Weekend with the besties

I know it’s a bit late, but I’m finally blogging about last weekend and all the fun I had 🙂

Friday

So as we couldn’t meet up for Bekah’s Birthday on the weekend before last, we met up last Friday the 25th instead. Amy and Erin are two gals that also live in Tokyo and are our friends from SOAS so it was awesome to finally see them! After some critical decision making, we headed for sushi in the same place that we went with Bekah’s friends the weekend before; mostly because so far it’s the cheapest while still being amazing place to eat! Amy and Erin had bought a cake for Bekah which was really sweet (see what I did there?!). Have a photo:

Bekah with her yummy pile of cream 🙂 The text reads (essentially) Happy Birthday Bekah!

Oooh cake

After food, it was naturally time for some shopping! We went to a crazy 7 floor anime store first. For a change it wasn’t just full of men, and in fact seemed to be more aimed at girlies so it was great to have a wonder and peruse the awesome merchandise! I bought a few presents for people back home 🙂 I didn’t take any photos in my anime-overwhelmed state though, sorry! I did get some photos of a second hand media shop called “Book Off” that we went to though; it was really cool to see they had a massive stall or two of Yu-Gi-Oh cards because if you want them in England you either have to buy them brand new or go to boot sales, nowhere trades them in. The rest was games, books, DVDs, CDs, the usual but it was still fun to look at all the retro games and stuff 🙂

The cards

The more expensive cards

A super cool PSP; I mostly took this photo for Mitch 😛

We then had the need for dessert! So we went to a cool place called ‘Milky Way’ as suggested by Amy and Erin 🙂 It was a fancy looking restaurant that sells desserts according to your star sign! Erin was the only one that got her sign though, the rest of us rocked the boat a bit 😛 The whole place had neon star lights and little twinkle lights everywhere and was just generally cool-lookin’. Here are some of the things we bought!

Japan does this cool thing where they put plastic models of all the possible dishes out front so you can easily see what you’d order! Their’s was very pretty.

Erin’s crazy blue star drink!

My dessert; Japan loves to flesh such sundaes out with cornflakes for some reason, but it’s actually quite nice to have some crunch!

Arcade time! Naturally we had to go for both Purikura and the dance mats, as well as plenty of UFO machines. Bekah had said to herself she wasn’t leaving that night without the matching poster to the one she’d won before, so we searched for a machine with it in but couldn’t find one! In the end I asked a staff member who actually went and got us some especially and set it up in a machine thatwas supposed to be Pokemon stuff! It took aaaaaaages to get it though and our best ‘but we’re foreign and it’s her Birthday’ act didn’t work on the hardnut guy we asked when we couldn’t find the first one. We reckon the other arcade called Round One where they always help even if you don’t try really hard wouldn’t have let us struggle for so long! But nevermind, we got it in the end so Bekah’s walls are much happier for it 🙂 We did go to the other arcade too; I had found a Chopper cuddly toy that I really wanted so I gave it a few goes and gave up. However! When we came back down from the Purikura and dance machines I was determined to give it another go and just as I was about to put more money in, a tap on the shoulder had me turning round to find an outstreched arm offering me a bag with the exact toy in that I had wanted! This nice salary man just handed me the toy, smiled and walked off! It was so nice and I was so surprised! He didn’t even say anything, just gave it to me! I was very happy :3

Having a go on the Dance Mats

Each dance machine in this arcade had a fan! That and for 2 credits it’s about 60p! If they were that cheap and the customers that well cared for in England, the arcades would be so much less of a rip off!!

This guy was insane; not only had he been playing across two mats with the on screen arrows set to invisible (so he was dancing from memory) he then put a blindfold on and still got 300 combos without any trouble!

My prize and I after Mr. Nice had made my evening!

And here are some of the Purikura from the night with the girls 🙂 The prints we got are currently on my photo wall 🙂

The writing says ‘Ikebukuro Birthday!’

Bekah decorated this one; I wonder why I’m a devil…..

Saturday

The next day I spent with Sam; we planned to study in a cafe until we got hungry and then go shopping for things to roast; he has an oven so we thought we’d make use of it! We went on a bit of a walk to find our cafe so I took some random photos of stuff along the way:

A pretty upside daffodil tree

Japan is really into halloween, and this display is really sweet

Talking of sweet; it was a bakery! Check out these adorable cakes!

And these biscuits!

This building was really awesome, not sure you can really see the details though

I had a hotdog and a matcha latte for dinner; the hotdog had mustard and I actually liked it! First time for everything 🙂

I liked the way the shadows were forming on the work I was doing

So after we finished working we went to the supermarket and bought the world’s worth of veg to roast. We also wanted to buy stuff for a cake but we were lacking a cake tin and a recipe so we tried for cookies… that didn’t work out either so we just decided to use Sam’s pancake mix! In the end we didn’t end up eating the roasted stuff till about 11pm and the pancakes will about 2am! We also somehow managed to keep chatting till 5am…. so when we got up at 10.30 we were pretty nackered!!

