Namjatown

Many tourists, particularly the younger ones, go to Japan attracted by the gaming culture. On our trip, we met many fans of anime, Pokemon and… well, I don’t even remember the names of the games.  We are not gamers and have no interest in Pokemon Go, gaming museums or salons, or amusement parks. However, in Tokyo we did end up at a quirky indoor theme park, where we were the only Caucasians and the only people who had no idea what was going on there. We did it for the food.

Namjatown is located on the second floor of the Sunshine City mall, and it is quite big (one floor and four city blocks). The main part is a nostalgic city of the 1950s (“Serving nostalgia since 1976”), with some games, rides, and activities. You can also talk to the spirits of the dead who might possess your soul, or pat a cat at the cat petting park, there is fortune telling, storybook reading, indoor digital fishing, and some activities that I really did not understand. It all seemed quite surreal to us. And it was mostly adults who were participating; it must be that nostalgia and going back in time to a street we were not familiar with. So why did we go there?

During the last 2 days of the trip, we wanted to eat some more gyoza. But everywhere around our hotel either the gyoza places were closed or the lines were too long. We asked AI and it suggested the Gyoza Stadium at Namjatown. So we bought the entrance tickets and then explored several gyoza vendors who offered dumplings made with recipes from many different parts of Japan. Bingo! No lineups, reasonable prices, many delicious types of gyoza. Next time I am in Tokyo and feel like having gyoza, I will be heading to Namjatown Maybe I will stay longer and enter one of those room where you can put a toy in a drawer and a different one appears in a different drawer, with some unusual music playing.