This article is reprinted from a reader’s WeChat public account, 懒人 33 的吃喝玩乐. Original link.

Heading to Tokyo

I guess this is the last post in the spring break series, covering our 5 days in Tokyo!

We had a fugu feast; went to a maid cafe; had yakiniku; had an eel feast; had sukiyaki; had conveyor-belt sushi; had an oden omakase; and then had another sushi meal. And all of these restaurants were pretty easy to book!

Of course, there was shopping too. I made a shopping list before the trip; it’s at the end of the post, along with some incomplete tips and a summary.

Back to the travel diary format—if you want the shopping list, just scroll to the end.

Picking up from the previous post, we took the bus back from Kawaguchiko to Shinjuku in Tokyo. The next few days were the flexible days of the itinerary, all spent in Tokyo. The main goal was eating and shopping, so we barely did any sightseeing.

There’s a taxi stand at the Shinjuku bus terminal. When we arrived, there weren’t many taxis there, and my partner wondered whether everyone was using an app instead. So we called a car on DiDi, and it said the wait would be 20 minutes. During those 20 minutes, countless taxis pulled up to the stand…️

Eating, Shopping, and Hanging Out in Tokyo

For the last four nights, we stayed at Andaz Tokyo. Through a corporate partner rate from work, the price was discounted to 20% of the usual rate. How could we not take advantage of that capitalist perk? So we paid cash without hesitation. I didn’t bother requalifying for Globalist this year, so there was no free hotel breakfast to enjoy, but that was fine since we didn’t really want hotel breakfast anyway. It was much more fun to head out and find food in Tokyo. People say the Tokyo Tower view at Andaz is the best among Tokyo hotels. We didn’t book a tower-view room, and as expected, we didn’t get an upgrade. I didn’t even bother trying to talk my way into one, figuring that even a basic room in Japan is still pretty comfortable. This may have been the first trip in many years where we basically got no room upgrades the entire time.

Apparently this hotel and the Kyoto Ritz were designed by the same designer. The decor does look similar, but this one mainly uses darker tones. I still prefer natural wood tones.

The front desk is on the 51st floor, while the guest rooms are actually on several floors below it. First time I’ve seen that.

Even the room number plaque was tucked away in this corner. The first time, I stared for quite a while before spotting it.

No tower view, but the city view was pretty nice too. Then again, we’re small-town folks visiting the big city. But this hotel had the smallest bed of the whole trip! Luckily, the rollaway bed was free.

The hotel is not far from the Toranomon Hills area, about a 10-minute taxi ride away.

We switched into full shopping mode, and before long it was time for dinner.

miyawaki Bettei, Fugu Cuisine

We took a taxi to the restaurant.

Dinner was at ふぐ倶楽部 miyawaki 別邸, a fugu restaurant in the Tsukiji area. It’s a new branch that only opened in October 2021. Its tabelog rating has been pretty volatile, and it currently has only 10 reviews with a 3.05 rating.

We booked it on tablecheck via tabelog about half a month in advance. This place wasn’t hard to reserve, and you could probably even get a last-minute booking. But you do need a reservation, since it’s fully reservation-only.

As usual, we got the yuzu liqueur and plum wine going. It was my partner’s and kid’s first time eating fugu. I had tried it once many years ago, but I’d long since forgotten what it tasted like.

The meal started with fugu sushi. Very tasty. The roe wasn’t too salty.

Next was fugu chawanmushi. It was good, though aside from having fugu in it, there wasn’t anything especially unusual about it.

Then came fugu sashimi. There was oil in the dropper, and for each slice you squeezed on a little lime, wrapped it with scallions, and added a drop of oil. The texture on this course was excellent—crisp, tender, and fresh.

My child’s set had a few fewer dishes than the adults’, but my kid really liked the fugu and, unusually, almost finished the entire children’s meal.

If I remember correctly, this was grilled fugu collar. It was excellent: crispy skin, tender and springy meat, with all the fish’s flavor locked in.

Fugu milt. The texture was similar to regular shirako—very creamy and rich, with no off flavors. It was grilled really well. The size was also noticeably larger than regular shirako.

This thin fugu pizza was also very good. The combination of cheese and fugu worked surprisingly well.

Next came grilled fugu, cooked by the staff. The pieces had all been marinated.

Every piece was delicious. The marinade was excellent—flavorful, but without overpowering the fugu’s natural freshness. The meat was both bouncy and juicy.

