There’s a 60-storey building in Ikebukuro with a mall called Sunshine City, and today was the day we decided to tackle it.
We’d seen most of the surrounding area by now, but Sunshine City showed up on every “Top Things to Do in Ikebukuro” list, so we figured it had to offer something special.
In particular, I’d found out about a café with a view on the 60th floor. Onkar had said he needed to work while we explored the mall and that he’d join us again in the evening, and what better place to work than literally in the sky?
When we entered, though, the mall felt a little dated. Less modern than many of Tokyo’s other builds we’d seen. Onkar noted that it was from the mid-1900s, and it showed.
There were four elevators in the lobby, each assigned a range of floors. We took the one that went up to 59 because none of them mentioned 60, assuming there’d be a connecting staircase or elevator from there to the 60th.
The lift was fast when it was cruising at a stretch, but it also picked up and dropped off people from different floors of the building (most of the upper floors looked like office estates) and all in all it took quite a while to get to the almost-top. At which point, we realized there was no connection to floor 60.
There were a couple other cafes and restaurants and we took in an observation-deck view from them, but they didn’t compare to the pictures of the place that was said to exist one floor above.
Upon further investigation, we found there was a special elevator that we’d need to get from floor B1, and that’s the only one that goes to 60. Onkar was in a rush to get to work at this point, so he said he’d sit at Starbucks or one of the similar coffee shops we’d seen on the 1st and 2nd floors on our way in. So, we descended back to normal human altitude and dropped him off at an unassuming cafe on the 2nd floor.
Now that we had a few hours to ourselves, Dad and Bua decided they wanted to go to the aquarium. Dad, in addition, was extremely intrigued by the planetarium show that also took place in the mall later. Mom and I were less inclined towards both items, but since splitting up is quite habitual now, it was an easy decision for the two of us to stay behind and decide what to do while those two went first to the aquarium.
I found a rabbit cafe nearby and we decided to go check it out. It was on the 8th floor of a narrow building, less than 10 minutes from Sunshine City by foot.
Upon arriving, the cafe was closed. Classic Google letdown.
There was a sign saying that due to staff shortages, it currently only opens on Sundays. We’d taken the elevator up but decided to descend the stairwell for the views. Ikebukuro was bustling — a street full of shops, gaming and karaoke. We took in the vibes as we climbed down.
On our way out of Sunshine City earlier, we’d seen signs pointing towards the Ikebus bus stand. The Ikebus — short for Ikebukuro bus — was a tiny red box of metal with 22 seats (as I’d Googled), that we’d seen running on the roads of Ikebukuro, and getting a ride on it was a major bucket list item.
Finding the stop today felt serendipitous, and we’d queued it as the next item to do after seeing the rabbits. Since that didn’t happen, it was now the first priority.
The mall was quite massive though and we were intrigued by the variety of shops. In no hurry, we first spent some time exploring before heading towards the bus stop, and, while on the second floor, came across a balcony with a view of a stage inside a main square on the first (that’s what they call ground here) floor. It had a mic and a keyboard on it, with water fountains built in the backdrop. A huge screen above the setup showed three timings — 1:30, 3:30, and 5:30 — which we assumed were show slots.
I’m a sucker for live music (*cough* no EDM please *cough*), and so is Mom to quite an extent. It was 4:30pm, so we figured we’d do a loop on the Ikebus and be back in time for the final show.
Luckily, one arrived just seconds after we’d found our way through the mall signs to its special designated stop. The bus stop board was small and red and cute, like the bus itself.
The driver stepped out after the last passengers in the bus left, and asked us where we wanted to go. We communicated that we just wanted to take a round and come back. He seemed unsure about whether the bus was still meant to run for one more round, but after checking his timetable he said it was the last one and welcomed us aboard.
There was a ticket machine right at the entrance which he operated for us. I put in 400 yen total for 2 adult tickets — the standard flat fare — and the driver handed us a pamphlet with information about the bus as he welcomed us in.
As I said, the last passengers had gotten off at our stop so the whole bus (with 11 seats in each sideways-facing row along either side) was ours.
The inside was as charming as the outside — wooden seats with numbered cushions, delicate patterns carved into the backrests, classical music softly playing in the background.
The pamphlet told us the bus had two routes — A and B. We were on the A route, which was a smaller loop and took us in a figure 8 between the mall that we were just in and the main Ikebukuro train station. It looked like a small route on paper, but the driver had told us it took about 45 minutes to complete. We later realized that stop times were quite long, which accounted for about half the time of the loop, but it was such an enjoyable journey that if it wasn’t the last loop of the day and if I wasn’t equally anticipating the upcoming music performance in the mall, I would’ve stayed for as long as the bus was still running.
More people joined us later and it was worth seeing their faces all light up with happiness at the sight of the bus’s interior just like ours had a while earlier.
We thanked the driver and asked another passenger waiting to get in at that stop to take a picture of us with the driver and the bus. We thanked him for taking the photo too and scurried in, following the sound of the music to locate the music show.
We’d gone upstairs directly to get the same balcony view, but we realized there were chairs downstairs too — right in front of the stage — and ended up getting seats there. The performance had just begun.
We’d told Dad and Bua, who were done with the aquarium by now, about it too. They’re also quite into this sort of thing, but didn’t show up until halfway through. I would normally have attempted to track them down but the music was so heavenly I didn’t want to do anything but listen to it.
