J2 – Sam and Mikayla come to stay, and a bunch of other things

I left off in mid May, and have been a very busy bee since then! Allow me to fill you in on my exciting adventures in J-land, in this episode oooooffff…. Maisy in Japan!

We have been exploring more and more of our home town, and recently found that our local mall has an aquarium! Sharks, eels, and some crazy fish with a unicorn horn. Pretty cool! Also most recently, I got my first S rank (highest score in Japan isn’t A, it’s S, for special) on my favourite arcade game! And I am actually better at this game than Mitch; and that has never ever happened before 😛

The aquarium in the local mall

Unicorn fish and some eels!

We had some cake and tea while watching the fishies

My first ever S!

Bonus pic: a sunset from the TUFS gym 5th floor. I forgot just how gorgeous the sunsets are in TUFS

On the 24th of May, we met up with Mitch’s Milton Keynes friend Rei, and his friend Rob. We had a really great day! Spent the whole time in Akihabara trying to win adorable plush toys from arcades, then had dinner with my friend Linh (from JINS!), in Shinjuku. We ate Chinese and discovered that ordering waaaaay too much food is not just a thing we do in the UK 😛

The day’s goodies! Finally bought a toaster so Mitch can stop burning things XD The big white plush is what we all spent hours trying to win 🙂 Super satisfying to have one!

We got BK, and they inadvertently wrote H for Hatchard and M for Mitch 🙂

Delicious delicious sweet goodness

We ate all this!

Selfie! 🙂 It was a lovely day ^^

The next morning, I had to get up for work as usual at 9am, but I was too hot at about 7. So I turned on the aircon, which is directly above my head….. and very VERY quickly had to dodge the giant freaking cockroach that fell out and nearly landed on my head!!! It was the most horrendous two hour early alarm I have ever had. We had to catch the damn thing and then work up the courage to pick it up and throw it out. It did’t even die when I smashed it repeatedly with my Dr Martens boots… BLEH. We have netted up the air con and I have been traumatised ever since. I actually still have trouble sleeping; especially since another one turned up recently and we don’t know where it came from but I had to catch it and spray it. Have a picture.

GROSS

At the end of the month, we decided to head back to Ikea and try and get some black out curtains. trying to sleep past 6am with blaring sun is very difficult! And with my days being so dis-aligned, (bed at 1am, wake up at 9am for work 11-8pm), sleeping past sunrise is essential. We didn’t buy them, but we did find a very hilariously named shop, a Sylvanian Family cafe, and the most amazing retro backpack.

I have been reading and playing a lot of fantasy recently, and apparently this extends to my fashion; adventurer Maisy is off!

Want to take Mitch’s mum here!

Hmmmmmm

Dodgey fire escape!

Original Pokemon sprite backpack. MAN I want this!

Just before Sam and Mik came, work had a little party. It was all well and good, but I could only stay an hour to get the last train, and the food was intestines… So that was the most expensive hour of my life! I had to pay 3500 yen for a couple of drinks and a bit of a side dish. Probably will sit the next one out >.<

So on to the main story! Sam and Mikayla arrived on the 1st of June 😀 It was soooo good to see them! We had a really nice two weeks. Even though I only had a few days off, and some were taken up with Amity practice, we still got some good time together.

We messed around where we live and discovered the most ridiculous water fountain, which literally shoots about 15ft into the air, ate lots of sushi, Sam bought many many pairs of glasses, we went shopping in Musashi-sakai, where Sam and I always used to hang out, and played some silly games 🙂

First things first; food!

My first pumpkin pie. It was alright!

Delicious matcha latte

We went to the aquarium mall to see some fishies, then ate at “Smile Cafe” to keep these two awake 🙂

UK supplies!!!! So much goodness

So on the 8th of June, I got to dance with Amity again! I didn’t really know the dances very well because work meant I missed most of the practices, but I still had so much fun 🙂

Eriko! Former Amity leader, and a wonderful friend ^^

Dance one’s final pose 🙂

Dance two!

