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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!

Here are a bunch of random pictures from September and October. I've been meaning to do a random post for each month, but I'm kind of behind. I've been busy studying for the JLPT which I took today. Anyways... I will also soon have a post for November.

Mmmm! That's some omurice that I made. Well, it's not much of an omelet I guess because I scrambled up the egg and mixed it into the rice, but it was still delicious. Here's the recipe: Omurice



I made delicious cookies in my toaster oven. It worked really well! These cookies look burnt, but they were just very chocolatey. :) Here's the recipe: Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies



We didn't have school lunch one day so I had to take a bento. I made spicy korean tofu. It works really well in a bento because it is good both warm and cold. Here's the recipe: Spicy Korean Tofu


Sometimes I buy Ray, a Japanese fashion magazine. One month there was a small cookbook insert and it has some really good recipes. Well, I've only made one, but several of the others look good as well. This was gratin and it's very easy and I can change it a lot by adding various vegetables. Yum! It's great because I can make a lot of it and just heat it up in the toaster oven when I want. It tastes just as good leftover.


Yes, that is really chocolate flavored gum. I actually kind of liked this. Sometimes at first it had a weird taste, but sometimes I didn't notice it, so maybe it was just something else I ate before it. It reminded me a bit of the chocolate soda I had last time I was in Japan. I hope they bring that back sometime! I loved it!


Mmmm... Mister Donut. :)


I got this apple ring at some place in Ichino mall. Sooooo good! The outside of it kind of reminded me of baklava. The inside had pieces of apple. 


These maron (chestunt) chocolates were tasty. I think I ate these after the BSB concert.


Chocolate strawberry cake chocolates... :)


I didn't buy these. I wanted to try them, but I just didn't want to spend money on something I figured I would just eat a few of. They're Pepsi flavored Cheetos. Ewwwww.


The green apple Fanta was delicious.  And I love the old style packaging!



I saw this and thought it sounded weird. But at the same time it seemed like it had the potential to be good. It wasn't. I didn't completely hate it, but I got more and more tired of it as I drank it and ended up not finishing it. The vinegar taste wasn't that strong, but it was definitely there.


Jonathan bought this tea (he doesn't like tea, but he didn't realize it was tea when he bought it).  Pineapple is often shorted to just "pine" in Japan, which sounds a bit unappetizing. I tried some and it wasn't great. I really liked the pear tea that I got though. Plus, it had Rilakkuma packaging!


And yeah... my drink choice was influenced by the super kawaii packaing. It was delicious though!


I found some really cute stuff at Pickup!


I bought some pansy seeds and planted them in a pot on my balcony. They're growing now, but the flowers haven't bloomed yet. 


As Jonathan and I biked back from the festival we attended, we saw this creepy place. I have no idea what it used to be.


I received some omiyage from a teacher at school. They were peanuts from Disney Sea with cute packaging. 



This is the brand of fabric softener that I use (the Juliette scent smells sooo good!) but I didn't need any when I saw these. I am almost out now though so I hope that they still have the Disney packaging. I wish Marie was on the Juliette bottle though!


It is Maru!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SAILOR MOON MERCHANDISE!!!!!!!! I bought one and got Sailor Jupiter, my least favorite so I had to try again. I then got Luna and Artemis. I hadn't even noticed that the cats were one of the toys! I still wanted a Sailor that I liked so I got a third one and got Sailor Venus! Yay! I'm glad I got them then because the next time I went to Ito Yokado they were gone. Also, there was a sign for them at Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara, but there was a sign over it saying they were sold out. I guess they were popular!


I saw this bus in a parking lot and just had to take a picture! Shippei is cute! :) Town mascots are a big deal in Japan. Shippei even has a song. I learned the dance to the song when I went to one of my kindergartens. Haha. Then another day I heard the kindergarten near my apartment practicing the dance. They played this song over and over and over...