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...

Goodies from Nakano and Ikebukuro

So, a run-down of stuff I got from this day out...

Converses. Claire and I bought matching ones. :3

Togainu no Chi Rin and Shiki coasters. Hahah. Probably the most useful items I got, really. I also got a Shiki figure that I didn't photograph.

D's Ouka Saki Some ni Keri single. 8D

Various Kuroshitsuji goodies: two clearfile folders, one came with a poster; Yuya Matsushita's Hallucination single from the musical; a set of badges. I also photographed Max's Ciel figure.

Various Hakuouki things: a tin of candy; a phone strap; phone stickers; some sort of food...red bean soup? I have no idea, but mum wanted it so I bought it...

My new iPhone 4 (got for Christmas) after I Hakuoukified it:

Japan 7 (271210)

Today, we spent the afternoon in Nakano, just a couple of stops from Shinjuku. My aunt was all excited, telling my brother and I that we'd find Nakano very fun. She took us through Nakano Broadway, which is opposite the train station, and sure enough, Sam and I weren't disappointed.

Nakano broadway is a shopping complex, whose second and third floors are dedicated to manga and anime merchandise.

Entrance of Nakano Broadway.

Figures and models that I didn't buy TnT

I bought a whole swag of goodies that I'll detail in another post.

Ciel and Alois' rings!!!! And Ciel Nendo box in the background.

This time, Sam and I took Max and we went exploring the second and third floors. Usually Max hates shopping, but he made an exception. His eyes would light up whenever we stopped at a Gundam model kit section. He also got interested in Kuroshitsuji (lololololol) and bought himself a Ciel one-coin figure... Sam and I also educated him about Nendoroids (Max calls them 'Neno-droids haha).

Togainu no Chi vinyl!

Gaaaaaaames! (Starry Sky!)

After an entire afternoon of shopping, we went to Ikebukuro for yet more shopping. This time, I was determined to find the Animate flagship store there.

Finding the damn store was a real mission. It wasn't in any obvious place - tucked away all unassuming and stuff. I don't even have pictures of it (no pictures allowed :/). However, we managed to spend a good one and a half hours there scouring the 7 floors of anime stuff. Finished up around 8 or 9pm (I love Asian shopping hours!).

The ground floor (or first floor if you're Asian) contained magazines (like Shonen Jump, GFantasy) and food.

Second, third and fourth floors were dedicated to manga and art supplies - there was a dedicated section for BL and other girly manga (like Hakuouki...there was an almost life-size cardboard cut-out of Hijikata Toshizo *A*).

Fifth and sixth floors contained merchandise - the second I got to the top of the stairs, I was greeted by the otome anime/BL merchandise section. More than half of it was Hakuouki. My mother took a liking to Saitou, so she bought heaps of Hakuouki stuff... There was also Starry Sky, Togainu no Chi (and other Nitroplus stuff) and of course, Kuroshitsuji.

Seventh floor was all CDs and DVDs. But since I'd seen my share of them at Nakano Broadway, I didn't look there much. To be honest, I was stuck on the merchandise floor most of the time.

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.

Singapore 3

We went shopping with Maxwell at Bukit Timah Plaza. Usually, he's quite resistant to the idea of shopping, but somehow he was fine when going with just my brother, my mum and I. 

We spent a fair amount of time at Popular bookstore, where Max got a Pokemon manga and I got RustBlaster by Toboso Yana. :3

There wasn't much there, to be honest. However, we spent ages at the pet shop window looking at all the rodents, who were mostly asleep. Anything is cute when it's asleep.

Widdle mice squished up against the glass. They were the sixe of my thumb...so cute!!!!!!! XD

Once again, there was a toy expo thing on the event floor, though obviously not as big as the one at Takashimaya. One particular stand was selling Sangokuden (Three Kingdoms) Gundam model kits for $5 instead of the usual $13.50. Then, after I had a chat with the boy at the counter, I got a further discount and only had to pay $9 for two Gundams. :3

Then we went grocery shopping. Normally I'm not too fond of it, but I'll make an exception if it's in Asia. Found various oddities from Pokemon cup noodles to square watermelons to this thing...

The description said it was a sweet potato, but I think it better resembles poop...

After we were done with our grocery shopping, we had popcorn chicken and cheese fries from KFC. Cheese fries are my food of choice when it comes to KFC. If only NZ would make them...

$3.50 worth of cheesy goodness.

Not long afterwards we headed home. Max caused us no trouble at all - quite a change from the way he is when the rest of his family is around. :3

Singapore 2

Christmas in Singapore beats Christmas in New Zealand, hands down. For one, they actually make an effort to decorate the malls and streets. Every year. Ever since we started coming here in 1995.

Christmas lights at ION Orchard

Christmas trees made from Potato-ish teddy bears at Takashimaya :D

On our first shopping trip, as with most of our shopping trips, I spent most of my money on food. By chance, I found Canele, a patisserie/chocolaterie, for which I'd seen some nice reviews. Bought six macarons from there - raspberry, caramel, chocolate, passionfruit milk chocolate, coffee, and pistachio. I'd have to say that I liked the caramel and pistachio ones best. They came packed in the cutest little box with a really pretty bag too.

After that, we went to a bakery and bought various baked goods, including curry bread. :3 the curry was really sweet though so it wasn't that nice... Later on, we had teriyaki chicken skewers from ToriQ and then Sam managed to find a Burger King amongst all the Asian food, so he ate something from there. We also managed to buy some popiah and wheel cakes.

At Takashimaya/Ngee Ann City, there was a massive toy expo on the event floor, where the winning models of a Gundam model-making competition were being displayed. Unfortunately, the photo I have here kinda sucks.

We also went to Kinokuniya. When I went in my hands were trembling - I was that excited. I found myself in the Japanese section, drowning in lots of Kuroshitsuji and Hakuouki and Togainu no Chi. I got myself a copy of the Kuroshitsuji character guide, but it was such a struggle to decide which books to buy (and which ones to save for next time...). There was a lot of Kaminomi as well - though I haven't even read the manga yet so I decided against buying.

Unfortunately, the Jrock magazines were much too expensive ($40 for one magazine compared to $20 for the character guide). They didn't even have the Gothic and Lolita Bible! :(

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur for me - those were pretty much the highlights. When we got to the taxi stand, it started raining buckets. Thank goodness we were already heading home.