Caramelised carrots; yummmmmmm 😀

Sunday

The next day we decided to meet up with Bekah again so after a pretty failed attempt at getting loads of work done before we left, we met her in Ikebukuro at about 7.30pm. We had dinner in a restaurant opposite the sushi place we seem to frequent. It was really good! I wish I’d taken a photo as it cost me about £3.60 for a refillable drink, a burger with peas and sweetcorn, hash browns, sauce and an egg! Good and cheap 🙂 We naturally then went for another Purikura; I think my wall will be full by the end of the year! We went for some yummy Baskin Robins’ ice cream and then I had to go so I didn’t miss my last train like I had on the Friday! Taxis are pretty expensive! At Shinjuku station though there was a lovely surprise waiting for me on a bench; a new Japanese friend! Basically, her hair was as awesome as the sun is hot so I asked if I could take a photo and then we just got chatting because Iasked how and her hair was white and violet! Turns out she is a hair model and studies fashion so that’s why she looks so fancy 😛 She got off the train before me but we had a good 25 minute chat and added each other on Facebook. Hopefully we can meet up soon as it was really fun to chat in natural Japanese rather than classroom Japanese or awkward-trying-to-ask-the-staff-member-for-something Japanese! Anyway, here are the Purikura photos, and a shot of Kaori’s awesome hair!

How cool is her bonnet!

The top picture is Sam’s very first Purikura!

More of the first shoot

And the second shoot with Sam and Bekah

All those nights out I meant to blog about ages ago!

In a valiant attempt to get over today’s homesickness, I’m finally getting round to writing about the first week or two’s many nights out in Tokyo with friends! I’m just going to do them all as one big post so prepare for another photo bombardment! 😀

First of all Bekah and I went out for a crazy night on the town on the 27th of September, just 2 days after I go here and 1 day after she got here! We wanted to go to a Cat Cafe we had found online, but even though we had checked whether or not one needed to book on their website, we managed to pick the one night that they had a party booked! So we had to settle for Macdonalds and the arcades instead. We had super crazy melon soda floats and the first thing we could read on the menu that didn’t sound terrifying; a McPepper, which was just a chicken royale with loads of black pepper in the batter coating bit. After we had finished our crazy food we found an arcade and had a wail of a time! We saw the Monster Hunter pig racing game that Mitch had shown me ages ago so we had a go; Bekah was really good at it! Basically, you put your hands on either side of Mr. Piggy and rock him back and forth to make him run, and tilt him to make him turn. You pretty much just look like you’re trying to have sex with a plastic pig the whole time so it’s pretty hilarious! We even gained an audience; they all had ‘look at those stupid foreigners go!’ written all over their faces haha! We also played some airhockey. We thought we were in for a safe bet with this one, you know, take your defender thingy and hit the puck back and forth. No. After the 2nd or so goal millions of tiny pucks descended onto the pitch and took us completely by surprise! So there again were 2 idiot foreigners screaming with fear and delight all in one breath desperately trying to move our hands as quickly as these tiny beasts were flying around the table. Have some pictures!

Bekah with our melon soda floats

Me and the drinks of garish green!

The pigs we humped for 10 minutes or so.

The lift of the Sega building we were in 🙂

See those little pucks in the holders on the right? Yeah. We didn’t.

Next was the weekend I spent with Sam, Bekah and Alex and Ethan at random points! I went to The Pokemon Centre with Sam and Alex and Ethan on the Saturday afternoon which was really awesome, I had been before but it’s fun every time! I knew I wanted to buy a 3DS but I wasn’t sure about the XL (LL in Japanese) or the normal one so I didn’t get it that day, but I bought an adorable plush Pokemon keyring, a notebook, some stickers and a postcard 🙂 We then all went to Akihabara to do some exploring to see if we could try out the 2 different sizes of DS but nowhere did them. In the end we went and had some drinks in a little cafe and split up after that. Sam and I went back to his for dinner and I stayed there the night; it was a lovely little flat and Sam had a tatami room so it felt very traditional 🙂 We stayed up far too late but we also managed to order my SIM card online, for which I am grateful everyday; being able to text people while I’m out and about is really wonderful and having the Google Maps app is really useful for the trains, because they don’t seem to do maps much in Tokyo so unless you know the direction you’re heading it’s hard to find the right train! The next day we met up with Bekah to go to the Pokemon Centre again because Bekah and I had decided to get a 3DSLL for definite 🙂 I got a black and silver one and Bekah’s is baby pink and white :3 We hung out for a while, went back to Akihabara in search of chargers and stuff and then Sam went home and Bekah and I went to try the Cat Cafe again! Just before we split up though, this little Japanese lady came over with a mini clipboard and silently handed me a scrap of paper with some gibberish about saving children on it. I said to her in Japanese that I didn’t know what she wanted and she stared at me and then jabbed at her list of ‘donators” names… it was really weird, she wouldn’t go away but she also wouldn’t talk either! Eventually I said that I wasn’t giving her anything and she just stared at me with this creepy expression for a good 10 seconds before sort of shaking her head and shuffling off… Scammers are weird in Japan it seems!

