Breakfast consisted of the chocolate-filled croissant I picked up at the mall yesterday. We also purchased some unique instant cup noodles from the museum yesterday so I had a Laksa flavored one. I only had Laksa once in my life, at a Malaysian fusion restaurant in the NE section of Calgary. I barely remembered the taste since it was nearly seven years ago, but the instant cup noodles seemed to do a decent job replicating the flavor.
Our first stop was a cat café in Shinjuku called Cat Café Mocha. I've been to one in Calgary, but the one in Shinjuku far outstripped my expectations of what makes up a cat café. First of all, the café itself was quite large and well-furnished. There were a variety of different seating arrangements throughout the large room. The cats were also more active at this location, with a large amount of them strolling around the place, curious to see the visitors. There were also a variety of different drinks that were included with our admission that were self-served from a vending machine. Not everything was rosy though; some of the cats seemed to dislike one another for they would bicker and hiss until a staff member would move one away. Fortunately, we arrived early so there weren't a lot of customers. We also got the chance to see them eat breakfast! There were over twenty cats on the mini stage they had at one section of the room eating.
After spending an hour at the café, we headed for an early lunch at Gindaco, a well-known takoyaki restaurant. The takoyaki was piping hot, but delicious. After lunch, we stopped by the new Kabukicho Tower. All the posts on social media make it look amazing, but I wasn't thoroughly impressed in person. It could be the fact that we visited during the day instead of at night, but the neon lights didn't really stick out to me. I did, however, win a Pokémon plate through a lottery draw, so that was a nice consolation prize! We made our rounds through the little attractions they had going on in the tower and ventured to Tokyo Metropolitan Government building to take pictures of the cityscape from the 44th floor. I learned on that day as well that you could view Mount Fuji from the tower! I always thought the peak I saw back in 2015 when I went up the tower the first time, was just a normal mountain. We purchased a sumo-themed postcard, which delighted the clerk. She asked if I was a sumo fan, which I don't know why, I answered I was despite not knowing much about the sport. Fortunately, my girlfriend was able to converse with her and learned that the clerk was a huge fan of the sport and was actually going to Nagoya to see an upcoming tournament. (My Japanese is still a work in progress, though I'm starting to understand nearly 10% of conversations... sadly.)
After leaving the government building, it was off to the main attraction for the day: the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo: The Making of Harry Potter. I was never a fan of the movies but immensely enjoyed reading the books. (I used to do Harry Potter marathons in high school and university, in which I would read all the Harry Potter books in the summer over the course of a week or two.) I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the theme park (I viewed it as a large theme park), but it was huge. I believe we spent nearly three and a half hours and weren't able to see everything in full detail. I would definitely recommend people go see this park, even if you didn't like the movies. They had a lot of props and explanations of how the movies were made throughout the building. And of course, we had butterbeer.
After leaving, we went back to our hotel in Asakusa to relax before heading out to search for dinner. I never knew Asakusa had shopping arcades (streets covered with transparent roofs and various shops on either side), but we found an udon restaurant. I believe it was another chain restaurant, but I've forgotten the name of the place. All I remember is the udon being fairly priced and extremely delicious. I opted for kitsune udon, thus having a piece of deep-fried tofu skin. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to check in for the night. I found it hard to believe that it's already day 5 in Japan.
This display in the souvenir shop made me feel like I was in Ollivander's shop in the Harry Potter books.
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