{"id":2071,"date":"2025-03-10T14:45:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T05:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2025-03-10T14:45:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T05:45:32","slug":"a-birthday-spent-in-tokyo-stations-basement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/a-birthday-spent-in-tokyo-stations-basement\/","title":{"rendered":"A birthday spent in Tokyo Station’s basement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Last week, the three of us went to Tokyo to submit a passport application at the US Embassy for Ulan. It was Mayu’s birthday too. Because I could pay for the passport in advance through PayPal, it sped up the process. An appointment is required, which I did online. We were only there for about an hour. We finished there around 10:30 am, then took the subway back to Tokyo Station. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the time we spent in Tokyo was in the underground shopping area beneath Tokyo Station. There they have Tokyo Character Street, which you can see in the picture above.\u00a0I covered this place on my site 12 years ago, when I did a photo journal of our trip to Tokyo Sky tree in 2013.<\/a> Tokyo Character Street is a collection of speciality shops, for Studio Ghibli, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, Rilakkuma, One Piece (I hate that show), etc. It’s changed a lot since then. The Gundam Cafe is gone, and now there is a Harry Potter store, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So these characters are from a comic\/anime called Chiikawa. They’re like these adorable RPG characters who supposedly go on quests, but most of the time they are eating bento and drinking tea and doing cute stuff. Ulan loves these characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We had lunch at a grilled fish restaurant since the “Ramen Street” area had long lines waiting for those restaurants. It was Mayu’s birthday, so I let her decide where to go. We also had 1,300 yen parfaits after we did more shopping. Tokyo can be a bit expensive!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There were actually two Ghibli-themed stores there. These Porco Rosso punch puppets were at the one featuring high-end merchandise. I ended up buying more stuff for Ulan’s upcoming birthday than for Mayu’s birthday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was a Shonen Jump pop-up store where I bought a deck of Spy Family Uno cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One store had these neat-looking Evangelion-themed storage containers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ulan likes Kirby, although she’s never played a Kirby game before. I got her a pocket towel at the Kirby store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a whole underground shopping mall down there too, which we only barely entered. We went to the Can Do 100 yen shop, Kaldi Coffee, and the Don Quixote snack shop. Looking at the map online, I realize that it is bigger than I thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long in Tokyo as it was a weekday and we had to go back to work and school the next day. We took the 2:40pm shinkansen back home. We had a nice time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the three of us went to Tokyo to submit a passport application at the US Embassy for Ulan. It was Mayu’s birthday too. Because I could pay for the passport in advance through PayPal, it sped up the process. An appointment is required, which I did online. We were only there for about … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A birthday spent in Tokyo Station’s basement”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,248,17,5,7],"tags":[257,100,256],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anime-manga","category-food","category-japan","category-life","category-neat-crap","tag-chiikawa","tag-mayu","tag-tokyo-character-street"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2226,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2025\/06\/01\/screenshots-of-arcade-games-at-the-legendary-mikado-in-tokyo\/","url_meta":{"origin":2071,"position":0},"title":"Screenshots of arcade games at the legendary Mikado in Tokyo","date":"2025-06-01","format":false,"excerpt":"I visited Mikado next to Takadanobaba Station in Tokyo. Here are some more screenshots of game screens. (I made an earlier post of closeup screenshots of arcade games in Akihabara's Hey and Super Potato here.)","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/IMG_1345.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1910,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/12\/21\/screenshots-of-retro-arcade-games-in-tokyo\/","url_meta":{"origin":2071,"position":1},"title":"Screenshots of retro arcade games in Tokyo","date":"2024-12-21","format":false,"excerpt":"We went on a family day trip to Tokyo today. I was able to go do my own thing in Akihabara and took some photos of game screens there. These last few I took at the small game arcade on the top floor of Super Potato.","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_1090.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2827,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2026\/01\/13\/more-screenshot-photos-of-retro-games-at-taitos-hey-game-center-in-akihabara-tokyo\/","url_meta":{"origin":2071,"position":2},"title":"More screenshot photos of retro games at Taito’s Hey game center in Akihabara, Tokyo","date":"2026-01-13","format":false,"excerpt":"Dragon Spirit Elevator Action Returns Area 88 Radiant Silvergun","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_2243.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1095,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2023\/07\/17\/tokyo-night-photography-from-january-2000\/","url_meta":{"origin":2071,"position":3},"title":"Tokyo night photography from January 2000","date":"2023-07-17","format":false,"excerpt":"When I flew to Japan in January 2000 to propose to Mayu, I took a second camera loaded with slide film. I took these pictures on Fujicolor 200 slide film. First up is Shibuya. Next is Akihabara. These slides have been packed away in a box for so many years.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Japan"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Image-23thm.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1373,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/03\/14\/space-invaders-frenzy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2071,"position":4},"title":"Space Invaders Frenzy","date":"2024-03-14","format":false,"excerpt":"Unfortunately, game centers in Japan have become increasingly boring due to the lack of actual games. Even the Purikura (\"Print Club\") photo booths are boring as while 20 years ago they were a fun way for friends to have pictures taken together, they are apparently now targeted at young girls\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "video games"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Space-Invaders-Frenzy1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":412,"url":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2022\/09\/10\/the-original-jungle-shop-in-osaka\/","url_meta":{"origin":2071,"position":5},"title":"The original Jungle shop in Osaka","date":"2022-09-10","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever been to Jungle in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles? Here is the original Jungle in Osaka, which became famous for being a laserdisc-selling powerhouse in the '90s. This pic is from 2001. It has since relocated.","rel":"","context":"In "anime\/manga"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/JungleAnime1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2079,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions\/2079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}