Wednesday, January 10, 2024

• After the practice run yesterday, this morning was the remix! Finish all of the washing, actually mail home a box of souvenirs!
• The lady working at the Ikebukuro post office was so sweet and helpful, and demonstrated infinite patience and grace. What a sweetheart! Despite sending the first box home, we suspected that we might be back before leaving Ikebukuro to send home another, reinforced when we noticed our hotel room still looked pretty full of stuff….

• Finally, now that we’d gotten rid of some stuff – time to get some more stuff! We swung past ABC Mart Grand Stage Ikebukuro and picked up a pair of Japan-exclusive Vans sneakers, partially because they looked awesome and partially to give my feet some variety – my hiking boots were very comfortable, but the constant wear were starting to cause some deep aches.
• Between the washing, the post office, and the shoes, we’d lost most of the morning, but were feeling like more adventure. We headed to the train station to start the journey to Nakano we’d postponed from yesterday, but not before finding a delicious seafood restaurant for an early lunch.

• Unagi don was the nicest I’ve ever had, MBW loved her seafood korokke, and the starter of some tiny fish and rice cakes that we grilled ourselves was pretty tasty!
• Our journey to Nakano took us via Shinjuku, where we stopped in at the Yodabashi Shinjuku West store to pick up an Olympus 40-150mm 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 Telephoto lens, continuing to build the camera setup and giving some flexibility at long ranges.
• Heading back to the train station, I had a sudden and powerful urge to use the bathroom – perhaps the tiny fish weren’t thrilled with being grilled. We ducked into a nice standing sushi bar to use the facilities, and because it felt rude not to, also had a couple of small plates and a beer while we were there. Incredibly, this was the only sushi we ended up having for the entire trip! Missed opportunity for sure. Edit: MBW pointed out there was one other occasion much later on!
• Finally, Nakano Broadway! We’d been once before on an earlier trip, but not in the last decade or so. Our tastes had also evolved quite a lot over that time – last time, we were book looking for cool anime stuff. This time, MBW was hunting crafting and design magazines and I was there for the NJPW merch!

• We found a lot of ring-worn masks at Mandrake Micro-Ken, lusted over some high end audio gear at a boutique store on the third floor, and did a general browse of what else was on offer. Nakano Broadway is incredible, and an easy way to spend an afternoon and a lot of yen!

• My big pickup of the day was something I’d wanted forever, a second-hand but pristine Astro City Mini cab that I’d seen online forever ago, but could never quite justify the price + shipping of importing one myself.

• Finally, shopping urges catered to and the skies growing dark, we started the trip back home. On the way, we stopped at a random gyoza-centric izakaya – Nikujiru Gyoza no Dan Da Dan. It was a revelation: the gyoza were juicy and incredible, the fried gyoza skins with creamy potato and cod roe was otherworldly, the beers were ice cold and refreshing, and the yuzi kakigoori for dessert was the best we’d ever tried.

• We were so happy with our eats, we earmarked this place to come back to whenever we were in Nakano next. Happily, it turned out it was a chain with other locations around Japan! As such, this won’t be the last time the yuzu kakigoori will be making an appearance in these stores.
• Finally full, tired and happy, back to home and an early night.