Mega Donki – Japan’s answer to Greece’s Jumbo

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how massive Tokyo is. Without the GPS on my phone, I’d be lost constantly here. One day, coming back from a long trek, Ron and I had one of our heated “you’re an idiot” conversations about the location of our hotel as we literally sat on a stoop not 3 minutes away from the front door. My cell phone had died and we were limited to whatever innate skill we had (or didn’t have).

So I’m sure you see why, when I found out my childhood friend, Jeff, was randomly going to be in Tokyo when we were, I decided that our two travel groups should meet up in this city of 10 million people. If you recall, I tried a meet-up in Beijing that didn’t go well because I chose a train station. For Tokyo, I saw that the nearby train station (Shinjuku) has 200 entrances/exits. The Beijing one that did us in for over an hour had only had about 20.

Ever smarter, we came up with the Hachiko Statue in the Shibuya neighborhood as a can’t miss meeting place. And success…but not due to my efforts. Sure, I got us from our hotel to the train station, but it was only my nephew, Cooper, who noticed that I had placed us in the waiting area for a train going in the exact opposite direction and had the strength and resolve to dispute my assertion that we were “fine” and in the right area.

But here’s my family and Jeff’s family – together again after nearly 30 years:

En route to the train station, I spied these crazy capsule walls, which I had to go investigate. It’s a massive collection of toy machines with cute stuff inside. Totally up my alley:

But Ron took up his typical position of protest:

We wandered off into the Shibuya neighborhood to explore the shopping. It’s tough going with a group of 6. We’re constantly losing each other in the crowds:

Grace and Mikey disappeared immediately. We did the Shibuya crossing thing with Sam and Cooper, only to lose them just past the Starbucks you see in the above picture. Ron and I wandered on, stopped for a drink, and then decided to walk to another area, called Harajuku. En route, I spied this crazy-looking store and declared that I needed to go in and look around. Mega-Donki? Penguin for a mascot? The signs in Japan are, overall, excellent. At any rate, I dragged Ron over, and, can you believe it…my sister was in there! We must be genetically drawn to the same crappy shopping! 7 stories of junk!

Here’s a few shots from the rest of our walk: Ron entering the Meiji Shrine and gesticulating to me that he doesn’t want me to take his picture:

Here’s a store in Harujuku dedicated to potato chips:

Here’s a couple of random businesses we passed:

We’re headed up to Mt. Fuji today. I want to spend some time, later, discussing Japanese food in general. But I want you to know that it’s doing me in. There’s a fascination here with gelatinous things, surreptitiously popped into the middle of most anything, that’s leaving me pretty wary and I’ve resorted to a few candy bar dinners so far. Yesterday, I dragged my people to Burger King and I’m aiming for a McDonald’s today. What I wouldn’t give for a Taco Bell pintos and cheese right now.