Japan 8 (281210)

Entrance of Takeshita-dori, Harajuku.

Last night, Sam came down with food poisoning after eating some raw yakitori at dinner. So today, he and mum stayed at the hotel. On the other hand, my uncle and his family, and my grandma and I caught the train to Harajuku.

My uncle and his family went to Kiddyland, while I wanted to stay and explore Takeshita-dori and Omotesando. My poor grandmother came with me because she was worried for my safety (on the other hand, I was worried for her safety lol).

So, walking through Takeshita-dori I looked at all the stalls and stuff. There were lots of jewelry stalls selling visual kei-inspired stuff. And Dir en grey t-shirts :D I bought a punk-lolita hoodie, complete with rabbit ears.

I had a look in the Bodyline shop too! But I wasn't allowed to take photos... The interior was really pretty though! Red velvet drapes everywhere...and chandeliers! And the shop assistants were so very polite and well-dressed. Lots of tourists though.

When we reached the end of the street, I was a little disappointed that I hadn't come away with much. However, I remembered that Laforet was on Omotesando, so I led my poor, slow grandmother through the herds of lolitas and cosplayers down the road to it.

It was like a dream to enter the shopping mall I'd wanted to go to since I was a little wee jrock fangirl. Of course, I headed straight for the basement levels (after all, I'd been looking at floor guides online for years) and went for a browse around h.Naoto, Black Peace Now, Alice and the Pirates, Angelic Pretty, Metamorphose and Putumayo.

Terribly blurry photos of the h.Naoto store (above) and BPN (below)

I guess it goes without saying that I couldn't actually afford any of the clothes. However I managed to purchase the necklace from Putumayo that I've been wanting all year.

We also went to Like an Edison, where I bought D's Akaki Hitsuji single. Actually, I've never seen so many visual kei CDs in one place before...so it took me a good forty minutes or so to decide on what to buy.

While I was there I also picked up a copy of Shoxx magazine (contains a poster of topless Saga (alicenine) splashing around in a pool of 'blood' *A*).

After my fantasy shopping spree, we met up with my uncle & co., and stopped by a SoftBank store on the way to the train station. They were advertising a new product of theirs, Disney phones. One of their TV ads starred a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Song Joong Ki.

We returned to Shinjuku, and browsed Bic Camera for a while. I bought Sam a couple of Fate Stay Night Nendoroid Petites (Claire and I took ages to decide on which boxes to purchase - we even shook the box to try to determine which figure was inside).

We had dinner at a restaurant called Tengu. There, we had various things - pizza, yakitori, yellowtail sashimi, and a first for me - horse meat sashimi.

Somewhat chewy, but otherwise rather nice. :3

All in all a good day, minus all the worrying about Sam. Mum and I stayed in his room that night, and watched Sungkyunkwan Scandal until 2am. Lol...

Japan 5 (201210 - 261210)

The view from our apartment balcony.

We caught a bus to Niseko around 9am.

There wasn't much to say about this week, seeing as I had no interest in skiing or snow in general. What I enjoyed most was probably the apartment we stayed in - a 4 bedroom penthouse suite several times the size of my house in Wellington.

One of the four bathrooms D:

Mine and Claire's room.

The 4th bedroom was a mirror image of this one.

(Part of) the master bedroom.

While the rest of the family went skiing or snowboarding, mum and I explored the souvenir shops and picked up a few local treats.

I didn't buy those cookies just because they're called Ciel...

Danpa :D

I also downloaded the Sungkyunkwan Scandal drama using the free wifi :D Claire watched it with us when she could, and thus began her quest to marry me off to Song Joong Ki. Alas, I don't think he goes better with anyone but Yoo Ah In...

During our time there, we seldom cooked our own food despite the presence of a kitchen. Most nights we ate at restaurants around the ski village, or pigged out on snacks from the combini.

To be honest, I didn't really like the atmosphere there - it was much too touristy. Nobody there was actually Japanese (everyone was Singaporean D:) and everything was twice the usual price because the foreigners didn't know any better.

I was super excited when we finally left for Tokyo.

Japan 4 (191210)

We finally went on our long-awaited day trip to Otaru. We got up and got ready, and left the hotel around 11am to catch the train.

Otaru is a small town an hour away from Sapporo. It's home to a shopping street with music box (orgel) makers, bakeries and glass-blowers.

I got a little music box that plays the chorus of Kiseki by Greeeen, and I also got some little trinkets to decorate the box with. :D Here are some photos taken from the music box museum (unfortunately mine is not as pretty as these:

Spot the odd one out :D

Then we went into various bakeries and confectionery shops to try all the free samples :D

Once that was over, we split into two groups - the shopping group and the playing-with-snow/eating group. The former consisted of my mother, Sam, my aunty and myself (and then my grandmother after she got ditched by the other group while using the toilet lol).

