Ikebukuro, Japan

I would honestly say, that when coming here, I had very low expectations. I wasn't too sure if there was anything fun to do. I only read that there was a giant indoor aquarium in some high rise building somewhere. Yeah, fish way above sea level! Anyways, Soco and I were kinda impressed. We traveled the west side of Ikebukuro finding it to be very relaxed. It felt like a surburbia of Tokyo. We ate frozen fruit popsicle sticks while walking in the hot sun. We discovered the Toyota headquarters. On the first floor, it is a free museum and concept car auto salon. Very interesting. A little bit past it, was a monumental building called "Sunshine City". It is a giant indoor mall with many stores which come from the US. The Disney and Sanrio store featured items unique to Japan that you can't get elsewhere. Soco looked at purses and clothes at the GAP. Well at dinner time, we got hungry and wanted some Mexican food. There was a Tex-Mex restaurant called, "EL Torito". It was very good and it fed our craving for cactus (nopales) and grilled chicken and steak.

After visiting the mall, we walked over to the giant Anime store. It featured lots of DVDs, CDs, miniture figures, collecting cards, costumes, and stuffed animals. Then we were sucked into Sunshine 60 street by the huge crowd. At night the lights, loud pumping music and huge crowds, made it very exciting. We had a good time and northern Tokyo is definitely worth a trip back.