Catch up~!

It's been over a few months now that we've been here in Japan, and a lot has occurred in that short amount of time. So much had happened within that time period, that I didn't have much time to post about it all! So here in this post, I will be updating you all on everything (well, at least on all of the biggest highlights, anyways) that had went on so far up to now! ^_^ Brace yourselves, this is probably most likely going to be long! Here we go~!

Oct. 6, 2012 -

This is the day when we first took a trip to Harajuku, Japan's fashion district! I scheduled a much needed hair appointment at Watanabe Hairdressing and had booked with Kenichi. We got lost trying to find the place, and we had to resort to asking people in Japanese if they could speak any English and for directions on how to get there, and thankfully someone had pointed us in the right direction. ^.^ We managed to make it there just in time.

We had to walk through this sea of people to get there. O.O

The entrance to Watanabe! We made it!!!

My experience over at Watanabe was hands down the best experience I have ever had at any hair salon by far! The staff was very kind and attentive. My husband and I were offered tea once we had walked in. The shampoo process was very relaxing, as they massaged my scalp and were very gentle throughout the process. Then, once that was done with, I was escorted to a chair where I received yet another scalp massage, this time with essential oils added to my hair. Following that was a neck, shoulder, and arm massage, and then came time for the haircut! Kenichi was great at listening to what I wanted, and seemed to be very knowledgeable with what would look good with my face shape! Needless to say, once he was finished cutting and styling my hair, it looked fabulous! My hair was so soft and shiny, and even when the wind blew it all over the place once we left, it fell perfectly back into place. I felt like a pampered princess~! I'm definitely going to be a regular customer there as long as I'm here in Japan!

Other than Watanabe, Harajuku has some of the coolest and cutest clothes and accessories I have ever seen! I never thought I would see stores like H.Naoto, Angelic Pretty, Liz Lisa, and so much more with my own eyes! It was so exciting! (Too bad I didn't take pictures of them though... Too many people hustling past us. Hopefully on my next trip, we can get more pictures!) They also had a lot of neat stuff being sold outside of the brand name stores, as well. A lot of the stalls out in the streets had so many things for sale that I wish I could have bought~!

Loooove these shoes! I don't think they'd fit me, though. I don't think they carry 9's... TT_TT

To my surprise, there was also a building dedicated to Tamagotchi!!!! I was so curious as to what was in there, so I begged my husband to go check it out. x3

There wasn't too much inside, but it did have a lot of gashapon machines with Tamagotchi related items in them, a little game center, lots of posters, and a Tamagotchi ID L with items that can be downloaded onto your own tamagotchi that you can't get anywhere else. I thought that was pretty cool, and I regretted not bringing my tamagotchis with me.... TT_TT

Oct. 24, 2012 -

The day of my dear hubby's birthday! We decided to celebrate at home, so while he was away at work, I worked my tail off in the kitchen preparing a surprise! I thought it would be fun to maybe add in a celebratory Japanese dish for the occasion, so I had prepared some osekihan (basically, it's a glutinous rice prepared with adzuki beans and topped with gomashio, which is black sesame seeds mixed with salt). As a bonus, I had also baked a Pikachu cake with pokeball cupcakes. <3 That was probably the most difficult part for me, because cakes aren't my strong point when it comes to baking. In fact, Pikachu's face tore right off when I tried to remove the cake from the pan, but somehow, I managed to salvage it. Once I frosted it, it wasn't even noticeable! See?

The cake, sekihan, and a Sena Kashiwazaki figure (a gift I bought for my husband)

It turned out pretty well, but the frosting was a little hard to work with, since it kept crusting over and it came from a tube.... I couldn't find any food coloring at our commissary, so that was my only option. ^^;  Still, I need to work on improving my cake baking and decorating skills! I don't work on it nearly enough. :P The important part of it all though was that my husband was ecstatic when he came home from work and saw everything! All that hard work paid off in the end. ^.^


Nov. 28, 2012 -

We FINALLY got our beloved kitties back to us! We drove 2 hours one way to get to Narita Airport, but of course it was well worth it. We were just so happy to have them back with us after months of not being with them. It honestly felt like forever! To think that we could have possibly had to go even longer without them is just crazy! We really wouldn't have been able to get them back when we did without the help of our friends and family members. They contributed so much, so I'm really grateful! ^_^ We really missed Blair and Sundae so much, and now everything feels so complete again now that they're here. I'm also so happy that they remembered us still despite having been away from us for quite some time. :)



Dec. 14th, 2012 -

It was back to the airport yet again, only this time, it was to pick up my mother-in-law! xD She was (and currently still is) visiting us for the holidays. She was sick with bronchitis for the first couple of days she was here, but thankfully she's a lot better now. We've been showing her around base and off base, taking her to our favorite restaurants and hang out places. She seems to be enjoying herself, but she's also still in shock by how different everything is out here compared to the US. She's so used to just striking up conversations with random people, but she finds that to be rather difficult over here for the most part. ^^; We've also been teaching her some simple but useful Japanese phrases to kind of help her along and to get by, and she's been doing pretty well considering she didn't know anything about Japan before she came out here. :) She's gotten used to thanking people, greeting them, and responding  with "hai!". Lols! She also fell in love with Purikura booths out here (which I totally understand, since I've fallen in love with them, too! They pretty much guarantee that you'll look flawless). She even managed to drag my hubby in the booth with us to take a picture today!

My mother-in-law's first purikura pic! (Taken a couple of days ago)

Me, my husband, and my mother-in-law (Taken today!)

