Day 5 detailed - Ikebukero

Monday, 2 May 2016 in more detail

Original posted LIVE here.

Today the weather was beautiful so we headed up to Ikebukuro which is where the largest anime store in the world is located. It is only four train stations north of Shinjuku and was (another) large, busy shopping district.

India loves anime (Japanese animation) and manga so we had researched and been told by others who had been to Japan some key places to visit, and this was one of them.

Welcome to Ikebukuro


This map shows the location of Ikebukero (green oval) north of our Shinjuku apartment (red marker) 

Can you see the KFC?

I noticed this huge white stack or chimney in the distance. I had no idea what it was for. (Later on while at another tall observatory we saw several here and there throughout Tokyo).

So I just looked it up and found out it is the Toshima Incineration Plant and this smokestack, at 210 metres tall, is the tallest in the world. More detail here.





Above is another suburban Koban (Police) station . . . .

There was a massive busy mall like underground concourse from this subway station so we randomly chose an exit and ended up at this "town square" with the cute bird shaped bushes and surrounded by shops like the above. We found an information booth off the the left (out of shot of this photo) and a map demonstrated we were on the wrong side of the above ground railway line which was to our right (out of shot of this photo).

So we went underground again and kept walking through the subway concourse shopping mall until we came out the other side.


On the other side of the station at Ikebukero there was this fine retail store, a BIC Camera which we would see in many city centres.

A typical Tokyo street scene and bus above.

Ikebukero is famous for anime and finally we found the main "Animate" store which claims to be the largest anime store in the world. Nine floors of anime, cosplay costumes and everything in between. Even an anime themed food van out the front. India was in her element!


After exploring this large and busy store we headed a few streets away where another "Animate" store was, this one was the original store (now called "Animate Sunshine" which is now less busy than the newer one above.



After passing the below road complex we visited a nearby Sunshine City shopping centre where India purchased some clothes. We found an underground walkway back to the centre of Ikebukero where we explored some more shops and watched enthusiastic locals play arcade games.

We headed back to Shinjuku to explore some more . . .

You will note on a lot of signage "3F" or similar, this means the establishment is on the third floor.

Note decorative vent cover on the footpath.



These delicious ice creams were near a large Shinjuku shopping centre and above ground entrance to the JR train station. Yum!!

Note the price JPY480 = AUD5.28 approximately







A simple meal for dinner at Yoshinoya, beef with fish for Y960 or less than $11. It was delicious. We saw Yoshinoya eateries throughout Tokyo (maybe in other cities?) and they were clean and fast to serve. Good service, as soon as we sat down the server placed a glass of ice water in front of each of us and returned with an English language menu seconds later. Recommended!