Places I Plan To Visit: Sunshine Namja Town in Ikebukuro.

Ikebukuro, where our hotel will be during our stay in Tokyo, has a ton of fun attractions to check out! The one I'm most excited about that the moment is Sunshine Namja Town; an indoor amusement park on the seconf floor of Sunshine 60 shopping center.

I first heard of this place when it was mentioned (briefly) in the anime series Durarara!!, but I knew nothing about it. After doing research for this trip, I've learned tons about the place and what a fun attraction it is! It's basically a small amusement park with over 24 attraction inside six sections called "towns". It features a haunted house and a range of carnival-like attractions, but it's main appeal to me lies in it's food vendors. Four out of it's six towns are dedicated to a certain type of food! The is the Ramen Museum, the Sweets Forest, the Ice Cream Town and the Gyoza Town. (Check 'em out here!)

The Ramen Museum is pretty pricey, as is the Sweets Forest, which is a bummer.

Stupid fancy ramen. Stop taunting me!

But the other too food parks are right up my alley and in my price range! The Gyoza Town is particularly enticing. These Gyoza are Japanese-style Chinese dumplings that are stuffed with a variety of ingredients and pan-fried.

I want these because of reasons.

Reviews say that these Gyoza are definitely worth stopping for and they come in a huge variety of types and styles. Traditionally they are stuffed with a mixture of pork, cabbage, garlic, leeks or spring onions and other spices, but they can really be stuffed with anything from buttery crab and garlic to beef and cheese. Megan and I intend to grab a variety of these for lunch, and then top them off with ice cream (or a Belgian Waffle!) from Ice Cream town. =D

God bless the Dutch influence in Japanese History~ <3

The park also features an theme reminiscent of the Japanese Edo period, which I've heard makes it a really cool place just to explore. It's 300 yen (approximately 3 dollars) to get in to Sunshine Town, but it will be so worth it. =D

(P.S. Fair warning, this blog may slip into a "Tess drools over Japanese food" blog from time to time. Sorry about that! I promise I'll blog about other things too!)