We had a look in various shops, selling chopsticks and crafts made from traditional brocade (still don't remember what it's called fail). There was a pair of chopsticks going for 8400 yen (roughly NZD$135).

Since 2011 is the year of the rabbit, everything was rabbit-y

Sam and I looking at all the little glass ornaments 8D

Glass-blower at work

There were also a lot of little stalls selling snacks, like gyoza, rice crackers and 'bakudan-yaki'; a cross between tako-yaki and okonomi-yaki. So basically a gigantic tako-yaki containing okonomi-yaki ingredients.

Gyozaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Rice cracker stall

Crabs that were bigger than my face D:

Bakudan-yaki!

We spent pretty much the whole day there, even going without dinner (though we did have snacks from a combini) and got home after the sun had gone down. All in all a rather fun day.

Japan 3 (181210)

Today, we spent the afternoon at Sapporo Factory (while the shops were actually open).

Had lunch at a sushi train place - the sashimi was excellent. The snow crab was sweet and tender and omg I could eat it all day. Unfortunately, the rest of my family (as well as Uncle Simon and his family) are gastronomically challenged when it comes to seafood, so my aunty and I were really the only ones who seemed to enjoy ourselves.

There was an event being held at the Factory to celebrate the release of Pokemon Black & White - there was someone wandering around in a costume of the water-type starter, and he/she was getting tackled from all sides by heaps of little kids. It was a sad and amusing sight indeed.

We couldn't get a picture of the body due to the sea of kids.

They were also giving out these ridiculous hat things with the new Pokemon on them.

:D

We spent the majority of our time there looking at ski stuff. Even though everyone already had some. :/ I got a pair of boots to wear in the snow though - they're really ugly. I don't plan on wearing them after leaving Japan...

After dinner (I had cold soba and tempura :D), the kids got bored, so seeing as we weren't gonna leave for a long time, we headed out to the back of the shopping centre to play in the snow.

Japan 2 (171210)

Giant Christmas tree at Sapporo Factory

Claire, Sam and I got woken up by my uncle at 9.30am, but we didn't leave the hotel until 4pm. By then, it was dark and much colder and just miserable in general.

As per usual with my uncle, we ate first and he was pretty much ready to go home after that D:

Mum, Claire and I went to Loft, where I saw more calendars in one place than I'd seen before in my entire life. There was a calendar featuring art by Kaori Wakamatsu that I wanted to get, but it was quite expensive. It was stunning though...so I looked her up and found her blog. :3

Later we trekked through the snow to Sapporo Factory to find that it was closed minus the food area. Which was expected seeing as it was 8.30pm. 

We got candy and this ice cream stuff called Dippin' Dots...which were like little pellets of ice cream. Yummy. :3

Japan - the land of omnipresent vending machines and heated toilet seats

The room shared by Claire, Sam and I on our first night in Sappporo

Once again, I got a shock when I sat down and found that the toilet seat was heated.

After checking in and changing our clothes we set out into the -4 degree weather to explore the city. We went to the park surrounding Sapporo Tower (which looks a lot like Tokyo Tower lol) and admired all the Christmas lights and stuff. 

Sapporo Tower

Later we ate at a basement yakitori restaurant. Once we got back we went into several combini to get breakfast for the next day. 

At the yakitori restaurant

Claire, Sam and I had a room to ourselves. We showered and did a bit of laundry. Claire and I treated ourselves to cheesecake souffles and Fuyu Pocky (Pocky with a double coat of chocolate and dusted with cocoa powder). 

We were going to watch Wall-E but we started to fall asleep...

Air travel adventures - Japan edition

Lost (?) at Shin-Chitose

Our flight to Japan was unguided this time around. We also had the addition of my grandmother, who happens to be the slowest person in our family.

The Changi-Narita leg was simple enough. We flew ANA, which had small seats and crappy food, although the attendants were prettier than SIA and Air NZ. xD

Once we got to Narita, we went through immigration with spectacular efficiency, though I can't say the same about my grandma - she stood around just staring at the poor immigration officer who was gesturing madly and trying to communicate with her. How embarrassing...

We arrived at Haneda domestic airport an hour later by bus. The place was a lot more foreigner-friendly compared to last time. People could actually understand English. D:

The security was tighter than Narita too. They had to scan the contents of our water bottles and everything. 

At Shin-Chitose airport in Sapporo, my uncle and his family were waiting for us. We had lunch at an airport restaurant (oysters, crab and sashimi omg) before buying some Hokkaido specialty sweets and stuff. Once all that was done we caught the bus to the ANA hotel in the middle of the city.

D:

Crabzilla on the side of a building near ANA hotel