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I bought some cute Disney cookies for Halloween and they had cute pictures on them.


An awesome package from my mom! I have eaten all of the food already, except for some of the Poptarts. I want them to last a while because they're amazingly delicious. The Stove Top stuffing was really good for Thanksgiving and Christmas.


7-Eleven had a lot of interesting onigiri for a while (they still have some, I think). The one above was tomato rice wrapped with egg. So it was kind of like omurice. The one below was my favorite and I only found it once. It was flavored rice (it says something about tonkatsu ramen so I think that was that flavor) with egg and just a little bit of seaweed. I don't like onigiri completely wrapped in seaweed but just the one strip was perfect. There was another onigiri I got several times that had bits of ham and egg throughout and it was also delicious!




Just a random pic of me before Jonathan and I went out shopping I think. I got the bag (Liz Lisa and My Melody!) with a catalog I bought at a bookstore. The sweater was also new then. That flower pattern is pretty popular. I saw a similar sweater at Cecil McBee for about 4000 yen but I got that at Shimamura for only 1500.

 

I also got this cute sweatshirt at Shimamura for sleeping and wearing around my apartment. It needs a pic of Fifi though too! I like this sweatshirt because it kind of looks like something I could have had as a kid in the 90's.


Ice cream wrapped in chocolate mochi and with a chocolate center... deliciousness!


Sooo... I took some toilet paper from school so that I could take a picture. It's from Iwata City and it's about driving safety. I have never seen anything like this before... lol.




I don't know what this poster was about, but it had a picture of Tama, a cat who is a station master. Yes, seriously. So cute! Read about Tama here.


During the winter a lot of hot drinks are available in vending machines and konbini. Hot ginger ale is pretty awesome!


This drink was not hot, but it was even more delicious. It was grape lemon ginger ale. I don't think it's around anymore... :( Though I haven't actually looked either.


Yuzu Fanta was good. I hope they bring Peach back again sometime. That's my favorite! Melon is a very close second and luckily it's available year round. :)


I bought these at Plaza, a store with some import stuff. SOOOOO good! Imagine two thin mint cookies with chocolate cream between them. Super tasty! They're from Australia. I still have some left and this is making me hungry for them now.


There's a house between Tenryugawa Station and Jonathan's apartment with crazy lights. They've had some up all year, but it got even crazier around Christmas. 



This fancy Haagen Dazs ice cream was super good, but a bit pricey. It was over 400 yen I think.


I loved the Tim Tams so much that I went back to Plaza, in Hamamatsu station, for more. I also got a pack for Jonathan. The chocolate orange ones are good too!


While in Hamamatsu I found another grocery store in the basement of Entetsu Department store. They had a lot of import stuff which was awesome. I found cranberry sauce! And some random Disney Princess pasta! :)




We didn't eat KFC on Christmas eve (we had McDonald's and I had chicken nuggets) but I took this pic at a KFC a couple weeks before. Kentucky Christmas Hotel? What's that? Lol. And does everyone in Kentucky walk around in Santa suits on Christmas?

We had planned on staying in Tokyo for just one more day, but we ended up staying another day. It was actually Jonathan who wanted to stay more than I did. I still wasn't feeling 100% better and felt like I wouldn't get completely better until I rested at home, but I was well enough.

Once we went outside though and started walking around I felt really good and was glad that we had booked another hotel.

We spent the morning in Akihabara. It was such a pretty, sunny day! I don't like cold weather, but winter here isn't too bad and it's very sunny! The cold just mostly bothers me at school because there isn't heat and they leave the windows open because they think that prevents influenza. Ugh. If it wasn't for the freezing schools I would actually really like winter here! Well, it's not so great when riding my bike either.



We didn't eat at the hot dog restaurant. I just thought the statue was creepy.


I bought some ginger ale and thought that the bottle was cute. It made me think of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony, hehe. :)

Next, we went to Harajuku (because I wanted to go to the K-pop store, haha). I didn't go in many other stores because Jonathan kind of hates Harajuku (at least the Takeshita street area, he's fine with Omotesando I think). We started getting hungry and decided to eat at a McDonald's we passed by on Omotesando. 