Sam and Mik are the two blondes in the middle! They kindly came to watch 🙂

All of us “old girls”. They call the former members old girls! haha

Sam’s new glasses! Pair 1

Sam’s new glasses! Pair 2

Sam’s new glasses! Pair 3

Sam’s new glasses! Pair 4

Sam’s new glasses! Pair 5

Mik’s new glasses! They look just like the hand hold on the train! XD

Sam’s long awaited matcha frappe

Giving Mik’s glasses a go

Local park fun

Sushi at my mall

Musashi-Sakai!

They turned the shop I knew so well into a Loft! What an upgrade!

Sam and Mitch’s fave food; Tempura!

Snorlax and I have the same face XD

Post from the UK!! Sadly the referendum didn’t go my way, but I’m so glad I can still vote all the way out here.

Since saying goodbyes to Sam and Mik on the 14th, we have had a few adventures. We finally visited the local coffee shop we always walk past and it is wonderful! The guy who runs it built the entire inside by hand, and makes the most delicious coffee and food. Will be spending a lot of time here when I can!

I also passed the exam JINS runs for doing people’s eye tests 🙂 So that’s good! Afterwards I went to Meguro to see Mitch at work! He found a job teaching English in an international school in Tokyo 🙂 He seems to enjoy it and Meguro is a nice place.

GIANT onion

Mitch with our coffee at The Third Wave, about 10 mins from home

Delicious coffee float

Flaky pastry, custard, cream, and strawberry stuff. HEAVEN

Razors to… test?

At kiddy height?!?!!

A temple right by Mitch’s work

So serene here!

One for me mam

Sod Lotion. HAHAHA best name for lube.

 

Finally, the last of June’s adventures! Mitch and I went to Tokyo Dome with some friends 🙂 There’s a lot there; rides, shops, cafes etc. We went to meet my uni friend Ella in the morning, and then go to the Moomin cafe in the afternoon with Linh! It was a lovely day 🙂

Off we go!

WEeee!!

Wet XD

These pencils made me feel uneasy!

Silly selfie 🙂

Spot the giant robot!

Moomin time!

Our first plush friend

Munching my food!

Moomin shaped rice

Moomin pasta in the salad 🙂

Hattiefattener rice

YUS

So evil looking

My pudding; I got a tiny mug with it to keep!

Napping before the viking ship ride

Hi Linh!

Too cool

Mitch and his new hat

Gorgeous wooden watches that I rather want

So that about wraps up the last six weeks! There were a few other meals with friends in there but I have no photos 😦 But meeting my friend from Amity who wants to be a diplomat to chat about the result of the referendum was cathartic. It was great to see her!

I’ll leave you with some pictures of around and about again 🙂 Cheers!

River in clear weather

VS rainy!

Disused school just down the road. Pretty creepy!

The grass and plants all sudenly shoot up in June in Japan. Start of the rainy/humid/boiling hot season, so they love it

Clear and beautiful

J2 – Birthday party and starting work

It has come to one of my very rare “weekends”, which means free time to blog! Being in retail, getting two days off in a row is rare, and rarer still is them falling on a weekend, so I’m very privileged right now. Let me tell you all about my birthday things and my first few days at work.

After my actual birthday being at work, the next day was our last training day, which meant that after that, all the friends we had made we would split up from and probably not see much… Unless you were one of the lucky ones who got sent to a shop together with another abroad friend. I am all by my lonesome out in Chiba! So, as well as a birthday party for myself and Seb (who’s birthday was the day before mine), we also were having a “yay last day, boo splitting up” do.

The last day:

May have spent the time colouring…

Wearing the practice head (called Jinto-kun)… I’m not just ahead any more… I’m twice as ahead

Last picture before we parted

We left training/work and headed over to Shibuya (Mitch met us at work) to go to this Showa-period themed restaurant which sounded awesome. I’m not gonna lie, when we got there and read the menu I wanted to walk back out and go to a waaaaayyy more normal place! But it turned out to be really fun. What put us off wasn’t the theme… but the menu. The first thing we saw was “Raw guts and so on”…. Yeah. The Google translate menu text was hilarious though. You can see what I mean in the piccies.

Some Decor

Creepy…

“Mom, please take a beautiful to eat a lot!”

