Monday, January 8, 2024.

• New week, new adventures!
• Spent the morning at Shibuya – there was a lot more construction underway than we were expecting, so it took us a little time and walking around to find our bearings and recognise some landmarks again.
• Managed to get photos of all three (?) Hachiko statues in the area (if there are others, please let us know so we can hunt them down).

• Stopped at an Excelsior Cafe for the morning brew, and found that even coffee shops are on board with fukubukuro lucky bags!

• Finally, our first real destination for the day, Tokyu Hands. My wife was in heaven browsing the aisles, while I poked around and largely tried to keep my feet intact. Every single time we visit this specific store, something about their flooring always causes the soles of my feet to start burning.
• After wandering around different floors for a while, I found a section that was selling reclining chairs. I then spent the next 15 minutes testing the various models until my feet had recovered.
• Feeling refreshed, I actually ended up spending more in Hands than my wife, buying a new suitcase, a buckwheat-filled traditional pillow, and my first planner, a Jibun Techo Biz.
• I’d wanted to get a buckwheat pillow since my previous trip to Japan, where we used one at a ryokan. It felt soo great and led to a restful night of sleep.

• Found a little yakitoriya for lunch and decided it was worth trying to find a coin locker to store our shopping in while we continued to explore, especially my new suitcase. Some Google Maps hunting and a brief walk around later, we concluded that there were no coin lockers that were:
  • Big enough
  • Not occupied
  • In service
• to stash a full size suitcase. So we sucked it up and just walked around Shibuya with our shopping in a suitcase for the afternoon.

• Unfortunately, I decided to check out the Mandarake store, which meant dragging a suitcase down three flights of stairs and into a store jam-packed with so many amazing goodies, but very little room to maneuver a suitcase. We ended up bailing on it pretty quickly – more fun without a suitcase, for sure.

• Reeling from the experience, we did some more general wandering around Shibuya, then headed back to the hotel for a bit. For the first time this trip, I was wiped enough to actually nap for a few hours.

• Not sure if it’s just Aussie slang, but I’m not sure I’d advertise myself as a thunder box…. 😂
• Finally, headed out when it was dark enough to make our reservation at Yakiniku Blackhole, which we’ve had on our list of things to try since we heard Woolie Madden/Woolie Versus talking about it years before.
• Yakiniku is one of our most loved dining experiences, to the point where we had eaten yakiniku 10+ in 18 days the previous trip. Blackhole offered an “all you can eat” buffet-style approach, with many delicious cuts of meats and sides. Absolutely incredible.

• Finished off with what might be our first kakigori – shaved ice. It’s so different than shaved ice desserts we’ve had in Australia, I immediately saw the appeal! A decent kakigori-maker is on my list for our next visit.

• Finally, with full bellies and happy hearts, we walked back to bed (only briefly pausing to capture the majesty of a srichcha sauce vending machine…)