Just when Michelle was leaving a woman rang the doorbell. Apparently she was from Tokyo Gas and wanted to check all the gas pipes. It was great to see all the equipment she pulled out to do a reading if we had a gas leak. She was very thorough. She checked the stove (even underneath) and the elements that provide gas to the apartment. We passed the test and after she filled in some forms she left. Michelle could finally begin her hunt for homeopathic remedies.

While in Holland you can get them at every drugstore or supermarket, but here in Japan it is quite a challenge. There was a store online who seemed to fill the description and it was in Shibuya, so Michelle wanted to visit the store and look if she could find something close enough to what she needed and soon she arrived at Shibuya. While walking to the shop she saw a big Disney Store with a very funny storefront and the Tower Records calling out some special action that came with the new album release of Funky Monkey Babies. It is sure fun to see some new shops while looking for something totally different. She wanted to visit them but first wanted to make sure the homeopathic store had the stuff she needed. It was not hard to find because of a very big golden egg on top of a roof of some nearby building. It is still fun to see those funny buildings in the middle of Tokyo. Unfortunately the store she thought was a homeopathic store was nothing like expected. It smelled like a sauna when she entered and the guy had no idea what I was talking about, not even with a dictionary... They had all of these strange capsules on display and some customers came back with small unknown bottles. My guess was aromatherapy, but I had no idea what those strangely packed transparent capsules were. She new for sure this store did not contain what she was looking for so she took a brochure (maybe she can ask someone what this store is) and left. Because it was quite early Michelle decided to explore the bit of Shibuya she did not see yet. First of course the enormous Tower Records. It was quite impressive, the basic floor had all the recommendations and new releases that made it very easy to know what was recently released. Apparently there was a big fuss about the new album of the Funky Monkey Babies. After some asking she discovered you can win prizes if you buy the album. You get a ticket to grab a prize from some lottery box. You could win prizes ranging from a concert ticket to a poster. The rest of the Tower Records floors were very nice too. The second (my favorite) floor was entirely for J-pop and other Japanese music like punk and visual kei. Of course every floor featured a different genre like Jazz or K-pop. This was one of the biggest music stores Michelle visited!

Afterwards she went to the Disney Store. The atmosphere and decoration of the store was amazing. Although the ground floor was playing a song directly from the Marry Poppins movie the rest of the floors had some theme-music that reminded her of the music they play at attractions at Disney Land as you wait or went into an attraction. There were all kinds of funny decorations all around the store. Even a very nice Pinoccio display as a surprise on the 3rd floor. The store had various kinds of merchandise, of course a lot of stuffed animals but also stuff like skirts and scarfs. The weirdest thing she saw was the case for classes. It just didn't seem right to abuse Disney characters like this... On the 3rd floor you could even buy tickets for the Disney Tokyo theme park and it was quite busy as well. Michelle eventually bought two cute Christmas bears with a nice discount.

Afterwards she continued discovering the rest of the unexplored Shibuya. She found great new stores like an official Mac store and a 01Club which is nice store with all kinds of funny goodies! There was even a strange Christmas decorated building in the street which cought everyone's curiosity. Michelle couldn't resist and went in as well. It was nothing special though. There was a mirror inside and when you looked at it some very fake comic-like crown decorations were placed on your head. Then a photo was taken, and a QR code was shown. On the way outside she saw you could probably buy the photo for 300 yen. When she finished exploring and because it was getting very cold, she went home.