I forgot which part this fried item was from. Crispy outside, tender inside. The ginkgo nuts were on the side.

My kid had a similar version, but prepared a bit more lightly.

This dish also brought out the fugu’s flavor to the fullest—absolutely delicious.

As usual, the meal ended with fugu egg-drop congee, and we finished every last bit.

Olive oil pistachio ice cream, with a somewhat Western feel.

Overall, this meal was really good! It was a great first fugu experience for our kid. The only downside was that the portions were a bit small, and my partner and I ended up filling up on congee at the end.

After dinner, we decided to take the subway back. On the map, Andaz looked like it was just a few steps from the station, but in reality it took about 8–10 minutes to walk there. That said, there are 3 subway lines within a 15-minute walk, so transportation was still pretty convenient overall.

The hotel is inside this tower building. It’s mainly an office building, but there are also some restaurants and shops inside.

The night view from the room was nice too. Next time, if we’re only staying briefly, we might go for a Tokyo Tower view.

The hotel-provided slippers for our kid fit pretty well too.

Winter in April, yet spring was already in full bloom.

The corridor leading to the subway was full of office workers, and the men were all dressed in suits. Same on the trains in Japan—the men were all sharply dressed. The women were also all put together very elegantly.

We didn’t really have much of an itinerary for these few days and just went wherever we felt like going. The place my partner most wanted to visit was Akihabara, so we made that happen this day.

Akihabara is not only paradise for anime, manga, and gaming fans, but also heaven for electronics lovers like my partner.

For brunch, we stuck to the plan and went to a maid cafe. @home cafe is probably the most famous one, right on the main street with a pretty noticeable sign. The others seemed to be tucked away on smaller side streets.

Floors 3 through 7 were all maid cafes. When we went, the 7th floor was under renovation and the 3rd floor wasn’t open, so only floors 4 through 6 were operating. We arrived right when the cafe opened, and there were already lines from the 5th and 6th floors down to the next level, so I guess the maids on those floors were more popular. We went to the 4th floor, where there was barely any line.

When we entered, all the maids greeted us together with “Welcome, Master~~” You’re only allowed to take photos with the maids if you buy the photo package; otherwise, you can’t photograph them. You can photograph the food, though.

The maid knelt down to take our order. We ordered a set that included one drink, one entree, one dessert, and a commemorative photo with a maid.

I ordered a matcha latte. The maid knelt down and asked what drawing I wanted, and I asked for a rabbit. It looked great, but it was unbelievably sweet—after two sips I was completely overwhelmed by the sugar.

This drink was for our kid: a “magic” drink. When it’s served, the maid does a little magic routine and asks you to participate. Honestly, it was pretty cringey. If you’re socially anxious, it might trigger a full-on secondhand embarrassment episode.

The curry rice our kid ordered was adorable, and it tasted pretty good too.

The omurice my partner and I ordered looked great too! I still asked the maid to draw a little bunny on mine.

My partner asked for a cat.

The dessert was enormous and also genuinely very sweet—I couldn’t finish it at all. It was ridiculously cute, though. And yes, the maid did the magic routine again when it arrived.

Partway through, a maid came over with a booklet and had each of us choose a maid for our photo. Then, on stage, they would call guests up one by one for their pictures. Men were all addressed as “Master,” and women as “Princess.”

Someone was also celebrating a birthday there, with singing on stage. The format was a bit like Haidilao.

After we ate, we went to browse Electric Town. My partner immersed himself in the sea of secondhand electronics and ended up buying nothing at all… Meanwhile, I wandered into another drugstore and bought a whole bunch of stuff.

We stopped by the main Akihabara gamers store. It was pretty small, and I couldn’t find the item my best friend wanted either. A lot of stores in Akihabara have this retro 1990s feel—they’re cramped and tiny, and pushing a stroller through them is especially difficult.

After that, we went to Bic Camera. Klook has coupons you can download, and they have branches all over Japan.

Then we went to the main Animate store. Store No. 1 and Store No. 2 are right next to each other—one sells manga, and the other sells figures and similar merchandise. Both were very small, very crowded, and spread across many floors. It was extremely stroller-unfriendly, and waiting for the elevator felt endless. One floor in the manga building was geared toward female audiences, and the B1 level was the adults-only kind.

On the figures/merchandise side, though, it was almost completely cleared out, so there wasn’t much to browse. It seemed like they might have been renovating.