“Dip twice Sorry for the source of the desktop. Mood guard under the Umeda”

“I think I fit well in sake. Please daddy!

“Not worry! Is referred to as the raw water bath but firmly. Put the green onions And issues over the sauce!”

I can’t be bothered to type this one, but Mitch had the coffee alcohol… It was mega strong.

BOOBS ICE! Yes, we ordered this. Two, in fact.

The whole menu for reference 🙂

But once we got ordering (sooo hungry at that point), there were actually load of tasty things hidden among the very terrifying sounding ones. Locust, anyone? I did try the frogs legs though! Which was particularly amusing because that day Mon-chan had done some kind of hilarious Spanish kids rhyme to soothe pains over my cut, and when she translated it, it turned out to have the line “A tiny frog’s ass” in there just because it rhymed xD We were very tempted to use it as some kind of poultice.

Hi!

Creepy doll again

Everyone 🙂

Mitch and my drinks; the red one was basically sweeties and vodka and the brown is his coffee shochu

Foooood

We ordered fried dough and only then realised that it’s essentially bread…..

Frogs legs!

Basically salty chicken

More old world posters

Once we finished food and ordered our boobs ice and University of potato ice, the group brought out a cake and cards for Seb and I! It was so nice of them :3 We weren’t allowed a knife so we had to do some serious teamwork with chopsticks but we managed it beautifully. The card was so lovely and the cake was delicious. The boobs ice was hilarious too! It was a little balloon thing with a teat filled with ice cream which we initially squeezed onto cake and then when the pressure got too much and the flow wouldn’t stop we had to just suckle like weirdly huge babies. The final dying spurt was pretty hilarious; Nick’s boob squirted all over the table as he wasn’t expecting it and I prepared for mine after seeing that by popping it in my mouth… that was a lot of dairy very quickly. I promise I’m not making this up!

Seb with his card

My card!

They’re so good at drawing!

Reading all the sweet notes ❤

CAKE

A masterpiece

Isn’t that nice?!

Candles and everything

Cutting with chopsticks

Boobs ice!

Nick’s boobs ice

Squeezing like I mean it

Dairy topping

The concentration here

Demolished

Polaroids that we got as souvenirs :3

My gifts

Beer in a kettle being finished off by Mon-chan!

We had to leave shortly after (because of time restrictions honest, not cos we were too rowdy!), and we decided to go to a pub for a bit. There wasn’t any inside room but we had a great time hanging outside and giggling till the last trains home 🙂

Nick got Guinness!

All in all, a brilliant double birthday goodbye party in Tokyo. Thanks guys ^_^

 

The next day was a day off before I started work properly and I wanted to go shopping to my favourite place from my year abroad called Kichijouji. We have been missing this amazing restaurant where you get food on sticks, batter and breadcrumb it, then deep fry it to your heart’s content. It’s brilliant. They cut the sausages so they turn into little octopusses! We spent far too much money but had a great time. Mum’s present arrived in the morning too so I have new stocks of chocolate and mascara 😀 Thank you mum!

Mum’s package 🙂

Finally back to Kushiyamonogatari!

Deep fried goodness

Octo-sausage

Mitch enjoying mushroom!

I deep fried a marshmallow

It was a great idea 😀

Tiny Starbucks samples

Today’s loot!

And since then I have been working! It’s quite a job if I’m honest. 9 hour shifts, and an hour and a half commute. But hopefully it will improve my Japanese and the pay is a little more than I got in the UK so it’s definitely a step forward. The first day was pretty scary. The people there are nice, but not exactly friendly. They aren’t unfriendly, but I’m definitely an alien among them as it were. They explain bits and pieces and sort of leave me to it on the shop floor.

The thing that has taken the most getting used to so far is the greetings. One person shouts a long monologue about product info and then we all repeat the last line, or we shout “welcome!” to passers by and those that come in. The first day I just mouthed it or whispered it! I’m a bit more vocal now but still hate the sound of my own voice >.< But I’m helping customers and so on so it’s all good. There are also many pretty glasses that I want to try on but by the time my shift is over I’m way too tired. But having cleaned them over and over, I know where they are and which ones I like so I’ll get round to it eventually!

