Tokyo: Exploring Shinjuku

December 23, 2014

I didn't do much today. I went out on my own to explore a little. I also dragged my luggage to the next place that I was staying in Nishi Shinjuku. It was such a struggle because I walked part of the way from Shinjuku station so I didn't have to switch to the other line, but there was this one set of stairs that I had to get up of and I couldn't lift my luggage up because it was too heavy x_x;; This man finally walked by mid-way and helped me carry it up. So nicee.

Nishi Shinjuku is a quiet residential area within walking distance to Shinjuku, so it's really convenient. I would definitely stay here again :O All the arcades, yo.

Then I had to find the place too, which was the second struggle, but it wasn't so bad in the end. After dropping it off, I went to look at Shinjuku for a bit and went to check out Don Quijote but then realized that I get a tax break with my passport but I didn't have it :( So decided to just leave it.

Then just walked around a bit and checked out the arcades. Someone got change from the machine and forgot to take their ¥90,000 change!! I couldn't catch up to them because they disappeared off, so I just gave it to an employee, hoping they came back for it! Karma's a bitch so I didn't want to just take it. I put in a 500 yen coin for 6 tries and won a Mokona from Tsubasa on my first try D:< So I had to waste the rest of the 5 tries because I couldn't get anything T_T;;;

Afterwards, I headed back to the apartment in Nishi Shinjuku to meet up with Cory and her sister because they just got back from Kyoto. 

I wanted to go to Kyoto but it would've been too expensive to ;_; Because we wanted to spend Christmas in Tokyo and I didn't think it was worth it to do a roundtrip to Kyoto. It would've also been cheaper to fly to Seoul from Kyoto, so knowing that also made it seem less worth it (since I had to come back to Tokyo). 

So we just chatted for a bit before all heading to Shinjuku. I had to go take the train from there to head home and they were just grabbing dinner/exploring.

My dinner for the night was soba. It's pretty cool because you place this order on this vending machine and you grab the ticket. Then you just go inside and hand it to them. They tried asking me if I wanted it hot or cold and I couldn't understand :'( But I still don't really like soba, just not a big fan of the taste.

Just from the first two days alone, I ended up spending ¥3,000 on the metro -_-;;;! So I definitely recommend walking if they're short distances or just walk to rest of the way instead of transferring to a different train system. For comparison, I went to a lot more places for the last two days and only spent ¥20,000 on the metro (and I actually still have some inside my card and used some of that for the arcade). But holy shit, ¥5,000 in 5 days is a lot for public transportation.

Pretty lights by Shinjuku Station

Came home to pastries and this one was particularly cute :D

Next post has a lot more activities~ So until next time!