Nekobukuro

On Saturday, I visited a part of Tokyo that I had only passed through previously -- Ikebukuro　(池袋）. It's north of Shunjuku, and on the Yamanote Line.

Tokyu Hands is a chain of stores I first found in Nagoya. I love these stores! They have a really neat collection of stuff -- DIY, decor, health gadgets, travel goods, craft supplies, and what not. There is one in Ikebukuro, which has a unique section on the top floor: Nekobukuro.

Neko (猫）is Japanese for cat. This is a place where you can pay money to go and hang out with 20 or so cats, along with other people, for as long as you like (within their business hours). It's only 600 yen, and a nice lady was handing out 100 yen off coupons on the street outside, so I HAD to go!! Before you say, "Who'd spend money for that?", remember that most people in Tokyo live in apartments and can't have cats or dogs.

They have several different breeds of cat. Plus, they have all kinds of walkways and steps for the cats. Being cats, many of the cats were sleeping. Or trying to. Not all the cats were out among the people. Some were in their living quarters -- visible but not pettable. And it was a small area, so only so many people could get in at once. Overall, it was pretty fun for me.

Here are some pics. You can see all the kitty pics here.

Here are some of the walkways for the cats. The one with the steps goes through a hole in the wall.
























This one is a "mike" (mee-kay). That refers to the three colors, white, black and brown.

This weekend's trip

This weekend's trip was to Shinjuku -- another section of Tokyo.

I had been to the Maruzen store by Tokyo station, which has a large foreign language (English and other languages) section. The Kinokuniya store in Shinjuku also has a large foreign language section. There is also a Tokyu Hands store -- it has all kinds of household things.

Unfortunately, it was very cloudy, so the pictures aren't the best. But it didn't rain, so that's OK.

The first place I went was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. There is a tourist information office there. I found one sheet guides to the different sections of Tokyo. They appear to have better maps for free than the guidebooks that I spent good money for.

The main reason to go here, though, was the view. You can go to the 45th floor for a view of the city. It's a very fast elevator. I think it went up to the 45th floor faster than the elevator where I used to work went to the third! Had the weather been better, the view would be better as well. But the price is right, so I'll try to go there again before my year is up. Meanwhile, here are some pics for you!

Here are some pictures of the building from the ground. There are two towers, connected at the bottom.




























Here are people in the other tower looking out.







You can see I don't have a filter to eliminate window reflections, but here is the view.




Here is the other tower.

















Here's another view. You can see that there is some greenery here...















This was taken from the ground. I don't know what building this is, but I think it looks cool.














After that, I went to find Tokyu Hands and Kinokuniya. The first thing I found out about Shinjuku station is that you can't get from the east and west exits directly to the south exit. The west exit took me to the Tokyo Metropolitan building, but I wanted the new south exit to get to the Takashimaya Times Square, where the stores are.

At one point, I found a McDonald's and thought that would be a good place for lunch and trying to find out where I was in relationship to where I wanted to be. It was noon, so it was very crowded. But a bacon lettuce burger is very good! I figured I was on the north west side of the station -- and I wanted to be on the southeast station. I did finally find Takashimaya Times Square.

The Krispy Kreme in Appleton may have closed, but here's one in Shinjuku!





















Here is a promenade outside Takashimaya Times Square, where Tokyu Hands and Kinokuniya (and Takashimaya department store) are located.

There was a slight earthquake while I wrote this. A little rattling, but not much.