Gorgeous wisteria on the walk to the station. Full bloom on my first day!

Comically large toilet slippers so you can wear your shoes inside them… The staff area at work is so bizarre.

we put up my birthday balloons 🙂

Mitch made me lunch!

Bunny egg!

Here’s hoping the job from here on is fun and not too tiring. Wish me luck!

The Last Playdates

The 10th, 11th, and 12th of August. Three days before we had to pack and leave Japan behind. We managed to fit a good amount of Japan things in though!

On the 10th Mitch and I headed to Roppongi Hills for something that actually got me into Japan in the first place; Pokemon! They had set up a cafe at the top of a tall building and it was everything I wanted it to be. A short display of Pokemon art and products, and then wonderfully themed cafe food. Right next to the window, so you could scoff on Pikachu, while admiring the city. Perfect.

We got to Roppongi Hills to find a Doraemon invasion!

Many many many of them

And a terrifying giant spider. I like to imagine that all these people are running away in fear. Instead of standing there and taking photos like I did…

At the top of this tall building awaits the Pokemon cafe!

Tickets!!!

That character may well have started my Japan interest.

Giant inflatable Pikachu

Cool concept work for Lugia

More concept stuff

Pose!

So happy to be in my favourite cartoon cafe

Check out the merch!

All the food they had; isn’t it brilliant?

Mitch… by the window!! Much less scared of heights now.

Getting our drinks

Happy Bear

Pikachu pudding

This pokeball rice ball rocked my world.

Pikachu dessert!

Pika-burger

I took a photo of the wall and turned it into a very happy background.

We had a bit of a wonder around Roppongi after that; and I think we did a fab job of getting some final Japan injections. We found Godzilla, square watermelons, and some very cool lanterns.

Roppongi is pretty.

Godzilla!

Don’t touch it Mitch… It’s probably real….

On display in the mall

Found them! So bizarre

Want to pay bajillions for a watermelon?

That evening we then trouped on over to Odaiba to meet Marlene and Michael and the Maid cafe boys for dinner. It was short, but good fun. They gave me some manga to take home and they even paid for dinner which was super kind. I wish we’d met them sooner! Marlene stayed over in my room for a slumber party. Gonna miss that human.

Silly JP boys

YUM

A feast!

Sleepy, but happy to be hanging

Giant bed!

The next two days were somewhat more focussed on somewhere closer to home; Kichijouji. I spent the 11th with Karen; we both wanted to see the new Ghibli film, When Marnie Was There. It was fantastic. We got in a kushi-katsu dinner and a good old matcha Starbucks too.

Tama station, because I wont see it much more!

Fooood

Kichijouji, I’ll mis ya.

Ready for the film!

And purikura, as always ❤

The last of the non-packing days involved mostly cuddling furry things to make us feel better. We went to a cat cafe and then to a pet store to cuddle pooches. It was good to get one last cafe injection before we had to go…

Playing with macro on my Japan-cam

We got delicious Calpis flavoured donuts from Mister Donut. One I’m going to miss for sure!

Big cafe, little Bear.

Paint me like one of your French cats.

Doggie licks

Even Mitch liked this one!

Fluff injection done, the last thing left is to sell everything that’s sellable and pack everything up…. I’ll save that for one last post! Gotta drag it out 😉 See you next time!

Zoo, Karaoke Again, and a Lot of Anime!

Japan has a long way to go on quite a few things… like animal welfare. But I did still enjoy Ueno Zoo. It was pretty crowded, but super cheap. Never been to a zoo that only cost about £4! Plenty of adorable animals (plenty of small spaces too but let’s hope they enjoy being fed well…), and I enjoyed going with my friend 🙂

Queueing to get in

Hi!

First attraction; sad panda

sleepy bear

“Brave” anyone?

One hot polar bear

Hedwig?

purdy

Gorgeous colour

Lunch under the giant wisteria

lunch

Fun train to get to the other half of the park

on the train thing

Those Jackass Penguins….

They’re so annoying…

This guy is awesome

Ooper looper!

This guy is huuuuge

I love that Red Pandas are called Lesser Pandas in Japan. They’re so sweet.

