If you haven’t read Day 1 & 2 of my Japan Trip 2017 blog series, please do so before reading this post for context and continuity’s sake. Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 & 6, Day 7, Day 8 and Day 9 are also available to read.
So what’s in store for Day 10 of the trip? Well first of all a quick detour from our hotel in Shibuya off to Shinjuku, for what reason? Shopping and food of course! What else are you supposed to do on a holiday? But if you’re getting bored of all that keep reading ’til the end where you’ll get to see us visit a burlesque show in Harajuku!
So what’s in Shinjuku? Lots! Though we mostly just walked around for a couple of hours, went to the Animate (which was mostly geared towards female anime fans) and then had some lunch.
So what was for lunch? We found a third floor Okonomiyaki restaurant (that’s Japanese pancakes for all you filthy normies) where there’s a hot plate built into the table in front of you where you’re supposed to make your own! It was honestly a little intimidating, mostly because there was the language gap and the fact I’d never made Okonomiyaki before. Luckily we managed to convey our overall ineptitude and the waitress helped us out a bit, though we still added the toppings ourselves.
After lunch we took a train to Harajuku, a “trendy” spot filled with people far more fashionable than us (also, expectantly lots of tourists). I’m still undecided about how I feel about Harajuku, it was an ~experience~ but there was very little that interested me. In fact, I think it was the longest period of time while in Japan that I didn’t see anything anime related!
While there we decided to do some ~cliche~ (but fun!) Harajuku things like get a giant cotton candy and take “kawaii” photos in the ‘Purikura’ photo booths!
And after that? Some more shopping then dinner at a chain Tempura restaurant, honestly not that good, the batter was too thick, but for the price it was okay.
And then?! You’re just waiting for the reveal of that burlesque tease I made at the start of this post aren’t you?
N-no, not really! I wouldn’t be interested in anything so lewd! Sure sure, so after that we headed to the ‘Kawaii Monster Cafe’ which most days of the week is just a bright and colourful cafe filled with noise and people in costumes! But on Thursday nights, they hold a sexy burlesque show, and well, guess what day it was when we decided to visit Harajuku?
Thank god it’s Thursday! Ahem, I mean… The interior of the place was really cool, like someone had put Alice in Wonderland in a blender and upped the contrast of the mess that resulted.
Uh-huh, very interesting… But you’re not here to see pictures of the decor, right? You’re here to see what anyone going to a burlesque show wants to see, RIGHT?!
Show me it! Right, here it is! Some food and drinks!
That’s not what I’ve been waiting to see! Haha, yeah I know, just thought I’d mess with you. Fine, here’s a bunch of videos I took! Unlike a lot of places in Japan they are totally cool with you taking photos and videos in here! Sadly the lighting was, well ~club lighting~ so I only really had one video worthy of sharing!
Oh, well I guess that was okay… Trust me when I say, the full experience was a lot more hectic and fun than that video can convey! There was loud techno music and bunny girls and members of the ‘audience’ being allowed to dance on stage with the girls. It was just a lot of fun! In fact here’s another video, just try and ignore all the drunk patrons dancing around the entertainers on the stage.
Seems like you had fun! I did, I really did. And here’s a bunch of random photos from the day that I didn’t quite know where to place in the chronology of this post. Blame it on the booze.
Well that was certainly an eventful day. What can we expect from Day 11? Not much, don’t get your hopes up, it’s all down hill from here!
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Anime QandA 
Now I’m starving…
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Yeah, burlesque will do that to ya 😉
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Sounds odd, but now I want some miso soup – and we just had dinner! I’ll have to work it into this week’s menu.
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I admire the way you start all of these posts with an appropriate still from an anime.
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Thank you so much! I’m glad you noticed! I was lucky that there was that brief scene from Dropkick On My Devil that featured the Kawaii Monster Cafe!
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