offer, and you know what, there was actually a lot of stuff to look at.
A pair of bridges connected us to a zen island in the middle of a pond.
I evilly shook my empty bag off the side of the bridge, and all these stupid fish came to eat nothing.
Hahahaha. Ha. The park was closing and everyone headed towards the exits. It's still too bad that we won't have the chance to witness all the normal sakuras in April, but at least we were able to witness the kanzakura. Before we made our way out, the park had one last crazy thing to show us.
I think those wooden stub looking things are actually the roots coming out from under the ground. Make sure you click on the picture and zoom in.
Kawaii Paradise
This is not part of Kawaii Paradise. This is just a pillar of the Rinkai-sen Tokyo Teleport Station that I was particularly attracted to.
This is Kawaii Paradise. Bigger than a Sanrio store but smaller than the theme park, Kawaii Paradise is made up of four main sections: a store, a pancake shop, an arcade, and a show. The last show was already over by the time we showed up, and Kitty-chan was on her way out. V wasn't ready to take a picture with her, but we didn't know that she was leaving and by the time we went looking for a picture, she was already gone. Bitch. Alas...
The store is not especially big, but does seem to carry some specialty items. I've become fairly well versed with the current season's stock of Sanrio items, and there were a bunch of things I've never seen before.
Amazingly, we didn't buy anything there. V collects these keychain pens that they make for various Japanese locales, and we were surprised to find that the Kawaii Paradise store didn't have any. We found some later in a Kiddy Land chain though.
I made the decision that if we were going to do Kawaii Paradise right, we needed to have a Pancake Party.
Ain't no party like a pancake party. Kitty-chan makes some pretty decent pancakes. Another one of those foods that tastes exactly how it looks.
We even spent some time in the arcade, throwing money away at one of those grabbing machines.
Neither of us were very good at it and in the end, V was left with nothing to show for our efforts. Next time I'm just using that money to buy the damn thing.
So we didn't buy anything in Kawaii Paradise, but there was a Kiddy Land nearby and we picked up a couple thing there. There was also an electronics store close by with Akihabara themed Kitty-chan charms. We picked up this one as a souvenir for our friend Kevin.
Megane maid cafe kitty-chan. Sorry kevin, the comedy value was just too high. Doesn't she look a little tsun tsun too?
Kawaii Paradise is actually part of a mall called VenusFort. We didn't know anything about this, but there were a whole lot of people (tourists) there to take advantage of the outlet mall and the duty-free stores. Even Tokyoites who've never been should definitely go check it out. VenusFort's interior design reminded me of the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace.
We went in and out of several stores including the Franc Franc outlet where V bought an apron. I stopped by Onitsuka Tiger
but didn't buy anything. We also checked out Burberry Blue Label for the first time. In Japan, the blue label is a Japan-only store, and normal Burberry is called Burberry Black. I had always been afraid to go in because I was worried I might find something I like at an outlandish price. The bad news is that I did find something I like. The good news is it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong; Burberry Blue is not exactly cheap, but in the range where I can buy something from time to time. Like when I have a little excess cash before leaving Japan... Or when your wife buys it for you. =) <3
We continued to venture the halls of VenusFort as various parts of it lit up. It's a really nice place to just walk around in, which is what we did while we killed time for dinner. Our original plan was to check out Tsukishima again for some Monja and Okonomiyaki, but we came across the Osaka Okonomiyaki chain Botejyu in the food court. Lazy and tired, we settled for the closer option and split a mochi cheese okonomiyaki.
Botejyu is tasty and satisfied our craving but was only the third or fourth best okonomiyaki we've had. It's a national chain and a safe bet, but just not as good as the handful of alley stores we've been to.
I have to say this checking the list thing has been going surprisingly well. More to come.
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