Japan Day 5

4.8.2025

See day 4 of the trip

3.14 Friday

Today, I felt like having a nice cheesecake and coffee again, so I went to Shark Coffee It’s in Shibuya and not too far away from the bustle, but is not too hustle. It seems like it’s really popular with foreigners/tourists because almost everyone who came in was speaking in English

They have lots of options for desserts a bit of housemade granola that you can have for breakfast! I wanted to try the granola some time, but didn’t end up doing so. There was just too many cheesecake options to try

The interior feels very spacious and airy with plenty of sit spots

I ordered a dirty matcha (matcha + espresso latte), carrot cake, and matcha cake. It ended up being kind of a bit too much cake for me so I had to eat it soooo slowly LOL but it was really tasty! For some reason, I was really craving carrot cake!

When they serve you your food/drink, there’s a little doodle on the napkin wrapper

I spent a little time here writing postcards and eating my breakfast slowly It was really peaceful and enjoyable! Afterwards, I stopped by the post office nearby and dropped off the postcards. Then, I headed to some other Shibuya shops to do some gift shopping.

Initially I went to PARCO to try to go to Pokemon Center to pick up gifts, but it was already SO crowded even after it barely opened. I just did not want to use energy on the crowd so I left after stepping 1 step in Instead, I stumbled on this unexpected Chiikawa stand that had a bunch of merch that I had seen earlier at Tokyo Station!

The shopgirl was so sweet and offered to help me take photos when she saw me struggling to take selfies with the displays

To space out shopping trips, I visited Yoyogi Park This one was a lot more… wintered than Shijuku Gyoen lol, basically every tree was entirely barren, but it was still really nice to take a walk in the crisp atmosphere

I did find this one pink tree but I don’t remember if it was inside or outside of the park (I think it was outside…)

Next stop was some more Harajuku shopping - I went to the Jill Stuart counter, but for some reason everything just looked unappealing, even though after my last trip I remember I wanted a bunch more JS makeup. I think it’s hard to compete with Flower Knows which also has beautiful packaging for cheaper prices… but I still love the clean designs of JS, too.

Anyway, I left empty-handed and headed to Kiddyland! Here I did pick up some gifts and Things For Me

Since it was just around lunch time, I picked Kaiten Sushi Ginza Onodera as a quick eat - with the hope that I could slip in as a single eater, and it worked out! I think this place is quite popular but I was able to be seated in 5 or so minutes (You can safely guess by now i hate waiting to eat… lol)

This is a “conveyor belt sushi” place, but rather than the sushi options rolling around on belts for you to pluck for eating, you order via a tablet and it is zoomed to you via the belt! In my case, I sat near the sushi chefs so they just handed it to me directly

I picked this place from Google Maps spontaneously and didn’t it had $$$ on Maps (which means it should likely be pretty pricey)… but I had an entire fill of sushi and it only ended up around $20!!

Silly thing, but I don’t know very much about fish lol so I just ordered off the recommended options and some that just looked good. Everything was super fresh and so delicious. I also noticed they do some sort of flavouring to their rice that makes it brownish but it is flavourful (not salty) & really elevates the sushi!!! So good!!

After lunch was a cheerful walk around the area

I saw these adorable garden displays It’s so fun to walk around in Tokyo because there’s just endless things to keep stimulated looking at

Randomly, I spotted a Mariage Frères boutique which I had to visit! This is a French tea label that I’ve always wanted to try, but there are no suppliers or importers to the US, so I was so pleasantly surprised to find them here

I did a bunch more wandering around including some drugstore beauty stops when we got to hear that Mina was getting out of her concert later tonight so we could meet up for dinner!!!

We met up at Darumanome Akihabara Mina’s place for gigantic melon soda

There wasn’t any option for meatless lol so I just suffered later after trying my best with their corn ramen but it was totally worth it!!

Even though we only got to meet up briefly (and it ended up being the only time I got to meet up with Mina), it was really lovely to hug and have a… very low-energy (everyone being exhausted haha) chat

Since it was so chilly and Mina left her jacket at her airbnb, we wandered a bit through Donki to help pick out a jacket for her

While there, I saw a bunch of potential gifts so I realised I needed to stop at Donki later even though I originally didn’t want to go to it on this trip since it highly overstimulates me.

It was so fun to meet up

These were my buys from Kiddyland My manz likes the green guys so I got a few for him! Most of these were gifts, but I was really excited to see the cute chiikawa hairties, sumikko portable utensils set, and tokage/shirokuma hook which I got for myself