GraffArt Cafe and Owls in Ikebukuro

After my long walk in Saitama, I was ready for lunch. I ended up heading back to Ikebukuro. Because if you want to eat in Ikebukuro, there's a lot of choices. Really, a person could eat at a different restaurant every day and there would still be more untried places.

I decided to check out a cute place I had seen online. GraffArt Cafe. It was on a side street and a little hidden, but I found it.

Ichigo from Tokyo Mew Mew was there greeting customers. GraffArt refers to this style of art, chalk on chalkboard.

Inside was more cute art. And yes, photos are okay to take. So of course here are some that I took. 

GraffArt is a company that creates goods and promotes artists. 

So of course there are a lot of different items to see and buy. 

The Cafe is one room with video monitors where you can watch short anime and other images. 

The Cafe was decorated for Christmas including artwork for the holiday. 

Characters from various manga and anime also decorated the walls.

There are goods also for these characters including classic ones like the two hearted Sapphire from Princess Knight. 

The menu was only four food items. This is more of a place to sit and drink while enjoying the surroundings and any friends you may be with.

There are many more drinks to chose from. I went with the Calpis Blue. It's Calpis (Calpico for outside of Japan) with blue curaçao. It was very nice.

As for food, I had a choice of a waffle, pancakes, or two types of cake. I went with the pancakes. They were soft and warm. Berries with pancakes is a delicious way of serving them. That's chocolate ice cream in the little souffle cup. 

Because it was a 65th anniversary of Nakayoshi manga magazine, there were special coasters given out. Lucky me getting three. 

GraffArt Cafe's website is here http://graffart-cafe.athree3.com/#box

And their address is ＪＫ７ 1階, 1 Chome-9-21 Minamiikebukuro, Toshima City, Tokyo 171-0022, Japan

Back outside the weather was moving towards rain. I decided to walk a different way back to my hotel. Not far from GraffArt Cafe was this giant torii and chochin lanterns. 

Turns out this is the Nichiren Shoshu Honden, the headquarters for Hokkeko affiliated with the Nichiren Shoshu school of Japanese Buddhism. Their website is here http://www.hodoin.net/

I also saw more owls.  This artwork is at Ikebukuro Nishi-guchi Park.

Besides the owl statues, there are more owls at the base. Along with pigeons.

And it was wrapped with lights for the holiday.  

Ikebukuro's illuminations here didn't start for another week, but the trees were colorful.

Second Visit and Impact at Evangelion Bar

Since the Evangelion Bar in Ikebukuro will be closing soon as they change to another theme, I had to visit it one more time. 

It was the time when they served lunch. I decided to go with the Second Impact Curry.

 In case you are wondering, that is Misato Katsuragi during the Second Impact.

The Mark.06 wine was really refreshing in the hot weather. It's a white wine like a Sauvignon Blanc. The lemon added just the right bit of tartness.

Time for Second Impact. 

I have no idea how they got that blacked edge around the curry. Perhaps they put it under a broiler before topping it with that egg. The way the curry was constructed was that the rice was molded in a ring and the curry placed inside that.

Nice little bit of salad. The soup was basic, like it came from a dry soup mix.

However the chicken curry was really good. Time to break that egg yolk. There was some heat to this dish, in a good way. I really enjoyed this.

Proof I ate all of it. And the grown up Misato, some time after the Second Impact.

NERV

Just before leaving on my trip, I found this strange rumor on the internet, that NERV had relocated their headquarters to Ikebukuro. So on a cloudy hot day I set out to see if this was true.

My first discovery was more owls. At least it wasn't Angels.

Following the limited directions, I found myself on Sunshine 60 Dori, A place with a mix of stores, popular with young adults for the clothing, anime, manga and gaming, interesting places to eat, and more. This was good for me since my plans for the day were to shop at Tokyu Hands, Tomads and Uniqlo, and whatever else that was interesting.

As for food, that would be determined by what I found. I reached the rumored location of NERV, at 46 Shokudo.

Pretending to be an izakaya, I decided this was the right place.

Especially with Commander Gendo Ikari glaring down from the doorway.