Children’s day soon

Post-zoo manju

 

Early May brought another round of….. Karaoke! If you haven’t worked out how much I love karaoke yet I guess you haven’t been reading this blog much 😉

Pre singing Starbucks because I am a slave to the corportation

Marlene’s karaoke crush

So much fun with the TUFS lot

Dawn in Musashi Sakai – love it

Breakfast!

Had a good time with lots of people in early May. Michelle and I went back to that waffle stand, watched so so much anime, and ordered pizza like kings.

In the print!

Very delicious

We are too cool

Polaroid of the day!

We got mentioned on their twitter! It says “Thanks for bringing your friend today! And thanks for FMA, I can’t wait to read it. The Lady Gaga party was fun too (o^^o) Please send my regards to Sam and Maisy” 😀

Anime and pizza time

I borrowed Michelle’s hat

Yesssss FMA

Bekah time! Okonomiyaki; totally delicious.

Here we go!

Get the bowl, mix it up

cook it up

done, waiting for sauce

Delicious!

On the 10th and 11th, Michelle and I extended our anime binge, by going to J-World in Ikebukuro! It was amazing. Yes we are adults, no I don’t care the place is aimed at kiddies XD We also went for a quick bimble to Tokyo Dome to see the Jump Shop (all One Piece related). It was pretty cool! We visited a Book-off or two too, to buy, yet more manga!

My balcony at TUFS was brilliant; free football game and cheer show

At Tokyo Dome

Life size!

Roller coaster through the wheel

Denny’s for lunch

In we go!!

How balanced are you?

Ninja reaction times

We rode this about 4 times

Ended up buying a full day pass 🙂

Mixed messages…

Get her!

Spoils from J-World

Spoils from the day

Slowly collecting them all

I know these posts are slowly just becoming collections of pictures, but at this point, I am happy just to show off my favourite memories here. Suffice to say I cannot explain my feelings with mere words; every experience I had was extraordinary. Including what I’ll leave you with here; a study date with my little bro. An absolute cracker of an evening that was, eh Tim?

Super shiny hand

The start of spikey hair perhaps?

And some guitar practise; Tim is a total dude.

Shinjuku Park, Waffles, and Birthdays

I have always loved that Japan mixes old and new so much; with their super traditional shrines etc and then the most modern of mod cons. Shinjuku-Gyouen really demonstrates this. I guess it being a park in a big city it would naturally do so, but it makes for pretty pictures anyway! I went with a bunch of SOAS buddies on the 19th of April. Look how pretty it is!

At the entrance

Sam included!

My ticket

Sakura crepe; wasn’t bad but wasn’t incredible

Japan grass… not very grassy.

Metropolis and greenery

My first time seeing wisteria!

Sam looking lovely with the flowers

curly curly

After we’d had a nice long day hanging out in the park, I met a bunch of the TUFS lot and went for a good old Karaoke 😀

Marlene being cute

Selfie!

Michelle, Micheal, Ksenia, Kent, Marlene, Nat, and me 🙂

Sam stayed over, mostly in burrito form XD

The next day I took a trip to Kichijouji with Sam and Michelle, to visit Michelle’s favourite waffle stand. They’re pretty awesome there; really tiny bar with tasty waffles and friendly owners. Link: https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1320/A132001/13164007

Outside the stand

Yum!

The Hama-sans

So for my Japan year abroad birthday, what did I do? I spent time with some of the most wonderous humans in my life. I went with Sam and Marlene to Harajuku for a bit of shopping! I got some hugely thoughtful presents from my TUFS friends too. I felt very loved 🙂 And jacket potatoes for dinner!

Off we go!

What is this thing?!

Tangled themed roof garden going on.

Starbucks in the roof garden

Sam looking disconcerted by this very strange McDonald’s doll…

Why not?

Purikura!

Earl grey tea cookies from Sam in my Totoro mug from Amy

Ready for jackets!

My Harajuku buys; got Tim a present and a bunch of fun things for me

From the left: from Sam, From Marlene, from Nadja, from Nat!

That’s it for now; I’ll be back with zoo trips and karaoke soon 🙂