Tokyo Times Two

Fender flagship store in Tokyo.  Many of my best friends have been guitar players so I felt obligated to stop and see the gear.  It is a beautiful store with both new and vintage guitars, vintage Fender tees, accessories and stage wear.  The stage clothes were also functional for guitarists with things like shoulder pads for guitar straps, velcro loops for cables, etc.  Franco, Craig, Tube, George, Tim, Jimmy and Dave would have loved it.

Shibuya Crossing is a unique street in the Shibuya area of Tokyo.  There were pig cafes, otter cafes, anime merchandise stores with many specializing in a particular genre and several stores that we could not comprehend their intent.  Understandably, it would have been helpful if we could read Japanese.

Japan is crazy about vending machines!  This store dispenses toys from vending machines.  In many cases, all the vendee knows about the content is the more money inserted, the better the toy.

                          Chocolate covered strawberries at Strawberry Fetish was our only purchase.

        Sailor Moon is a favorite of our granddaughter, Grace.  Grandma posed with a surprise present.

This vertical mall had individual shops for anime characters, co-splay, goth, karate, sumo- and many more popular characters relating to different interests.  

 For lunch, we stood in line to dine at a Tonkotsu restaurant.  Tonkotsu is Japanese broth made from pork marrow.  Lunch was delicious as we shared a dish of crab and cucumber and Tonkotsu pork with rice and noodles.

We wondered off the beaten path and stumbled upon this hip up-cycle clothing store of Japanese handcrafted textiles.  We each added to our wardrobe thanks to the help of Yoshiaki (between Ruth Ann and me) and his colleague.  

                    After we plundered the store and sacked our booty, we returned to our ship.

Unicorn Gundam is a life-size full scale statue in front of DiverCity Mall Tokyo Plaza (malls are thriving in Southeast Asia).  This novel character is 65 feet tall and it transforms into destroy mode four times a day.  It is unbelievably huge!

Matcha and sea salt ice cream waited for us inside.  This was another unique mall with stores featuring Gondam, Godzilla, skateboards, all kinds of unique clothing, anime (again), Toys R Us, vinyl records and CDs,  and I can't remember what else.

            We have been together nearly 24/7 and we love each other more with each passing day.   

“Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: I Love You.” — John Green

and just for fun;

“I'm your cherry blossom, baby, don’t let me blow away. I hope you haven't forgotten Tokyo wasn't built in a day.” — Kacey Musgraves, "Cherry Blossom"