My sister lives about an hour away from the center of Tokyo, but she is only a 20 minute bus ride away from Tama Center, which is where we spent our Monday morning and where we bought Starbucks for breakfast. We did some shopping that morning at the department store my sister had visited previously and had only frequented the Daiso (a 100 yen store). We went through each floor admiring the presentation of possible Christmas gifts. Everywhere we looked it was decorated with Christmas decorations.
We visited Nicole’s school after we did some shopping for lunch using the Monorail and it was about a 10 minute trip. We then returned to Tama Center to visit Sanrio Puroland. Along the way we were distracted and played a quick game of Taiko Drums at a Game Center called Taito Station.
We made our way over to the entrance and it was so cute! I grew up loving items and toys from Sanrio, so visiting Puroland in Japan was like a dream come true (Even though I had only heard about it a few months ago!)
The park had three floors, downstairs there were ride, theater and the wisdom tree. We arrived in time to see tutus and tiaras distributed to little girls and witnessed a mini ballet lesson taught by a host and mascot Bonbon Ribbon.
Admission to Sanrio Puroland is not free and you do have to pay extra for a few things like the rides and theater. But one of the attractions we did visit was the Wisdom Tree. We climbed up and spotted a cute little shrine where people could make wishes on bells and tie them to a tree.
After we finished touring the attractions area, we went upstairs to the second floor to visit the Sanrio Store. Nicole spotted one of her favorite mascots, Cinnamaroll as a plushie. While she didn’t go home with that she did buy some cookies in a Cinnamaroll tin and a tiny towel with his face. We thought we would have been able to find some item featuring Pochacco,but apparently he is hard to find in Japan. (You would think it’d be easy.)
We spotted trees decorated with Sanrio plushies and if we had more time we would have visited the third floor where there is a restaurant where you can eat with the characters and possibly take photos with them. (At least, that”s what it looked like on the directory.) We needed to head back to my sister’s dorm so she could work on a presentation for the next day. Maybe next time we will spend more time to go on the rides and visit the thrid floor.
Hope you enjoyed details from my trip to Tama Center and Sanrio Puroland. Stay tuned for my time in the Roppongi hills at night.
Brandy