J2 – Gary Comes to Japan! Part 5

After Kyoto, we had but a scant few days left where Mitch and I had the same days off…. We made the most of them though! On the 20th we managed to get to Tokyo Dome; mostly for Gary to enjoy the Moomin Cafe, which is pretty adorable. I have to say, it was much better this time; I think they were better staffed? We also spent ages in the park nearby (even though it was raining!), and relaxed. Have some Moomins!

Took Gary to the best cafe in Chiba; The Third Wave

Look at this home made apple pie!

Can you spot the raccoon? It’s about two streets down from us!

And we made it to the dome

The park in the rain was lovely and quiet

Daww

Hi Mitch!

I love the perspective in this shot. Gary looks even further away than he should

Moomin Time!

Gary seemed pretty darn pleased

I don’t know what turned up at this point but it must have been edible

I surprised the guys by asking for a cake and a wee celebration…. Didn’t realise they were going to make the entire place sing and give them hats though! Once they got over the embarrassment they seemed to enjoy it 😛

They totally misheard Gary’s name on the phone, but never mind 😛

My best impression

The next day was a bit more varied; we started at a cat cafe in Asakusa; then Mitch ran to work and Gary and I walked about the crazyness that is Asakusa. Definitely a great place to go for sightseeing with the shrine, the Skytree, the shopping street and the crowds.

We arrived! Love this river view.

The Tellytubbies style giant plant bowl was still there!!

What a view

Boo!

Mitch getting some strokes in

Gary’s first cat cafe!

Just look at that paw

This little guy loved Gary’s sugar packet. And that is NOT a euphemism before you go thinking about alternate words for cat….

More Gary love

It’s not floating; there’s glass; honest!

Gary in the crowds

First ice cream of the day

Darn cool dragon to wash your filthy hands and mouth before you go near the shrine

Ceiling dragon

Impersonating

Second ice cream! this one was sweet potato; delicious!!

The evening was filled with theme. First we met Mitch, our friend Linh, and her twin sister Thuy in Harajuku, and headed to the Kawaii Monster Cafe. It was amazing and weird all at once. The staff were all dressed up like Cyberdog shop assistants and we sat in a mushroom booth. I cannot do the place justice with my words; so here is the link and some piccies: http://kawaiimonster.jp/pc/en/concept/gallery.html#!/1

The food was so colourful!

Rainbow pasta!

The monster-go-round

At one point they did this weirdly half assed dance thing which would have been awesome with more than two staff members haha

Jellyfish bar

Sorry for the blurryness, but check out the weird bunny

Me and the twinsies! Linh left, Thuy right.

We shared this monster; it was delicious

From this crazy and cute, we walked over to Shibuya for some crazy and scary; a bar called Lockup. It’s a prison themed bar with crazy drinks and silly food and it was pretty cool. I think with more staff it would have been great as the place felt a bit empty, but the principle was great! At some point the staff let the “criminals” loose and they come and scare the living daylight out of you by rattling the bars of the cell that serves as your room. The police staff come and save the day eventually, but not before you get to scream a bit! The toilet was probably the freakiest though…. I went to sit down and this speaker I hadn’t even noticed starts giggling and telling me terrifying things. I literally didn’t even pee; I screamed and pulled up my trousers before I realised there wasn’t anyone there! I warned the girls, so next time we all went together haha. Anyway; check out the cool drinks!

Look at the eyeball… and Mitch’s drink is purple and came with candyfloss!

My drink was a test tube set 😀

Ghost pudding

Worm…?

That day was pretty full of stuff! The last few days Gary was here I had to work 😦 But One day he came to the mall and bought some glasses 🙂 And the day before he left I had off so we could hang out a bit and play pool, as well as get him packed and stuff.

When we went for sushi, the chef made us two tiny tiny egg sushi! Two grains of rice a piece; so adorable. No idea why he made them! He just handed them over!

Gary at our fave Thai place; with the melon

Mitch made croquettes; they’re amazing

On the last day we went for pool. It was lovely and relaxed.

I made us a sign at the pool place.

Also we had french toast.

And that was pretty much it for the Gary holiday! We stayed up all night before he left because he had a super early flight. I slept at about 5am and then went to work, and the guys hung out at the airport until he had to say sayounara.

I’ll leave you with a picture of some hilarious game themed lube, and what we ended up doing with my Maple leaf tree.