Our last stop was Kotobukiya, which was also tiny and cramped. A lot of these older Akihabara shops are very compact. There were also lots of maids out on the side street by the entrance trying to draw people in.

Akihabara also has countless claw-machine arcades and capsule-toy shops. It felt like anime and gaming fans could shop here for a whole week straight without getting bored.

As dinner time approached, we took a taxi back to the hotel to drop off our haul, then took another taxi to dinner—sukiyaki.

Dinner was at Okahan, booked through tablecheck, with a 3.71 on tabelog. It was easy to book; I made the reservation two days ahead. We booked the Matsusaka beef set, and I even specifically asked ChatGPT about the difference between Matsusaka beef and Tamura beef.

The restaurant is inside Hotel New Otani, which is in a somewhat inconvenient location if you’re taking the subway. Shoes off at the entrance here too. We were seated in a tatami room with six or seven tables. Our server seemed to be a trainee and wasn’t quite fluent with everything yet. We were clearly the practice table—the older auntie supervising her guided her through the entire sukiyaki process. None of the servers spoke English, either.

They started us off with a refreshing appetizer, with a traditional Japanese sesame sauce.

Our kid didn’t have a set meal, so we ordered an extra beef tongue dish. It turned out to be braised beef tongue... but it was actually pretty tasty.

Our beef! This time, this whole platter was ours. You can tell from the photo alone how good the quality was.

The vegetables. If there’s one downside to Japanese food, it’s that there often aren’t enough vegetables. We also realized the prune puree we brought had expired, so our kid was constipated for almost the entire trip...

We started with a plain slice of beef, then ate the rest with the vegetables. The vegetables were the soul of the meal—they cut through the richness and tasted great. It was my first time having Matsusaka beef, and the texture really was incredible. It practically melted in your mouth.

We’d only had sukiyaki hot pot before, so this was our first time trying sukiyaki prepared this way. The main difference seemed to be that sukiyaki doesn’t use water, just sauce. Since the meat is lightly seared first, the fat renders more thoroughly and picks up a slight grilled flavor, so it doesn’t feel as rich or heavy as sukiyaki hot pot.

Also, sukiyaki in North America is often a little too sweet. This place got the sweetness just right. Dipping it in raw egg was pure happiness.

Our kid absolutely loved the sukiyaki and seemed to eat almost as much as we did, which meant we still weren’t full and ordered more beef. The extra beef was added by the slice.

For dessert, I chose papaya and my partner got ice cream. Both were quite good.

When we left, the restaurant gave our kid a big bag of Mario snacks.

We had originally wanted to book sukiyaki at “Ningyocho Imahan,” but couldn’t get a last-minute reservation, so we switched to this place instead. The beef quality was genuinely excellent, the vegetables were delicious, and it wasn’t nearly as sweet as I had expected. Big thumbs up.

A quick side note on our kid’s favorite ad of the whole trip: he said it was “his” ad, and every time we took a taxi he told me to remind him if I saw it. What he found hilarious was that the girl in the ad kept changing outfits.

On our third day in Tokyo, we had originally planned to go to Sanrio Puroland, only to discover it would be closed for the next two days. So that settled it—Tokyo had officially turned into a pure eating-and-shopping trip. We’ll save Sanrio for next time.

The flowers in front of the hotel were in full bloom.

We started with Shinjuku, partly because we wanted to experience getting lost there again. We arrived a little after 10, and many stores still weren’t open yet.

Before lunch, we passed a store and popped in for a look around. It had a great selection—we found lots of Pikachu merchandise that even pokemon center didn’t have, plus a bunch of Sanrio items and WPC umbrellas.

For brunch, we chose an eel restaurant: Shinjuku Unatetsu, with a 3.60 on tabelog. We didn’t make a reservation and went in shortly after opening. By the time we finished eating, there was a line outside. You can make a reservation on tabelog.

The shop was small too, and the staff led us up to the second floor. This was real tatami seating—no chairs, just cushions—so it was definitely a test for your lower back...

We ordered one unagi rice set and 2 orders of the 9-skewer grilled set. First came the small appetizer dishes and tofu.

There was grilled eel liver and some other organ meat; one of them was a little bitter. Our kid liked it, though... maybe he was just hungry.

There was an English menu. The 9-skewer set includes 9 different parts of the eel. One item was sold out that day, so we ended up trying 8 kinds total.

The very dark one was rolled eel skin.

