Tokiyo Trip 12.2 : Kichijyoji

Day 6 : Kichijoji ( Monday ) Part 2

After visiting Ghibli Museum, we walked towards the Inokashira Park right next to the museum. We picked a nice bench overlooking the park and set our lunch packs consisted of several onigiris and our random drink of the day. It was a nice cold breezy afternoon and we saw several young mothers strolling along with their young toddler - the nicest view so far.

There was a young mother following her child, both didn't wear any slippers beneath their feet, playfully spreading their hands taking in the clear air. They walked pass us, her child innocently pointed to the birds around us - those birds were waiting for our rice leftovers. Behind us, there was another young mother with her child. Both sitting on the pathway, pointing and examining little things beneath the beautiful sunlight that shone right at their spot among all the tree leaves roof.  I love those little intimate moments of  a mother-child relationship. 

I thought how refreshing it is, to go out for a short lunch in a park during working hour just to freshen things up after several hours of work. Instead of sitting in my table eating things I tapao from food stalls across the road filled with oil, MSG and god knows what. =.= Right at this point, I am determined to refill my healthy food grocery list. Boo. 

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Anyway, we continue our journey towards Kichijoji right after we cleaned up. There were signs along the pathways so it wasn't so hard to find the way. The park is really big. We found a beautiful secluded shrine on a lake, there was bridges that we can walk on to cross the lake, there were people kayaking and riding the Swan boat, some nice little food stalls, beautiful little dogs, people walking and jogging, random magic performance, a closed-for-the-day local zoo. Things were nice and beautiful, every one looked so serene and calm T^T

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We finally reached the other end of the park and went out to the little shops alley referring to the Tokyo Guide. I stopped by at one of the shop to buy little cat badges with "Tokyo" written on it. There are many arts-and-crafts independent shops in this area. Ohh yes, and we stopped by at Namaste Kathmandu, Nepalese Cuisine for a tea-break Naan Cheese and Mango juice :D

I aimed for Sublo 36 and Pack Mart. And because I was wildly inspired by all these little indie-shop, I took photos of it and illustrated them back. It is almost halfway done - but I can't do it faster lah, the Mac is dying. There are also interesting places like Hara Donuts, Hattifnatt, and Avril. The whole list is in the Tokyo Guide, still up for borrowing purposes :)

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We wished we got more days to explore the city, but the time flew fast. Morning in Mitaka, afternoon in Kichijyoji - it was a great day. We ended the day with taking some pictures in front of Izakaya area and headed back to Ikebukuro.

Ohh, and after we found out about ready-to-eat rice, we bought two packs of it at 7/11 and Lawson to make fried rice that night because the house we rented didn't provide rice cooker. Home made fried rice, fried eggs and a tempura fish from local market. We were that cheap :D 

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Tokiyo Trip 7 : Itinerary + Places

We didn't visit Tokyo by any help from travel agency, we simply book our flight tickets and accommodation, and followed the plan that we created every night before our day. Various maps were taken from the stations and booth for our guidance, but my favorites were :

Tokyo Handy Map & Tokyo Handy Guide by Yes! Tokyo

Tokyo Guide by Hello Sandwich

You can definitely use mobile apps, but it won't be the same as using map and instinct as a guide to find places and roads. We didn't really use the internet during our exploration, all searches were done by using these maps and asking around and try & error :D We might spent a lot more money and time by doing that, but for me, that's the whole point of going to a new places, so we can explore!

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Everyday we went to a different smaller city. There weren't much time as we would want to, we just had to use the time we have and use it wisely. We will be super exhausted beyond words by 6pm so we headed back during that time and rested through the night. Not really onto the night lives when we spent more than 8 hours walking outside everyday, ey? Maybe next time :)

Itinerary :

1st day - Arrival at Haneda Airport, Tokyo

2nd day - Marunouchi (Tokyo Station, Imperial Palace) & Asaka *our home

3rd day - Shinjuku (Shinjuku Central Park, Shinjuku Times Square, 5-story Kinokuniya)

4th day - Shibuya & Harajuku (Meiji-Jingu, Yoyogi Park, Takeshita Street, Hikarie Building, Shibuya Crossing, Hachiko Statue, Craft shops) 

5th day - Ikebukuro (Resting day : Sunshine City, Ghibli Shop, Higashi-Ikebukuro Park)  

6th day - Mitaka & Kichijoji (Walked to Ghibli Museum, Inokashira Koen, Kichijoji Dori )

7th day : Ueno & Sumida ( Ueno Zoo, Ueno Onshi Park, Ameyoko, Yanesen & Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo Skytree ) 

8th day : Akihabara ( Electric Town, Siddique ) & departure at Haneda Airport

Using Hello Sandwich's booklet, we found : 

Shibuya (Hikarie, Tsumumu Factory, Loft, Parco, Wrapple )

Harajuku ( Takeshita Street, 5 floor Daiso )

Kichijoji ( Inokashira Koen, Sublo36, Pack Mart )

Shinjuku (Kinokuniya Books, Tokyu Hands

*If you are planning to visit Tokyo and want to borrow my copy of Tokyo Guide, please email me! It is quite useful to find those little cafes, art & crafts shops on random streets :)

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Tokyo Guide Borrowers :

April, May 2016- Fatin N M