I got a chicken nugget Happy Set and some cheesy potato bites. The cheesy potato bites were just ok. I wouldn't get them again. I don't think they even have them anymore anyways.


This McDonald's was really big. I just looked it up and just found out that it's the largest McDonald's in Japan. It can seat 328 people.

There's a separate McCafe counter and they had some really good looking cakes and sweets that I've never seen at other McDonald's. They also had some different drinks, like the Hazelnut latte that Jonathan got.


So fancy for McDonald's! A real glass! A real spoon! And a cute design! It was also SUPER delicious. I kind of wanted one for myself but I was full and didn't need it right then.


We then went back to Akihabara to get our luggage from the hotel. I took this picture somewhere between the station and the hotel.

Then we headed towards our hotel near Yashio station, which is not actually in Tokyo. It's in Saitama. When we arrived it really didn't feel like Tokyo anymore. There was a small shopping mall near the hotel and it had a parking lot. It seemed like we could be somewhere in Hamamatsu or something.

After stopping in the mall to get some medicine (Jonathan had a headache) and playing basketball in the arcade, we went back into Tokyo to go to Ikebukuro. I wanted to buy some Converse shoes because I missed my pink ones that I left at home and knew a store there that had some cheap ones. Or at least they had good deals the last time I went. I'm not sure of the name of the store, but it's in Sunshine City.

Last time I had seen two pairs that I had liked. Pink ones and light teal ones with dinosaurs. The dinosaur ones hadn't been on sale though, but this time I saw them and they only had one pair left. When I picked them up, I saw that they were my size! Yay!!!!!! They were also on sale! Lucky!


Jonathan decided to buy a pair of Converse shoes too, but that store was just women's shoes so we went down the street to an ABC Mart. He bought a regular plain black pair.

I really like wearing my new shoes because they're more comfortable than dress shoes all the time and people don't really wear tennis shoes at the mall and stuff. These are good though.

We were hungry then and decided to check out TGI Friday's. I was amused by this sign while we waited for a table. Let's American Party!


When we got our table we were given English menus by out waitress who spoke English really well. It seriously felt like we were in America! The menu is pretty much identical to what you would expect in the US. I got a salad with chicken and it was tasty. :)
 

The restaurant was decorated with a lot of American movie posters. I thought it was cool that they had an English poster of Howl's Moving Castle, which is a Japanese movie.



It was so American-like! Even the ketchup and mustard were American! I guess that "Let's American Party" sign was pretty accurate! We even paid at the table (in Japan you usually receive a check at the table but you pay at a register at the front) and there was a 10% service charge added (tipping is not typical in Japan). It's kind of weird, but this was one of my favorite parts of our trip, haha! I'm so glad that we spent an extra night in Tokyo and went there.


I don't know what these decorations were for, but they were colorful. They were in Ikebukuro.

The next morning we headed towards Tokyo Station to put our luggage in lockers there. 



Yashio Station is kind of new and nice and has a cool stained glass window.


When we arrived at Tokyo station we left our luggage in the lockers in the basement near the Narita Express track. There are a ton of lockers there and usually a lot of empty ones. They were filling up though so I'm glad we got there when we did!

We went back to Akihabara and went to Yodobashi Camera again so that we could get a Play Station 3 for Jonathan and I could buy the puzzle that I wanted.



I made the puzzle during the last week of my Christmas break. It was a really super fun puzzle to work on! the plastic pieces were great and fit together so well. The colors look amazing too!


We also got some little camera keychains from a Gachapon machine. They're cute! Jonathan got one with a bigger lens.

We had time to do some more that day but we were tired and it was getting really crowded in Tokyo. It hadn't been so bad the other days, but it was obvious that a lot of people were starting to travel for the New Year holiday. That's why the lockers had been so full. So we took a bit of an earlier train than planned. We also got to the platform a bit early to wait in line so that we could get a seat. I'm glad because otherwise we would have had to stand for a while. The train was a bit busier than usual.