We ordered ochazuke for our kid, but he surprisingly wouldn’t eat it. It was actually a clever pairing, because eel tends to be rich, and the ochazuke format cuts through that richness nicely.

And here came the unagi rice! We polished off the entire big box without much trouble.

The skewers were good for trying a variety of things—similar overall flavor, but different textures. The eel rice bowl was excellent and not overly sweet. Overall, a pretty solid lunch spot.

The restaurant’s shoe lockers had these little wooden tag locks on them, which I’d never seen before.

There were eels sitting in a bucket right by the entrance.

After eating, we went right back to shopping. This cosmetics shop in lumine EST has some harder-to-find items that you can’t get elsewhere.

And then, as expected, we got lost again…

We spent the afternoon in Ikebukuro, and somehow I realized afterward that I didn’t take a single photo. I honestly think Ikebukuro is the best place to shop in Tokyo. When you come out of Ikebukuro Station, there’s a West Exit and an East Exit; on the East side there’s a mall called “Seibu,” and on the West side there’s a mall called “Tobu,” which is pretty funny. Between those two mall complexes, I could find most of the things on my shopping list, and you don’t even have to leave the station—you can just move around underground. Neither mall felt too crowded, the elevators were large, and the waits were short, so the shopping experience was great. Tobu’s tax refund also didn’t charge a handling fee, which most mall s do.

For dinner we took the subway for yakiniku. Earlier that afternoon in Ikebukuro, we bought a suitcase as planned, and Google Maps somehow routed us to this restaurant via a huge staircase, so my teammate got dragged into another one of my disasters…

Dinner was at ビーフキッチン 恵比寿店, a yakiniku restaurant with a tabelog 3.72 rating. I booked it through tablecheck, and it was pretty easy to reserve—I changed the reservation several times.

The atmosphere inside was lively. The restaurant was also very new, and the decor looked bright and clean, with plenty of space between seats.

We started with a tartare. Raw beef mixed with egg—how could that not be good?

Then a whole spread of side dishes arrived, which confused me a little, so I asked whether this was actually a Korean restaurant or a Japanese one. The staff said it was still Japanese-style yakiniku—they just liked the Korean banchan format and borrowed the idea. The side dishes were all so-so.

The offal soup was quite tasty too.

My personal, very amateur take on yakiniku is that two things matter most: the quality of the meat and the dipping sauce. If both are good, then the rest comes down to technique. This place did well on both the ingredients and the sauces.

This was a piece of braised beef. I didn’t really get it—it was stewed until very soft, then coated and fried.

A single wonton… I really didn’t get this one either.

The last course was a wagyu-wrapped rice ball, dipped in raw egg—delicious, delicious. It reminded me of manpuku in Southern California. Our kid loves Japanese yakiniku and once again spent the meal competing with us for the meat, so we ended up ordering extra.

For the carbs at the end, we chose ramen and cold noodles. The cold noodles felt like a lighter, fresher version of Korean naengmyeon.

The ramen was quite good, with a rich broth, and our kid liked it too.

This was an extra order of offal—nice and fatty.

But it actually wasn’t too greasy.

The little pudding dessert was tasty too. Any dessert that isn’t too sweet gets high marks from me.

They gave our kid a sticker from the restaurant.

That night back at the hotel, we started unpacking all of my teammate’s favorite purchases.

These were chopsticks from the maid cafe, with a China-U.S. friendship illustration on them…

Day 4 in Tokyo~

Before heading home, we wanted to fit in one conveyor-belt sushi meal just for the experience, so that day we chose 廻転鮨 銀座おのでら 本店, near Omotesando.

Omotesando is lined with shady green trees, which gives the area a stylish, upscale vibe. It feels pretty different from other parts of Tokyo.

We walked right in when they opened, with no line. Its Tabelog rating was 3.52. Like Kura, ordering was done through an app. But the conveyor belt only had labels on it—there was no actual food going around at all, which was a huge disappointment for the kid.

The chefs were making sushi in the middle, which gave it a bit of that counter-service omakase feel.

The uni trio was really good, and we ended up ordering another one later.

The kohada was, ummm, a little fishy.

This black tuna is one of the restaurant’s specialties. It kind of felt like eating beef.

We also tried something different: firefly squid tempura. I think the regular preparation is probably better.

The head chef suddenly lifted up a huge fish to show off to the customers—maybe it had just come from an auction? Unsurprisingly, the kid was instantly captivated.