They were playing mostly classical pieces — some I’d heard and some I hadn’t. It was a duo — a man on the violin and a girl on the piano (women look so young here she could probably have been 30 and I’d still say girl) — both instruments I play, fascinating me all the more.
The woman especially, was enjoying herself thoroughly — emoting, bobbing her head and entire body actually, barely looking at the keys — something I recognised as worth years and years of tough practice.
The 45 or so minutes of sitting there and listening had gave rise to such a flow of serotonin in me that it surpassed even the Ikebus experience — something I was already overjoyed about.
These were both unplanned encounters. We’d stumbled upon the signs towards the Ikebus just as we’d caught a glimpse of the stage in passing. Yet both evoked such strong emotions inside me that I felt my entire week was made.
Dad had missed his planned planetarium show by just 5 minutes when the music performance finished, and now planned to go to the one in another 50 minutes. To pass the time, we went and visited some of the shops I’d been fascinated by earlier. I bought some cute jewellery (like I always end up doing at the 300 -yen accessory stores that are everywhere), and even found exactly the kind of black cat-ear cap that I’d been looking for for days. Another win.
We later sat down at a konbini inside the mall for some sustenance and also to get in touch with Onkar about where he was going to meet up with us.
With some time on my hands, I Googled something Onkar had briefly mentioned earlier in the day. Turns out, the mall’s name — Sunshine City — has grim origins. The building was constructed on the grounds of the former Sugamo Prison, where 60 prisoners were executed during WWII. That’s where the ‘60’ in the name comes from, not just the 60 floors. I looked around at the glittery holiday displays, the families in Christmas jumpers and the cheerful piano music still echoing from earlier, and thought about how memories — even the darkest ones — can be overwritten with new ones. And how today, for us, this place had become a site of joy.
Two extremely happy things had already happened in the day, and another one was about to, because we’d planned to go to karaoke together with Onkar.
I love karaoke. I love singing, I love performing. And while vocals are not my musical forte and I might be conscious doing it in front of people I don’t know, with the family I have no restraint.
Onkar had picked a karaoke spot and was waiting nearby with drinks in tow. He’d switched cafes during the day and was closer to the karaoke place when we planned to reconvene.
Dad had finished his planetarium show, and soon all five of us were gathered in our little dark soundproof room — each with two drinks in hand: one required by the karaoke place, and one Strong Zero that Onkar had bought on his way.
Note: Strong Zero is a 9% alcohol drink but has superpowers to somehow get you very drunk, very fast. It tastes like lemon and I like it a lot. I have problems with drinking large volumes too, so it’s quite literally the best drink for me.
Onkar had gotten my order of a gin and tonic wrong (as the only fluent Japanese speaker among us, he was the one communicating at the front desk) and I ended up offloading the beer I instead received to someone else (I’m not sure who it ended up with). Onkar forced mom to drink, and even though I was feeling quite drunk by the time I was half a Strong Zero down I managed to finish my can by the end of the night.
I’d been postponing karaoke night until I’d learned more Japanese songs, but at this point I’d given up and resorted to reading the ones whose tunes I knew from their romaji versions online. Most of them were songs from animated movies that mom also knew, so me, her and Onkar were having a ball. We threw in a couple of English songs for dad and bua, but it turned out no one really knew anyone else’s favourites — but between all the drinks, we were all having too much fun for anyone to care.
I somehow lost 2GB of mobile data to some background processes in my phone that ran while I looked up song lyrics. This would’ve been a mood bust ordinarily, but tonight I couldn’t care less. Money even felt unimportant when deciding to extend our stay.
I didn’t even realize that all the Strong Zeros had gone. Onkar had brought 5 in a bag and as far as I was aware, me and him were the only ones having them. Everyone had kanpai-ed with the drinks from the karaoke place, and I never noticed the Strong Zeroes coming out. We extended our 1h session by another half hour, but at the end of the 1.5h I seemed to be the only one still wanting more so it was a mutual decision to leave, at which point I noticed that onkar’s shopping bag was empty and all the drinks were down.
It was my first time seeing mom properly drunk. by the last couple of songs she was swaying as she sang with no inhibitions. Dad was quite composed as always, and onkar’s has the alcohol tolerance of a seasoned pub manager, but he was having fun seeing the rest of us drunk — especially mom. Bua said her head was spinning and as for me — I’d been spinning since halfway through.
It wasn’t even 10pm and I absolutely did not want to go home, so we inquired at a games place for a 1h table tennis slot, but it was insanely overpriced and totally not worth it even to our drunken heads. We ended up walking towards the house, getting Mos Burgers on the way — a good compromise.
I’d been waiting for this experience for weeks while on this trip, and it also lived up to everything I’d been thinking of.
Three back-to-back, wildly different sources of happiness in a single day made today one of the best days of the entire trip, hands-down.
Two small surprises and one dark room with a mic and four of my favourite people in the world — that’s all I needed to feel full again. We spend so much time chasing the big things. But really, the tiny joys are what matter. And when you string a few of them together? That’s magic. This day was proof.
Sprinkle more magic into your life. Pay attention to what makes you feel this way. And when you find those moments? Don’t hesitate. Seize them.