Today we were heading out to Nakano Broadway, most stores there only open up past midday so we had the morning to spare. As we were heading through Tokyo station to get to Nakano I decided to take the gang over to character street. Keep in mind that Tokyo station is huge, so make sure you leave enough time to try and find it as well as shop, its well worth the visit if you can find it. You may need a couple of hours especially if you have a thing for Japanese characters and mascots! I think Mimi’s face sums it up pretty well!
Mimi and Georgina are massive Shonen Jump fans (Think One Piece or Bleach) so they happily shopped here while the others wandered down to check out what else was around. I located the Rilakkuma store!
Another favourite was the Donguri store which stocks a large range of Ghibli toys. If you cant make it out to Studio Ghibli, this is the next best thing. We bumped into a plush of Stuart while in the store!
I found a store advertising the new Gundam Cafe in Akihabara, Haro is one of my favourite characters in Gundam! I mostly spent my time in the NHK Mascot store trying to figure out which Domo to take home! I walked a away with a Soot ball plush from Donguri (which i later found split open into a mirror) and a Domo apron and magnets.
The gang look like locals as we catch the train out to Nakano Broadway! Make sure you get out on the right side of the train station, you know yo uare on the right side if you are greeted with the start of the Nakano Arcade.
For something different we had KFC for lunch, which was an experience! Its really interesting how the fast foods stores differ from Australia. Outside they were advertising Christmas lunch, apparently KFC chicken is the way to go for Christmas. Turkeys dont fit into Japanese small ovens so chickens caught on instead! Walking down the arcade, at the end you hit Nakano Broadway. Second best location for anime goods after Akihabara (in my opinion anyway) a really great mix of new and second hand goods for dirt cheap! Figurines, cosplay, uniforms, lolita, wigs, anime cels, manga are all found here. If you get here a little early before the stores have opened I recommend heading out the back of the building, there is a great little 100Yen store that has a great range of stuff. If you still need to kill time head left from the 100Yen store and around the corner, as you walk back to the train station you hit another Don Quijote store.
We found another of Stuarts twins while looking at the advertisements inside Nakano Broadway! That night we head over to Ikebukuro to meet Tamara who had just flown in and caught the bus from Narita Airport!
♥ Alyssium♥
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