I had arrived during Angel Hour, shito, which was code for a small drink discount from 2:10 pm to 4:00. Which explained why there were not many people in here. But it was perfect for me since I had not eaten lunch. Actually, for most of my trip I didn't eat lunch but instead later had tea with something nice. The choices of life.

However this place didn't look much like NERV Headquarters. Along with the fact that it was above ground and not below. But the images of Misato Katsuragi and the obvious NERV logo suggested somehow it was connected.

Ah, Angel Hour. I decided to take advantage of that.

While I waited for my order, video played on various monitors. Were we under attack again by Angels, or Shito 使徒?

Seems Shinji is a little worried about having to pilot his Eva. 

My drink arrives. I decided to go with wine since the other drinks had a bit of sugar in them. The Mark.06, as blue as it was.

Along with some aqua colored potato salad.

While there were a lot of really creative dishes on the menu, I went with basic salmon with french fries. Although there was something suspicious in the tarter sauce.

More of them? 3rd Angels pretending to be shumai dumplings?

Well, they tried to invade my table but I ate them all. They were good. This was a nice lunch in a fun atmosphere.

I don't buy much in anime goods these days, but they had Misato's necklace. It's pretty nice too.

I realize I could have put a warning at the top of this post that it contains references to the anime franchise Neon Genesis Evangelion. But it probably is obvious. And if anyone is interested in going to the Evangelion Bar, it is located at Tokyo-to, Toshima-ku, Higashi Ikebukuro 1-29-4, Narita Building 4th floor. This is good till September 1st, when the bar transforms into something else.

A Very Large Unicorn Adventure

My last day in Tokyo found me with a troublesome right leg and overcast weather. There were many places I wanted to see (as always). One was not far from where I wanted to go but it involved walking, buses and preferring to see it in better weather. So I thought hard as to what to do, given my limitations. There was another place I had thought about revisiting. When I realized there was something I had wanted to see for the first time. Near the place I wanted to revisit. And there was an easy way to get there. I needed to go to Ikebukuro Station to get my N'EX seat and lucky for me, the train I wanted to take was right by the ticket office. So I got on the Saikyo Line for the first time.

The Saikyo Line follows part of the Yamanote Line but doesn't stop at all the stations. Mental note for future, definitely need to use this line, as long as it's not rush hour. It still took some time to go from Ikebukuro to the Tokyo Teleport Station, but much easier than having to change trains. So up I went this rather futuristic escalator.

To find the back of the Fuji TV Building in Odaiba. 

Not far from there was Diver City Shopping Mall and The Gundam Base Tokyo. 

Of course there is a theme cafe. The Gundam Cafe, which looks a lot like the Gundam Cafe in Akihabara. 

But what Akihabara doesn't have is this. 

A lit up 19.7 meters tall 1:1 scale replica of the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam.

That's  64.6 feet. Just a little taller than this man.

 Previously there was a Gundam statue here, based on one of the original designs. But it was removed and on September 26th, 2017, the new Unicorn Gundam was unveiled.

The design was based on the MobileSuit Gundam Unicorn anime.

 It definitely is impressive.

 Both the exhaust ports in the back and various panels light up. Pink means it's in attack mode.

There are a number of parts that move, including the two horns at the top. They move together to create one unicorn horn. There is a video here that shows how this happens, about 45 seconds in,  https://twitter.com/Normal_wa/status/911930241924214784 

While I was there, a man jumped the chain barrier. Two non-uniformed guys escorted him away. So they do have people watching just in case someone does something crazy. Most people, like these, were just getting selfies.

While there wasn't much beyond the colossal model, it was interesting to see and not too difficult for me to get to. Which was good because there was that place I wanted to revisit. 

Off in the distance was more of the Odaiba skyline, including this walkway. 

Which has some resemblance to the Gundam Unicorn. It's by the Tokyo Teleport Train Station. But I am getting a little ahead again. 

Because there was that place I wanted to revisit. 

Which was near the colorful Palette Town Daikanransha, a 100 meter Ferris wheel, which I first saw in December, 2010. And that place is what my next post will be about.