The (very large) mall we ate at tonight is famous for its life size Gundam outside. There is a Gundam museum etc on the top floor but the life size one is what is cool. They had it dressed up as a different Gundam when we were here in 2017 but today it was the normal one we had seen before in a pre-2017 visit.
After the museum we went to Ikebukuro, a city section in Tokyo (probably actually its own city now as Tokyo has not been a city since 1944 when it was made a metropolitan government with its former wards all becoming their own cities and today its still that or something similar). We went to several of those game arcades with the prize machines (various forms claw, as well as similar “knock them off”, “cut the string”, and similar games. My son is pretty good and ended up with a Miffy, some sort of Lion (from Miffy — one that technically I won after my son set it up), this weird cat that looks like it is standing on its hind legs with hands up, and probably some small stuff. My daughter wanted a brown Miffy and we tried from the same machine but in 20 or so tries never got one. But at a different store she got the Lion and the same cat in 2 tries.
We also went to this big mall where they have a Pokémon Center — large Pokémon store — with a bunch of other Pokemon themed places like cafes etc. When my son had said he had wanted to go to Ikebukuro he thought we had not been there before so it would be new. I was sure we had and once we got off the train and he mentioned the nearby mall I was sure, and looked it up and sure enough we had gone there in 2019 to go to the Pokémon Center. Tonight we didn’t go there to go to Pokemon but we walked mostly around the streets and shops (and Game Centers). It was fun. I befriended a 7 year old boy from Singapore who was sitting on a bench in the mall waiting. I was waiting for my kids who were at another store (not the Pokémon one) and wanted to rest my feet so sat next to him. I asked him how he was doing and he told me he was 7. I had thought he looked like he was from Singapore or Malaysia or something. He didn’t really look Japanese. But I thought maybe he was Japanese as his answer didn’t match my question. But then he started speaking English and showing me his Pokemon they had bought etc. So I figured he was probably from SIngapore or Malaysia or somewhere like that. We talked for about 15 minutes, looking up the Pokémon names from the Japanese written on the toys’ tags, etc using the Google Translate app in camera mode, and stuff like that. After about 15 min or so his dad showed up and I told him I hoped he didn’t mind that I was talking with his son. He said it was fine. I had made sure I didn’t ask the kid his name or where he was from or personal stuff as I didn’t want anyone to think I was a creepy old man. But when the father was there I asked the father where they were from and he said Singapore. I talked with his dad about 10 min or so about the Singapore school schedules (he said they were there on Ling break), Tokyo Disneyland and how crowded it was (we were last there in 2019 but it is always crowded and close to the winter break is even worse). Finally my kids showed up and wanted to go so I excused myself but the kids wanted to take a selfie with me so his dad let him use the phone to do that and we left. On the way back to the station we stopped at one of the game places again so my daughter could try the Miffy some more and when we left this kid and his dad were right in front of us. He turned around and saw us and waved and gave thumbs up several times as we were walking. Eventually they got ahead of us and I lost track of them. It was cute — the kid acted like he had a new best friend.
Some random interesting things:
A large Pokémon statue for photos at the Pokemon Center store.
At one of the stations they had this all digital vending machine. That is one large LCD that you see showing all the different stuff available.
“Unko” (also “Unchi”, which is what we say at our house) is the Japanese word for “poo” or “sh*t”. There is an “Unko Museum Tokyo” somewhere and they had an extension of it with a store at this mall where we ate. Everything there looks like a poo emoji in 3D. We’d seen an exhibit from this museum at another mall on one of our other trips in the past in one of the large mall atrium spaces but this was an actual room unit of The mall.
Behind that Gundam is this large staircase and they’ve installed lighting on each rise all the way up. They change colors and look like they’re moving or animated, etc. Besides rainbow they have black and white and other patterns. It’s really cool and becuase the lights are bright when you look at them, people on the staircase, unless you are close, are only seen as black silhouettes.
Let’s let it suffice to say that malls in Japan are way better executed than in the US. Which is why in many places Malls are failing while In Japan they are for the most part doing better. (There was another one in this area in the past that has closed and we had originally wanted to eat at it’s food court tonight but it turns out the mall is no longer a mall).
Time for bed. Tomorrow after breakfast we are going to Asakusa where my daughter wants to rent a kimono for the day and we’ll see the shrine and temple and the special (tax free) district around the Tempe there with all its shops (we’ve been there before). We’ll also go to the Tokyo Skytree, which I believe is the worlds tallest TV tower. They have two observation levels. 350m and 450m if memory serves me right. Last time, about 9 years ago, soon after it opened to the public (which was 10 years ago) we went to the 350m level. It’s not cheap but very interesting. Maybe we’ll pay the extra fee to go up the extra 450m.
According to the Skytree website it’s the tallest tower in the world and the third tallest man made structure (after the Burj Khalid and the Merdeke 118). I’ll post pics if we get over there.
Thanks for listening.
