Trip to Japan 2008: Day 5 Part 3

Monday, 14 April 2008

Day 5 Part 3 - Back to Shinjuku

We explored the south side of Shinjuku -

Above the train station is the Lumine shopping centre, which apparently is owned by Japan Rail:

And next to it is the Flags shopping centre:

There's also a huge Takashimaya department store nearby. Although Takashimaya is not as prestigious as some of the other department stores in Japan, it has branches in Singapore and Paris (both of which I have visited) and at one stage had a branch in Sydney (which has now closed down).

We also ventured into a pachinko parlour:

Pachinko parlours are incredibly noisy - I couldn't stand being in one for more than 1 minutes - but they are also very colourful and full of strange machines:

A nearby Lawson convenience store:

As this is the last blog entry on Shinjuku, I thought it might be appropriate to recap places where we have eaten and what I thought of the food.

This is the Chinese restaurant where we had our first meal on the day we arrived in Tokyo - I remember I ate Ma Po To Fu - it's was lunch special for 1000 yen:

This place is a 24-hour eatery selling the usual donburi bowls and ramen - I think it's okay but nothing special - the prices are quite reasonabl as it is quite far from the station (generally prices decrease with distance from train stations):

This ramen shop advertise the speciality as "black ramen" - wow the soup is full of garlic and the dish packs quite a punch! Not sure I like it - way too garlicky for me.

Another noodle shop - we had yakisoba here - not bad but again nothing special:

Cheapest place we found - 390 yen for a bowl of fried rice - very small portions though:

Towards the evening, we backed back to the west side. Here is yet another photo of the gorgeous Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower in the sunset:

This is an billboard ad for a "mansion" development - featuring none other than Takenaka Naoto (竹中直人) - one of my favourite comedic actors - he has featured in quite a number of movies and TV dramas that I enjoy (Water Boys, Swing Girls, Nodame Cantabile):