Then he proceeded to break the fish down in front of everyone. The kid watched for a while, but unfortunately our seats didn’t have the best view.

We finished by ordering a bowl of ramen.

Since we hadn’t tried any other conveyor-belt sushi places in Japan, we didn’t really know what the normal standard was supposed to be. In terms of freshness, this place was solid. As for the sushi shaping itself, it was probably about on par with Seattle favorite I Love Sushi. I’m not sure whether the empty conveyor belt was because Japan hadn’t fully moved past the pandemic yet. Everything we ordered was hand-delivered by the staff, with no use of the belt at all. In any case, if you can’t grab food off the belt, and that bit of fun is missing, then conveyor-belt sushi may not really be worth it.

After the meal, we went to Shibuya and planned to stop by to see Hachiko. But there was a whole line of people waiting. We took one look, snapped a couple of photos, and with no deep emotional attachment to the statue, just moved on to shopping.

A famous Shibuya sight: the scramble crossing. Usually people come at night for the city lights, but we were just passing through and took a quick photo.

A tiny little IKEA.

We went to Lyft, which had 8 floors. We mainly looked at the kitchenware and tableware—everything from dishes to sake vessels to cups was gorgeous.

Rika the soldier~~

Chopstick rests—even practical-minded me was very tempted.

We randomly came across a TV station interview crew. I think it was my first time seeing one in person.

Continuing to admire the cups and glasses...

And then, right by Shibuya Crossing: Tianjin roasted chestnuts!

Shibuya was so crowded, and the shopping centers we were interested in were all a bit of a walk from the station, so I suggested heading back to Ikebukuro, which I liked better.

Back to browsing Seibu and Tobu again. Just look at these princess dresses—they were exactly the kind of thing I dreamed about as a kid. The staff at Seibu’s tax refund counter recognized us and even asked if we had been there the day before. Impressive memory.

Since we were back in Ikebukuro again, how could we not go to Sunshine City? Inside are the Pokemon Center, a Sanrio store, a Ghibli store, a One Piece store, a Crayon Shin-chan store, and more. It is a bit of a walk from the station, though.

So what exactly is Japan’s ultimate comfort food?

And then we spotted Yang Guofu!

Animate’s newly opened flagship store in Ikebukuro. Just look at the size and the atmosphere—honestly, you can probably skip the Akihabara location.

My travel companion went browsing, and I took the kid to find something to eat.

Posters for the new Detective Conan movie were everywhere.

The yakitori shop right across from Animate does takeout, so the kid and I ordered a few skewers as a snack. I feel like the floor for food quality in Tokyo is pretty high. Random little roadside places may not be amazing, but you generally don’t have to worry about a bad miss.

After lots of twists and turns, we finally made it to Sunshine City! It’s kind of odd—the mall only occupies one corner of an office building.

I had no idea what Pokémon merch is popular right now, so I had no clue what to buy. Then I saw a few items with purchase limits, and figured, okay, those must be the ones.

There’s also a Pokémon Cafe here. It looks like this one only sells desserts, and you can walk in.

There’s also a kids’ play area.

My travel companion’s favorite: Crayon Shin-chan.

My favorite: Sanrio.

We randomly came across Kura! I wonder what Kura in Japan is like. Kura in Southern California honestly wasn’t even that bad, so how did it end up like this in Seattle…

Dinner was at すぎ乃 麻布十番, an oden restaurant with a 3.62 rating on tabelog. I booked it on tabelog a few days in advance, and it was pretty easy to reserve. We took the subway to Azabu-Juban; the neighborhood felt quiet and a little upscale.

On the way, we passed one of those gyoza vending machines. It dispenses frozen dumplings and frozen ramen. If I weren’t traveling, I would have wanted to try it.

The restaurant’s Google Maps address was wrong and sent us to a residential building, and we just couldn’t find it. We ended up calling the restaurant, and they sent someone to come get us.

We were led to a table on the second floor. The restaurant isn’t big, but the setting is very nice and it never feels cramped.

The menu here wasn’t just Japanese—it was handwritten Japanese, the kind even Google can’t translate. Luckily, the adults had all ordered set menus ahead of time, so we only needed to pick out a few things for the kid.

The soup that came out first was incredibly flavorful.

More firefly squid, plus a crab meat jelly.

This egg was unbelievable. How can an egg taste this good? My travel companion and I couldn’t stop raving about it, and the kid ate one too.