Best lube bottles I have ever seen

Touring Tokyo; The Mark and Rob Edition – Harajuku and the Penguin Bar

This was the last day of the whirlwind holiday Mark and Rob spent with me. Sad I know, but we did loads of funny things so all in all, a good conclusion to Touring Tokyo!

I wanted to take Mark and Rob around Harajuku for the crazyness, and to see the Meiji Shrine as it’s so big and pretty. So off we went, checked out the busy busy Takeshita street, munched some crepes, had a laugh in the condom shop and then headed to the shrine. Funny story of note; at the condom shop, I nearly bumped into someone coming out of the shop so I apologised and instead of just walking off, this incredibly smiley lady burst out laughing and said we should take a photo! I have no idea why, but it was a great moment in my life. Photo proof below 🙂

Made it to Takeshita street!

Gotta love good peep hole trousers

Mark chows down

Seems tasty 😀

Thoughtful crepe consumption

Some pretty pansies where we were crepeing

The random lady who wanted a photo with a foreigner outside a condom shop.

Just some of the many types of condom…

Giant size. Yeowch.

This dude was incredible. I wish I’d bought his CD. Such lovely music.

Pokemon were popping up on my map today 😀

Next up was the Meiji Shrine; that giant one I went to with Mitch previously. It was just as pretty this time 🙂 We had a walk around, and had particular fun trying to get a good photo of us all sat on a bench using the self timer! Spoiler: None of them turned out properly!

I really like this photo of us 🙂

Rob and I looking touristy!

Exploring the gardens

More gardens

The first of many attempts!

Ooops, we missed this one

I missed this one….

Nearly

That’s quite nice 🙂

Missed

We tried the “looking off into the distance” pose

not sure it worked though!

kinda…

My favorite 😀

The crazy well thingy

Adorable!

Reading the prayer thingies

After our naturey excursion, we headed to Asakusa quickly to get a fox mask for Rob’s nephew(?). It was pretty cool to see the crowded market at night, and no one tried to get us to buy shiny plastic coins for absurd amounts of money this time!

Lit up all nice like.

Bingo!

Next was Penguin Bar time! We met up with Bekah who also really wanted to come, and went to the Ikebukuro bar. Turns out that this place isn’t just a touristy thing, they actually serve quite high profile people who get private rooms and stuff. But they had us riff raff to deal with tonight! The whole experience was pretty awesome. You get your normal wet towel, but it’s penguin shaped!! So adorable. The food was yum too. But best of all, we got to feed the wee critters! I felt quite bad for them in their tiny tiny pen though. But I can’t really resist the pull of seeing cute animals up close >.<

“Penguisare”

My drink; I think it was Matcha?!

Look at the cute little towel!

Dawww

Bekah and her friend 🙂

They were steaming; not sure how I feel about steamed penguins 😛

The waiter showed us how

I went first!

Rob had a go too

And Mark! I don’t seem to have a photo of Bekah though 😦

They really crowd for the food. I hope they’re just greedy and not underfed >.<

Their wee pen

Fuzzies

Selfie!

Once we were finished at the Penguin Bar, we decided to try and find some fun nightlife to finish off with. I think we headed to Shinjuku, and just wandered around until we found somewhere to hang out. This ended up being a bar for a little while, where Rob had a beer the size of his head! Bekah had to head home after that, but Mark, Rob and I wondered around a bit more.

We almost ended up in a strip club, but decided against it at the last minute. The guy at the door had to check that it was ok to let me in (as I’m female), and asked me if I like boobs, seemingly as the entry criteria?! We ended up being taken to an almost empty club by a person who was advertising for his establishment, so we had a drink there for a moment or so. We moved on kinda quick and found another pretty empty club, but this one had a fuller dance floor. Rob had a lovely beer shower and made a random friend, while I danced (horribly badly; ugh I wish I didn’t try to move sometimes) with a very cool dude dressed in camo trousers. It was a good night and I got home after it was light!

Looking around for somewhere fun

We look far too sober

First bar

That is some foamy foam right there.

GIANT!

Rob looks like a blob fish!!

Weird club 1

Club 2; post beer shower, plus new friend

I just love the juxtaposition of “toilet hole” and “therely” XD

Coming home in the light; dirty stopout me!

And that was pretty much the conclusion of the holiday! Mark and Rob came in the evening to visit my campus the next day, about 6pm or so. It was dark so I couldn’t show them much but it was nice to have them over. I don’t think I could have entertained any earlier though; I was very tired from being out all night! A good way to finish off the week. And with their flight home imminent, this concludes the Touring Tokyo chronicles with Mark and Rob 🙂