Anyway, Bekah and I then headed back to Ikebukuro for the Cat Cafe and this time they had space! You take off your shoes and go in, then the lady gives you a thing to put round your neck with the time on (as it costs per the time you’re there) and then you pop your stuff in a locker and are finally let loose with the kitties!! It was brilliant, but they don’t half know who has and hasn’t got treats! It was very relaxing and just what I needed when I was feeling homesick; warm fluffy things to fuss over :3 Sadly they were all taken on my phone so they aren’t that snazzy, sorry about that!

The Pokemon Centre

I think Pikachu needs renaming to ‘Creepachu’ here

My old DS compared to my new one; just a little bigger!

Akihabara station

The entrance cat/lion

‘Feck off’

The biggun

This one was a right treat fiend!

This was my favorite kitty

His fur was the softest

Another biggun

Bekah’s favorite cat…

Hey pretty!

Sooo cute

Bekah’s cat loved to play 🙂

Their little drinking fountain

We wanted to steal it.

Paws

More paws

Monorail cat

He’s so big he doesn’t even remotely fit in that basket! 9 kilos he weighed.

A random hello kitty shop on the way home

Next up is the night I met up with one of my Uni but not really Uni friends from England (he came to London for a little while but he’s studying in Aberdeen). He’s doing a study abroad thing for a little while here. We met up in the evening on October 3rd and looked for somewhere to eat. Naturally we found a ‘British Pub’  and just had to go there! If I’m honest it was very un-British but it was good fun! We ordered Pizza, fish and chips, edamame, quail eggs, and drinks! The pizza had no cheese, just mayo, potato, mushroom and some other sauce! However, the beer that Mike ordered was pretty spectacular! Bekah and I went home to mine afterwards but we missed the last train from Musashi Sakai (the station where you switch to get the local line to my station) by about 2 minutes. We got a taxi instead but it was pretty pricey; 2000 yen for a 10 minute drive But the driver was really friendly, we chatted about food and he taught us a cool word – Yamisuki; やみ好き which means when you stop liking something because you eat it too much! We need a word for that in English  because I do that all the time! Have some more pictures!

The pub front

Oh, Hi there Mr. Scary wolf

My kiwi cocktail

Mike looking very proud of himself

Here we go!

How did such a skinny person fit that much liquid inside himself?!

Saturday October 5th is my next interesting installment. Bekah and I wanted to explore Shibuya, the place famous for its gigantic and super busy crossing and all the department stores you could wish for! We started off with a Starbucks in a big media shop called Tsutaya which sells books, CDs, DVDs, games, magazines etc etc. The view of the crossing from there was great so we chilled with our lovely matcha frappucinos (which I have sort of become a little addicted to….). We then went and explored the shops! I finally found a diary which started from October this year and it has so far been the most useful diary I have ever had, it’s brilliant! I also got the first Harry Potter in Japanese and Bekah bought some books and magazines too 🙂 We wandered around a department store called 109 and found some wonderful fashion bits and bobs, none of which we could pull off xD We also went for a wonder around the Disney store, which felt far more like a boutique than the ones in England; I feel a bit silly looking in the English ones because they’re so geared for kids, but this one really didn’t feel aimed at kids at all! We also found a One Piece (a pirate anime) shop which I dragged Bekah round but somehow managed to resist all spending urges! There were plenty of other bits and bobs that we found in the shops that day, like merchandise from popular apps and even ‘Annoying Orange’ plushies….! We ate ramen and had french toast in a cafe. All in all it was a pretty rocking shopping trip!

Yummmm

The busy Shibuya crossing, I think it looks even better when everyone has their umbrellas out!

Yes Engrish.

Unicorn hats!

Fun mirror ceiling

Delicious

Just a pretty building

A giant Teddy

The outside of the store was just a bit recognisable!

The Disney boutique

Inside the One Piece shop

Inside the One Piece shop

It’s so weird to see a silly video on youtube turned into merchandise!

Robots acting as advertising for an overpriced robot cafe 😛

Our french toast

And there comes my first 2 weeks or so to a close. I hope you enjoyed the random snapshots of Tokyo! Oh, and I’m really chuffed with this new grid photo thing, it saves a lot of scrolling! Let me know what you think 🙂

Maisy x