Japan 2.0: Tokyo – Kichijioji, Inokashira koen, Hattifnatt & goodbyes

Konnichiwa my dear pals! Also I should add a hard Dewa mata suguni ne (See you soon) because this is going to be the last post from Japan – my heart aches!

The series will last a few more episodes since we have a little surprised prepared in a form of a giveaway for next week, and a couple other related more specific articles. Therefore, this is the last that explains a story of one of the days during our last Japan travel adventure, keep us company while we take the Yamanote line to Kichijioji, will you?

Kichijioji is one of those neihgborhoods that are either out of the more conventional Tokyo guides or is only partially included as a visit to the close Ghibli museum. However, the neighborhood is one of the favorites among locals to live in, and have bicycles everywhere and trendy shops and cafés, while being down to earth.

We chose to visit Kichijioji because one of our favorite neighborhoods is Shimokitazawa, that has a more modern vintage-y vibe than the rest of the more modern-crazy Tokyo hoods and which we visited after a recommendation from Hello Sandwich. Kichijioji was also in her guide, and pointed out as a favorite.

I bought a pair of wide leg (japanese style) trousers in this shop, but I would have bought many other cute outfits from head to bottom, like this one in the window.

We requested the gentlemen in the car to take a picture, and in their unique Japanese ways he was super excited and put a big proud smile in his face. A kind response like his brightens up any day, right?

Kichijioji has a cute park called Inokashira koen with swan boats that is (almost) equally charming in autumn and spring. The neighborhood has also very cute clothing shops & one of the cutest stationery store I’ve ever seen (Paper message) which we confirmed as a must after the recommendation of Cassandre – check her stationery Instagram account to see she is one to trust when it comes with paper!

Will you bring me bad luck? Swan boats are told to not bring the best of lucks for happy couples, if this legend is true or not, we wouldn’t venture to try our lucks, right?

Maybe not swans but those tiny colorful cuties look good, let’s go sailing!

Pink! well, they know how to please this lady :)

We both switched driving times, but Dani likes to think he is a better sailor than I am, ha!

Hattifnatt

At this point, after you have already seen some of the other wonders of this neighborhood, I have to confess that I would have equally visited Kichijioji only because it is where the original Hattifnatt café is located.

Hattifnatt is a naïf style decorated café built resembling a house on a tree, it is quite heaven on earth if I may add. As a bonus they also have a tiny store detached that features little knick knacks from independent artists, and where you can also buy some souvenirs from Hattifnatt: I got one of their signature plastic cups, in the same color we got at the café.

During lunchtime they have a menu. We ordered the curry and was absolutely wonderful! yet different to every other Japanese curry I’ve tasted before, it was more tomato-ish. The menu also includes a salad and a drink.

We couldn’t leave Hattifnatt without trying a matcha latte, could we? They are super delicious and feature the best crafted topping decoration.

Back to Shibuya, at night

To scream our heartfelt goodbyes to Tokyo we had an exciting date planned. We were going to meet an American blogger I’ve longed followed called Kathryn (Kitsune kun, we had her featured in our first blogiversary) whom has been living for three years in Japan with her hubs Ryan.

She proposed to have dinner at a restaurant called “and people”, at an early hour so we would be able to have enough time to pack our bags. Describing the restaurant as modern or trendy will fall short for “and people”, it’s all that and much more. During our dinner we witnessed three different birthdays being celebrated just that day, everytime they projected a different performance of lights and images on a wall with curtains, impressive! For the first one, since it was quite a big show, we even thought it was going to be a proposal.

Thanks lovely girl for this special goodbye.

It is too hard to say goodbye to a place like Japan that holds such an important place in our hearts. So I will only write a “thank you for this second round, once again it has exceeded my expectactions, a “Till we meet again” and start wishing upon the brightest star everyday till we have a third adventure. Read the rest of adventures in the following list, and also keep tuned for a several silly related posts that are missing. Thanks to everyone reading our Japan posts!