Qantas flights from Australia to Japan are overnight, which means that you arrive at Narita to welcome a bright new day (providing you got a good nights sleep) Luckily for me I don’t have any problems sleeping any where, so I got a fairly good nights sleep. I was in good spirits when I was woken up by the crew. It didn’t take long after this before we were served breakfast and I got my special order of fruit again! Funnily enough fruit for breakfast was exactly what I wanted, I had set that as my preference in my frequent flyers before we left Australia. Little did I know that setting that status means that you get fruit for all meals, breakfast lunch and dinner…opps!
It was lovely to get off the plane to the land of the rising sun! The four of us were all very excited to get going,
so we gathered our luggage and took the NEX (Narita Express) train after getting our Japan Rail passed exchanged at the station underneath the airport. I far prefer the train to the bus, it’s quicker, you get more room and a lovely attendant that goes up and down the train with a cart of food and drinks to buy. I got myself a Tonkatsu sandwich and a apple juice.
The plan for the day was to head to Tokyo station, pop our bags in lockers and do a day of shopping before we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto. Shopping was one of the main reasons for our trip and the number one shop that we had in mind was Closet Child!! Unfortunately it was a bit to early for it to be open, so we head out to Ikebukuro for some browsing till midday. Coming out of the train station you pretty much follow one road all the way to Sunshine city which has shops and a bunch of arcades along the way. At
Sunshine city we only managed to browse a small part of shopping center, some of my favourite stores included Moe Garden, a gift/toy store that sold a whole range of Ghibli merchandise, The Disney Store, Sanrio Vivitix, a whole store dedicated to Hello Kitty and Sanrio characters. We actually spent quite awhile in here checking out the unusual Hello Kitty items, Sharon was looking out for a present for a lolita in Sydney. She ended up picking up a can of Hello Kitty spaghetti sauce! Another level we went to was all clothing, not any brands that I was familiar with, but they had a range of clothing that I really liked! Sharon and I picked up a couple of tops and cardigans. On our way out of Sunshine City we found Anna Sui, the shop was gorgeous and all decked out in black and purple. We spent quite a bit of time looking at everything that they had, it was a diverse range of make up, toiletries, clothing, shoes, jewellery and furniture. They had some really cute make up sets that were collaborations done with Disney for Minnie Mouse. I could see a lolita having their entire house filled out with Anna Sui!
By now we were very excited to get to Closet Child and it was about to reach midday so we head on over to find it. Generally stores in Japan are rather difficult to locate, most are located on certain floors of buildings
and you only have signage to help you find it. Often the signs are only in Japanese which makes it even more difficult! I had been to Ikebukuro Closet Child before so I knew where to go. It’s located on the third floor of a building which is on a corner. The best thing to do once you get nearby is to look up, as the store has a really large window with mannequins wearing lolita in it. That’s how I remember finding it the first time.
Closet Child Ikebukuro is one of the smaller shops. It has a range of CDs, a glass cabinet of Vivienne Westwood, a mixture of Punk, Gothic and Lolita clothing as well as BJD items. On my last visit there I picked up a BTSSB x volks collaboration outfit for one of my dollfies.
We had a good look around and I bought a Angelic Pretty Royal Melty Chocolate Ivory barrette, Red Superlovers sunnies ( a bit random, but they are cute!) Angelic Pretty Sugar Hearts bag, Sugar cake wristcuffs, Mint combs, a gold chocolate piece ring, mint socks and a Innocent World teacup set. If you haven’t already noticed from my background, mint is one of my favourite colours so a got a very good haul for my first lolita store in Japan!
From here we went back over to the train station and headed for Harajuku Closet Child. For Sarah and Leticia it was their first time to Japan and also their first look at Takeshita Dori! We had plans to come back to Tokyo
after our week in Kyoto so we only head down to Closet child for a quick look. Harakuku is the biggest of the Closet Child stores and spans three levels. The first level contains sweet and classic, the second gothic and the third contains more casual and classic such as Emily Temple Cute, Milk and Jane Marple. The first thing I found when I walked in to the store was a Juliette et Justine La Bibliotheque JSK, I was really happy to find this, not only do I love library prints but I had also missed out on buying it when it came out new. Our quick look turned into a long detailed search as we kept on finding things we loved. I started looking down the line of shoes and was excited and dismayed to see how many were in my size! Excited, well because they were in my size and dismayed as I didn’t intend on filling my entire suitcase with shoes in my first couple of hours of being in Japan! I whittled down my choice to a brand spanking new pair of Victorian Maiden Ghillie boots in black and a pair of gold Alice and the pirates boots with a coffin bag to match. I then had a dig through the accessories and socks
pile and picked up some more awesome finds! AATP striped socks, another Sugar Hearts bag, a Misty Sky necklace, Assorted cookie tea cup ring, AP mouse mat and French cafe headbow. After blowing my budget and doing a pretty good job of filling up a large portion of my points card we head out, only to head up the stairs to the next level! I was slightly more restrained here and only choose a Moitié cross necklace (It had the stones in blue, how could I not buy it!) And even quicker on the third level, picking out only a headbow and 2 pair of socks.
With arms weighed down with shopping bags, we head back to Tokyo station, picked up our suitcases and hopped on a Shinkansen to Kyoto. Being Winter it got dark early, so the sun was well and truly down by the time we got there. I gave the owner of Kiyomizudera house a quick call and organised for her to meet us at a taxi rank, so that she walk us to the house. She gave us a brief tour and handed us a English written manual that translated all of the electronics in the house (which was a godsend!) By this stage we were all pretty tired so we grabbed some food at the local store and head to bed, we had to get our beauty sleep for shopping tomorrow!
♥ Alyssium♥
Continue on to Day 2
Go back to my previous visit to Japan 2 years ago.
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