Overall, the trip was really fun! Being sick wasn't any good, but at least I was well for most of it!

The day after skiing, Jonathan and I headed back to Tokyo and stopped by Matsumoto Castle. I still wasn't feeling well that morning. I had wanted to go to the other onsen at the hotel, but I couldn't. Though Jonathan went to the better one that morning for the first time and said that the other one wasn't nearly as nice. So I didn't really miss much, but it will would have been nice.

We ate breakfast at the hotel and I was still nauseous and couldn't eat much. For some reason anything Japanese was sounding really gross right then. So I think mostly just ate some mixed fruit. Even that wasn't very appetizing right then either. It's too bad because the breakfast was really nice and had a lot of choices.

By the time we left the hotel I was feeling quite a bit better. I think actually eating something helped. Jonathan took some pictures as we walked to the station.

 



Yudanaka is a small station, but they play dramatic music when the trains arrive. When you get off the train it sounds like you're arriving at a theme park or something.


We had good timing and were able to take an express train. It was only 100 yen more and it went all the way to Nagano (we would have had to switch once on the regular train) and took about 25 minutes less. Plus the train had the nicer forward-facing seats. Oh and it was Monster Hunter (a video game) themed on the outside. I've never played those games and it's not cute but I still always appreciate decorated trains. I'm surprised it was only 100 yen more.



Forty-five minutes later we arrived in Nagano. We went into a small store in the station so that Jonathan could buy some omiyage to take to school. I typically don't since I have several schools and it's too expensive to buy stuff for everyone. I bought some things for myself though. 


Country Ma'am is a common brand of cookies here and they're tasty even though I have always hated the word "ma'am." When working in stores I hated everytime I was called ma'am. Of course I know they were just being polite and it was better than many other things I've been called in retail jobs. It just seemed like they were calling me old or something, lol. I also was kind of creeped out when people called me by my name. I know it was my name tag, and again maybe they were just trying to be nice, but it was still kind of freaky, haha. And annoying when they didn't even pronounce it right.

Anyways... these were apple flavored and they were yummy. I also got a package of instant soba with Nagano's mascot on the package. Also yummy!

The next local train to Matsumoto wasn't for about an hour. There were several express trains, but we couldn't take those with our cheap (but awesome) Seishun Juhachi tickets.

I was starting to feel hungry and had seen a Lotteria in a shopping building near the station. For some reason anything Japanese was still sounding bad to me. Don't ask me why when I had been feeling nauseous a hamburger and fries seemed good but it was delicious and didn't make me feel bad.

After we finished eating, I went to the bathroom (and got distracted by a few stores on the way). While I was gone Jonathan went to a flower shop right next to the table we had eaten at. He then surprised me with some really pretty flowers! They smelled amazing, too. They smelled just like spring! Really... I have a Bath and Body Works candle called "Spring" and these smelled like that.


These flowers were bought about three weeks ago and most of them have dried out and been thrown away, but the yellow ones still look great!

The train from Nagano to Matsumoto took about an hour and a half (the express trains that we couldn't ride only take about half that time). But it was a beautiful train ride. 



We took some video during our train rides to Nagano and Matsumoto.



Our plan was to put our luggage in lockers at the station, but all of the bigger lockers were full. I was at least able to put my backpack and flowers in a smaller one, but we had to roll our luggage to Matsumoto Castle. 



Matsumoto Castle was built in the 1500s and it's still the original castle (unlike many castles in Japan), though some gates around the castle have been rebuilt.

Of course we couldn't take our luggage into the castle, so we took turns going into the castle. It's too bad that we couldn't see it together, but at least we still both got to go in. 


 


The last staircase to the top was really steep!



I'm glad that we were able to go there because it's kind of out the way from anywhere else I want to visit, but it's between Nagano and Tokyo so it was perfect. When I was feeling sick I thought I might have to take  shinkansen trains all the way back to Iwata the next day and skip out on Matsumoto and Tokyo. Luckily that didn't happen though!

From Matsumoto it took about five hours to get to our hotel in Akihabara. I started feeling bad again towards the end though.