The sashimi wasn’t especially memorable; it felt pretty similar to what you get at most places.

The daikon was also delicious. I’m normally not a daikon person, and even I thought it was great.

We also ordered fried chicken for the kid, and that was tasty too, though the photo came out blurry.

Stuffed lotus root—so good!!!

Next up was the pork shabu-shabu. It was my first time trying it, and I was a little nervous seeing how plain and clear the broth looked.

We ordered noodles for our kid.

That was it: pork and lettuce.

We had noodles too, and they were delicious and very refreshing.

This was the rich, sauce-heavy one that I didn’t like very much.

If I remember correctly, this was a chicken meatball, and it was pretty good.

Tempura with grated daikon was not heavy at all.

The pork shabu-shabu didn’t look good at all, but it actually tasted really good!

We took a cab back to the hotel and passed Tokyo Tower on the way.

Then we kept unpacking all the goodies we bought that day...

Day 5 in Tokyo.

It was our last day, and we were about to leave Japan. The three of us really didn’t want to go. My husband even said maybe we just shouldn’t go back... One last photo of the room’s view.

We checked out and left our luggage at the hotel. We confirmed with the front desk that when it was time to pick it up, we only needed to go to the entrance and didn’t have to return to the front desk on the 51st floor. I’d previously shared tips about using luggage delivery service, which is very convenient if you’ve bought things during the trip. But note that luggage delivery is next-day at fastest, not same-day. So we didn’t end up using it and just hauled our luggage around with us.

Since it was still early, we took a cab to the attraction near the restaurant, “Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens.”

Kyu-Shiba-rikyu Gardens was once a villa of the Tokugawa family during the shogunate era, and is one of Tokyo’s oldest surviving daimyo gardens. The overall design is a classic strolling pond garden, with a long stone embankment modeled after West Lake in Hangzhou. Small stone islets are scattered beautifully across the pond, and the central island was built with stones to evoke Horai, the mythical land of immortality. In May, the wisteria blooms in full splendor, with hanging blossoms that are truly beautiful.

The garden is quite small, and you can probably see the whole thing in about half an hour. The wisteria by the entrance had started blooming a little, but it wasn’t at full bloom yet. There were very few tourists, and a few locals were relaxing in the shade under the wisteria trellis.

I really liked this contrast between steel-and-concrete city buildings and a layered Japanese garden.

Every rock in the lake had several turtles sunning themselves on it, and there were plenty more swimming around in the water. It felt like a turtle paradise.

We strolled all the way to the restaurant.

For our last lunch, since we were about to leave, we thought we’d have one more sushi meal and booked すし処 宮葉, tabelog 3.72. It was also very easy to book for lunch—I made the reservation just a day or two ahead, and when we got there, we were the only customers in the entire restaurant.

We were taken upstairs to the 2nd floor and seated at a table. This was absolutely the fastest-serving restaurant we ate at on the trip. We ordered the lunch set, and as soon as we sat down, the entire plate was brought out at once.

Each piece tasted pretty good, but there were no real surprises. Since it had been prepared in advance, the rice was a little cold too. Was this rating maybe a bit high? We finished it in no time, but it didn’t feel filling enough...

Things were a bit harder for our kid—we could only order cooked items. Come to think of it, it seemed like Japanese people didn’t really care about kids eating raw fish.

Dessert and coffee. When we went upstairs, I saw the chef standing alone behind the counter, and when we came back down, it was still the same.

Because the food came out so fast, we hadn’t expected to have so much time left after finishing the meal. We quickly made the most of our last few hours in Tokyo and went shopping.

We were originally debating whether to go wander around Tsukiji, but then we took the Yamanote Line and realized it went directly to Akihabara, so we figured we might as well go to Akihabara instead. This time we came out from the Electric Town exit, and Akihabara Radio Kaikan was right there as soon as we stepped outside.

It felt like their figure selection was incredibly comprehensive, more complete than any of the other places we had visited before. It was also very spacious, and the shopping environment was quite nice.

If you’re mainly looking for popular figures, this one store might honestly be enough. The smaller shops are probably better for hunting down more niche items.

Before leaving, we bought a cream puff in the subway station. Since it was strawberry season, we got the strawberry one. It was a bit too sweet and just okay overall.

We took the subway to Shimbashi and searched for a taxi stand on Google Maps. There was one right outside the station exit. I told the driver to stop by the hotel first to pick up our luggage and then head to the airport, and I was feeling pretty proud of my Japanese.

