Shibuya Shopping

Ahhh Shibuya 109...only 2 weeks here and it`s already become my favourite shopping place.  Do you even know what Shibuya 109 is?!  Let me enlighten you.

10 floors of wonderful, colourful, fashionable, cutsey, rocker, and most of all...kind of expensive CLOTHES.  Most of the stores are Japanese brands making up about 8 small shops on each level.  Mostly clothing stores in there, but there are some stores selling just bags, shoes, accessories etc.  IT.IS.INTENSE!

One accessories store out of many inside Shibuya 109

It took me probably a good 2-2.5 hours to go through all the stores.  I did end up buying a few things.  

The prices are comparable to Vancouver...for a known brand.  I'm in Japan though, who cares.  My 10,000 yen bills are flying out the door.

Just kidding mom and dad...I still have enough to make a bowl of ramen...once a day.

Speaking of eating though,  I haven't talked about my school cafeteria.  Let's go off on a tangent for a second and talk about that.  

Our university has a cafeteria and a convenience store.  The cafeteria has rice dishes, udon, soba and ramen.  Sometimes some dishes change, but most are always the same everyday.  There is a good number of variety though, and the rice is always scrum-diddly-umptious.  Did I mention how much I love Japanese rice?  It's a short grain rice, I'm used to long grain rice.  But Japanese rice is a bit more stickier and soft, and I find it goes better with meat and such.  Anyways, enough about rice.  So far I've tried cafeteria ramen, fried chicken on rice, udon and tempura, beef rice bowl and probably a couple more.  I have yet to try the curry rice though.  I'm not a big fan of Japanese curry...I like it spicy whereas Japanese curry is sweet.  Blech...

Anyways, so the food is good.  It fills you up and is dirt cheap.  Where else can you find a big ass bowl of beef/chicken on rice with free water/tea for 400 or less yen?  Seriously...

So after classes are done in the afternoon, we all head to the caf to get a bite before heading home.  It's worth it.  

Okay back to the topic... 

So after walking every square inch of Shibuya 109 I went outside to explore a bit more.  I went into Labi, which is where we all got our cell phones, and just browsed around.  I ended up buying nothing from there but it`s just so interesting wandering around electronics.  I think I wanted to find a Japanese to English jisho (dictionary), but they were all pretty expensive so I didn't bother...but I think I will buy one after all.  

I wandered around a bit more and found this store that sold a bunch of knick-knacks out front.  There were one piece pj's of pikachu, hello kitty, and those other cute characters.  I am so tempted to buy one!

This store was actually really cool.  Whatever you needed (and those that you don't particularly need), you could probably find here.  Such as bags, shirts, ties, slippers, coin purses, halloween costumes, light bulbs, camping gear, socks, groceries, towels...and you know..on and on.  It was super crowded in there because you know how the Japanese like to make walking around a store as uncomfortable for you and others as possible.  Have you ever tried to squeeze through a dense crowd with a backpack?  Add to that counters and shelves full of stuff that you could knock down around you.  Not pleasant.  

Boob Pillows - comes with one boob only

Pikachu one piece pj!

Shibuya 

H&M in Shibuya

Street in front of Shibuya 109

I wanted to walk around a bit more, but by this time I already had a couple of shopping bags in hand and my backpark started feeling super heavy, so I headed back to the dorm.

Back at the dorm my friend offered me an Asahi Black because I'd been complaining that I haven't seen any around.  Asahi Black is awesome!  I went to the liquor store where it was bought another day and they didn't have any left!  I thought it'd be easy to buy Asahi Black anywhere in Japan, but it's been eluding me at every turn...one day my precious...

But yea, I enjoyed it.

What's next?  Odaiba!