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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 started the next day, the 21st, off in Shibuya. After stopping in Starbucks so that Jonathan could eat some breakfast (he slept too late for the hotel breakfast) we spent some time in Loft where I bought some more cute stickers. I'm not sure but it seemed like they had fewer cute stickers than they used to have. They still had some really cute ones though!




After that we split up and I headed to Shinjuku to go to Shinjuku Marui One which has a lot of lolita stores. I had what seemed like good directions to get there from the station but it made a reference to a sign on a building that was no longer there or I just couldn't find. Luckily I had a map and after a few minutes I was able to figure out which direction to go.

Unfortunately when I arrived at the building it was closed! Sad! :( Such bad timing because it seemed like it was just that one day. All the other Marui One malls I saw that day were also closed.

On the way back to the station I passed by Bikkuro, an unusual combination of Bic Camera (an electronics store) and Uniqlo. I went in to see if they had the Marie shirt in my size. They had two left and one of them was a small! Yay! So my trip to Shinjuku wasn't completely wasted.


Next I went to Koenji to visit a store called Spank. It was located in a covered arcade area.


I knew the store wasn't big, but it was even smaller than I thought. It was a really neat store and was like stepping into my childhood, but I only stayed a few minutes. I was the only one there and I hate being the only person in a small store.


I'm not sure if I was allowed to take pictures, but I snuck this picture in a corner. There was a Magic Nursery Pet! I had one of those as a kid and it was one of my favorite stuffed animals. They were selling this one for over 7,000 yen! The prices there were pretty ridiculous. If you're Japanese the stuff is more unique though I guess. I can find stuff like this at yard sales and flea markets.

The store was adorable and neat, but I don't think it was worth going out of my way. It's too bad it's not in an area that I visit often, like Harajuku or something.

Here's a website with better pictures of Spank:  TokyoFashion

I headed back to Shibuya and went in a few random stores including a cute cosmetics and accessory shop called Its'demo. They had some Disney themed stuff, including nail polish with Mickey Mouse shaped glitter They were only about 500 yen I think. I should have gotten one.



I eventually made it to Shibuya 109. There were some girls outside dressed up as miko (shrine maidens) passing out something.




I really liked those cute earrings but wanted to shop around a bit more before buying anything.

Shibuya 109 only has stores aimed at girls, so you see hardly and men in there. I feel like maybe I saw a few more than usual, but maybe only about a dozen men compared to hundreds of women. All of them were with a girl though except for one. It was an older man dressed in a business suit and wearing a BIG pearl necklace. So. Weird.

When I left Shibuya 109 it was raining pretty hard. I ran to a nearby Family Mart and bought an umbrella. I then went to Tower Records to look at K-pop. When I left there it wasn't raining anymore. I had bought that umbrella for almost no reason. I went to Tsutaya for a little bit and then went back to Shibuya 109 to buy the umbrella earrings before meeting up with Jonathan.


We met somewhat near the Hachiko statue. While waiting I saw an all-girl brass band. They were handing out fliers for something.

We went to La Jolla for dinner which I had read online was a good Mexican restaurant, which is very hard to find in Japan. It was a bit pricey, but really good. We both got the Maya Chimichanga which had chicken and vegetables and rice. It's too bad it didn't come with any refried beans, but it was filling so I didn't really need them.

We got chips and salsa, which weren't free or unlimited, and the salsa was really good and fresh. It's too bad that it wasn't unlimited though.


After dinner Jonathan we went to Shinjuku because Jonathan wanted to go there and go to Yodobashi Camera. I haven't spent a lot of time in Shinjuku because I usually just seem to get lost just trying to get out of the station (It's the busiest train station in the world had has over 200 exits. That's not an exaggeration. Craziness.) and can't find many places I want to go even though there's a ton of stuff there. I'm liking it more now and want to go back to the shopping mall connected to the station we passed through. I really want to try one of these macarons even though they're 270 yen a piece!



It's so cute and fancy looking!