When we got to the airport, I wondered whether the tax-refunded items we bought needed to be inspected by customs, but when we went over there, there was absolutely no one at customs.

ANA’s in-flight duty-free selection has a lot of great items, but you need to order on the official website at least three days before departure. Some items are pre-order only, and even then they may not be in stock.

Haneda Airport may be small, but it has everything. There are all kinds of stores, and if you want to browse luxury brands in particular, make sure to leave yourself plenty of time.

I even spotted Yang Yang at the airport. He looked pretty handsome in this ad.

Royce was priced at about 1/3 of what it costs in the U.S...

And Shiroi Koibito is a must too.

There’s also a children’s play area in the airport.

I already shared the in-flight experience in A Blissful Spring Break Trip to Japan - ANA Business Class Award Ticket Booking Strategy and Review. After landing, I realized the arrival process in Seattle had changed. In the past, we filled out the form on the plane, went through customs first, then picked up our luggage, and then went through declaration. Now there’s no form to fill out; instead, you pick up your luggage first and then go through customs. I was especially nervous about possibly having to pay additional duty, but luckily the customs officer only asked whether we had brought any fruit and then let us through.

Shopping List

Lastly, let me share my shopping list. I normally hate shopping, and I rarely buy anything unless I have a list before going out, so I had already made a list well in advance of what I wanted to buy before this trip. Most of it was Japanese domestic brands, with good prices and wide selection.

Foreign visitors can shop tax-free in two ways: tax refund and direct tax exemption. As the names suggest, a tax refund means you pay first and get the tax back later, while direct tax exemption means the tax is removed at the time of purchase. Direct tax exemption is more cost-effective, because in most cases tax refunds come with a processing fee, usually around 1.5%. If you buy a lot, the difference can really add up.

That said, department stores — most of which use the tax-refund model — often have coupons. Before your trip, you can download coupons from Klook, and most of them offer 5% off. These are the ones I downloaded:

However, these coupons generally can’t be used on top-tier luxury brands or jewelry.

So for jewelry, I most recommend shopping at flagship stores, where you can get direct tax exemption and a fuller selection.

For other products, especially second-tier brands or high-end beauty products that aren’t available in drugstores, I’d recommend department stores so you can take advantage of the 5% coupon.

The Rakuten Duty Free coupons were a bit too complicated for my taste, with too much calculating involved, so I found them kind of annoying.

Drugstore items generally aren’t expensive, and if you’re buying for personal use, the price difference probably won’t be huge anyway. You can just pick things up while shopping around, and almost all drugstores offer tax-free shopping.

Most of the items on the shopping list can be found pretty much everywhere, but I’ll call out a few that were a little harder to buy:

The GINZA didn’t seem to be available everywhere. I saw it at Rakuten Duty Free, and it was also available at the airport duty-free shops and through ANA’s in-flight duty-free.

For baby items, Akachan Honpo (Akachan means “baby” in Japanese) probably has the most complete selection, but Akachan Honpo locations tend to be pretty far out and not in the city center, so we didn’t have time to go on this trip. If you want to visit, it’s something you’d need to plan separately. Drugstores do carry some baby sunscreen, but not much. For baby toothbrushes, I only saw electric ones; I didn’t see manual ones like the popular baby smile.

Elegance, aka the E pressed powder, almost always has purchase limits, but the limit only applies per store, so you can simply go to another location and keep buying.

I basically only saw Twany at Lumie and nowhere else.

For IFME kids’ shoes, you can check their official website to see which stores carry them. We bought ours at Tobu.

WPC umbrellas are unbelievably light — just 115g for one umbrella. I saw them at Rakuten, and some larger gift shops on the street also carry them. The patterns are cute too.

I was really surprised to see on xhs that Issey Miyake bags were supposedly hard to buy. I bought mine at Matsuya Ginza, and when I went there, there was no line at all. Maybe because I wasn’t buying one of the hot styles, I was able to get it very smoothly.

Again, shopping is really not my strong suit, so these are just a few small tips from me. If anything here is inaccurate, please feel free to point it out. (Though it wouldn’t help much anyway since WeChat public account articles can’t really be edited...)

And with that, after writing about this Japan trip for so many days, I’ve finally finished the series. Time to celebrate.

About the Author

This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account of a reader in our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food, Drinks, and Fun. These are all excellent original articles, so if you’re interested, feel free to give it a follow.

Japan Trip Series