We got another late start at the メルキュール東京羽田エアポート Mercure Tokyo Haneda Airport this morning. We headed over to Shinjuku to meet up with family who live in Japan. Later on, we visited アルトニア Artnia, the Square Enix cafe and shop at their headquarters. We ended up walking around Shinjuku for a bit before having sushi at Shinagawa Station on our way back to the Mercure.
Morning
We actually woke up at the メルキュール東京羽田エアポート Mercure Tokyo Haneda Airport in time to see sunrise! And that sunrise even included a bit of color!
Shinjuku
We didn’t head out until much later in the morning though. We ended up going over to Shinjuku to meet up with family who live in Japan.
After arriving, we briefly walked to the northeast side of Shinjuku Station to see the Giant 3D Cat. We first saw him earlier this year back in January. It was at night and pretty cold but we spent a long time watching! Unfortunately, the Sun was a bit too bright today and he was a bit hard to see. We’ll hopefully be able to see him again in the evening!
We decided to go up to the rooftop garden at the 伊勢丹 Isetan department store.
It reminded us a bit of the rooftop gardens at the various AMU Plazas in Kyushu.
Although there was not a railway shrine, there was a shrine for 朝日弁財天 Asahi Benzaiten. In Japan, Benzaiten is one of the Seven Lucky Gods.
This bust depicts the founder of Isetan, 小菅丹治 Kosuge Tanji.
The rooftop garden was a nice green spot in an otherwise very urban environment.
For lunch, we ate at やまと楽 Yamato Raku, a restaurant in a building across the street from Isetan. The space was interesting as the entrance, on the 4th floor of a building, had a garden-like stone path entrance.
Although it did have a number of courses, it ended up being a pretty light lunch.
After lunch, we walked around the area a bit before deciding to go visit Square Enix’s cafe. On the way, we came across this row of vending machines depicting various scenes from Shinjuku.
We walked by the headquarters of Nissin, the company that makes Cup Noodles!
After walking for about ten minutes, we arrived at スクウェア・エニックス Square Enix‘s headquarters building! Square Enix was formed as a result of a merger between two video game companies, Square and Enix. Square is perhaps most famous for its Final Fantasy series while Enix was known for Dragon Quest.
We continued on to a small building that houses アルトニア Artnia, Square Enix’s official cafe and shop. These two windows showed Dragon Quest artwork.
We got the strawberry pancakes and strawberry parfait. It was pretty expensive for what was mediocre by Japanese standards.
A room to the side contained various figures from Square Enix games. The cafe did also sell quite a bit of Square Enix merch, but nothing was particularly worth buying as nothing was really unique to this location.
Artnia, as seen from the outside as we headed away.
We backtracked to start to head back to Shinjuku Station.
We briefly stopped by 花園神社 Hanazono-jinja, which we visited back in January. It was significantly less busy compared to our previous visit.
There are two things of interest here. First, the building near the center looks like a barcode! It contains the ホテルグレイスリー Hotel Gracery. Just to the left, there is a Godzilla head! The hotel actually has Godzilla themed rooms as well as rooms with a close up view of this head.
The skyscrapers of Shinjuku.
We walked over to the northeast side of Shinjuku Station…
In order to watch the Giant 3D Cat again!
The second scene we recorded discusses some current events. While the cat primarily resides at the Cross Shinjuku Vision, he would sometimes go visit the nearby Alta Vision. But in February, the Alta department store was closed, as part of a massive redevelopment project, so he can no longer go there! The Alta building was around for 45 years.
Evening
After returning to Shinjuku Station, we took the Yamanote Line over to Shinagawa Station. We were a little bit hungry so we decided to try Uogashi Nihon-ichi, a stand up sushi restaurant at the station, for a quick meal as there was no queue.
The scallops were particularly good here. The rest was good too but a bit expensive for the quality. Mawashi Sushi Katsu, the kaiten sushi restaurant we ate at yesterday in Meguro, was overall much better, though admittedly not nearly as convenient.
We noticed Santa KitKats earlier on this trip at various locations in Japan. We never bought one until today. They really are shaped like Santa Claus and are actual KitKats. We ate all 6, which cost ¥500.
We got this 駅スタンプ eki sutampu (Station Stamp) earlier today while at Shinjuku Station.
The night view from the Mercure before we went to sleep.