We went in Yodobashi Camera and Jonathan found what he had looked for at another location earlier in the day. It was the Pikachu car! He bought it for me. Yay! He had hoped to buy it earlier in the day and surprise me with it, but I was still happy. It's just so cute! I was surprised that there was a toy version!


Then we went back to Ikebukuro. By the time we arrived it was raining really hard. So I guess buying that umbrella earlier hadn't been a waste!


We stopped in Baskin Robins and I got chocolate cheesecake ice cream. Mmmmm! :)

By the time we finished our ice cream it was actually storming. Lightning and thunder! We went through an underpass under the railway tracks and it started to flood down there. It was raining so much in a short amount of time.



Here's a video of the rain and flooding.


They had Monsters Inc. pork buns which were kind of neat.


It was neat to see a storm in Tokyo. I'm glad it was at the end of the day and didn't happen earlier in the day. I don't like walking around in the rain all day and feeling wet and gross. The umbrella earrings I bought earlier in the day matched the storm, haha!

After spending Friday and Saturday in Iwata and Hamamatsu, we headed back out for more traveling. On Saturday we went to Shimoda which is in the southeastern part of the Izu peninsula. I used to live in Izu, but I only visited Shimoda once because even though it wasn't far, there wasn't very direct transportation there because of the mountains. I either had to take an indirect bus route that didn't run very often or take a bus east, a train north, and then a train back south. It just wasn't convenient at all from Toi.

First we arrived in Atami a little before noon. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel and headed back towards the station to find somewhere to eat. We decided to just eat at McDonald's because we didn't want to waste time finding another place and well, it just sounded good!

There was a store near McDonald's with some really cute stuff in the window! I stepped in there after lunch but we were in a bit of a hurry for the train so I didn't have time to buy any of these adorable kitties.




At McDonald's I had a chicken salsa sandwich and a blueberry soda. Mmm!

Then we went to the station and I saw this train and was kind of jealous of the cool seating. Then I realized that it was our train!



Many of the seats sat facing the windows so that the passengers could enjoy the view. We were standing for a little while, but we were eventually able to get a seat. The train got emptier and emptier as we neared Shimoda.

The view from the train is really nice in some areas as it goes along the coast. Here's a video that also has some stuff from the beach later in the day.




 The train had some historical stuff above the windows which I couldn't read and probably wouldn't have read even it had been in English. Shimoda is famous for Perry's black ships landing there. I don't know many details though.


There are several stores near the station selling souvenirs and useful stuff for the beach. Jonathan and I bought a mat and an inner tube. He also bought some flip flops because he had forgotten the ones he had bought just for Shimoda.


We took a bus to Shirahama beach. We found pay showers but couldn't find just a bathroom where we could change clothes (later I found a restroom on the beach that we could have used). So we changed in the bathroom at 7-11 even though I'm pretty sure the sign said not to do that there. 

The beach was pretty crowded, but there were still plenty of spots for us to sit. The water wasn't as crowded and I liked that there were people there because it was lively.




It was such a pretty area! 


It was fun to play with the inner tube. I mostly liked floating around and going out where the waves just gently went up and down, but Jonathan enjoyed going near the shore and riding the waves. 



While Jonathan played in the water some more I walked to the other end of the beach and took some pictures. 




By the time I got back to our spot most people had left (except for people cleaning up the beach and people who worked at the umbrella rental shops). We dried off a little bit, though we didn't dry off much because it's always so humid here. I eventually just had to put my clothes back over my wet bathing suit even though it made my shorts wet and it looked bad, haha.


While waiting for the bus we took a picture of the interesting non-colorful 7-Eleven. I saw another 7-Eleven like this in Dogashima. I wonder why some of them are this color. This 7-Eleven was very interesting because a lot of people just went in there in their bathing suits and there was sand all over the floor.


We were super hungry once we made it back to Atami so we got food from a konbini for dinner. I got chicken and rice and chocolate milk. I get that chicken a lot from Family Mart.


Originally I had planned for us to spend five days in Tokyo, but Jonathan wanted to go to Shimoda so we changed to just spend four days in Tokyo. I had a fun day at the beach so it was a good choice!