Dec. 22, 2012 -

Today, we picked up an assortment of Christmas cakes from Cozy Corner at Seiyu! They just looked so sweet and delectable, we couldn't help but get them and dig into them right away, even though Christmas is still a few days away. xD They were too irresistible! 

So that's what I've been up to as of late. Looking at it now, it doesn't really seem like I did much, but it felt like of done a lot this entire time. O.O Funny how that turned out.... ^^; Anyways, I should be posting more tomorrow, since we'll be taking a trip to Caretta Shiodome for the Shiodome Illumination! So I'm looking forward to that and sharing pictures of it here for everyone to see!

I Think I Love Seiyu

Really, Seiyu is actually a lot of fun to shop at. >.> It's almost impossible for us to go to a Seiyu and not buy something. O.O We went yesterday to go buy my Tamagotchi ID L 15th Anniversary Version (I'm kind of a freak for Tamagotchis... I'm currently taking care of 3 at once!), and we landed up not only buying that, but green tea and vanilla ice cream flavored kitkat bars, a Tamagotchi Nano (which my husband had wanted for himself), some yokan (a gelatin-like dessert usually made from sweetened red beans), and mitarashi dango, among other things. ^^; We always seem to walk out with more than what we came in for. It's kind of dangerous.... What makes it worse is that it has a pretty good-sized arcade on the very top floor, so we spent even more money playing Taiko Drum Master and even Pachinko there. xD

Either way, I'm so happy I finally have all of the latest tamagotchis~! They're so much fun, even though sometimes it's so hard to keep up with them all. @_@ But yeah... I've been wanting the 15th Anniversary one for a little while now. It's so cool, because with the 15th Anniversary one, they added some of the older and original Tamagotchi characters back in! I think it's pretty cool that you're now able to see them in full color and in more detail now. ^_^

Ignore the mess in the background.... Just focus on the pretty  Tamagotchi....

Isn't this surprising? I actually got a purple one instead of yet another pink!

My Princess Spacey ID L and my husband's Tamagotchi Nano side by side.... Look how tiny it is! It's also very reminiscent of the older Tamagotchis....

Oh! And also, while we were shopping, I also found this super cute Alice in Wonderland stationary set!

I've already opened it and have written out two letters for my mother and my brother so far. I thought it would be nice to actually send them both a handwritten letter. It's so much more personalized than typing out an email to them or talking to them through Skype. It's such a shame that not too many people write letters anymore... I used to love receiving letters from my friends in the mail when I was younger. It was just so exciting! There's just something special about them... I still have all of the letters from my friends to this day, and every now and then I love to pull them out and re-read them.^_^ It kind of gives me this warm, fuzzy feeling inside! Does that sound strange? 

I kind of went off topic there.... xD Oh well. :P It's my blog, so I guess I can do that if I'd like~! ^.^ Plus, it's more fun if it's random.... Or at least that's what I think. Anyways, I think I'll end my rambling here. Bye bye, everyone! 

Shopping and Exploring!

Last night, my husband and I decided to explore more off base~! It was the first time that it was just him and I went out on our own just for the mere enjoyment of it. ^_^ We first stopped off at a place called Co Co for dinner, which was recommended to us by a nice man who had overheard us talking about possible places to eat while my husband was purchasing a new phone (that means we were finally able to take pictures again!). He said it was really good over there, so we decided to go there and check it out for ourselves!

 It's a restaurant that serves nothing but curry, and it was conveniently located right outside of the train station! :D As I looked through their menu, I was so amazed by how many different ways you could prepare curry! I never thought to put things such as tonkatsu or shrimp or a chicken cutlet in it. There was even natto curry! I also thought it was pretty cool how they allow you to customize your own curry and add whatever it is you'd like to it. You're also allowed to select the level of spiciness and the amount of rice you'd like. I landed up ordering the cream croquette curry, which also had crab in it (and I went with absolutely no spice! I can't handle spicy foods very well....). Needless to say, it was just as delicious as it looked!

After we had finished eating, we hopped on the train over to Hamura and just explored some shops. We mainly bought a lot of food and snacks, since we kind of needed to stock up on some (we had almost nothing in our fridge and cabinets! TT_TT). I landed up picking up some melon pan (melon bread) out of curiosity on what it was like, since it's so often seen in anime. xD It tastes absolutely nothing like melon, but it's still sweet and the crust is sort of cookie-like. :) We also bought some onigiri among other things.

Everything we bought spread out on the table

On our way back to base, we ended up stopping at a store called Seiyu (which I now refer to as Junes. Persona 4, anyone?). If I had to relate it to something, I would say that it's similar to a Walmart, except with more interesting stuff (or maybe I just think that because everything was so foreign to me?). Either way, we somehow eventually landed up wandering into the toy/electronics section, where I found the latest Tamagotchi ID L Princess Spacy! I just had to pick it up! x3 (it was actually a lot cheaper than when I had bought my older Tamagotchi ID L! It's so expensive ordering the ID L online!).

Princess Spacy ID L

My Tamagotchi ID L and Princess Spacy ID L side by side

And that concluded our mini-trip! Expect more pictures and posts to come!

Random Stuff I Want For No Reason

I got the idea for this post from a thread I saw in the miss bimbo forums (yes, I play miss bimbo), and I realized that there are a whooole lot of random things I want that I don't really need; things that are useless but still make me want them because they're just pretty or would be neat to possess. So, without any further delay, here's my list of random stuff I want for no reason:

1. Perfume bottles

I've always wanted to collect a bunch of decorative perfume bottles and put them on display~! x3 So far, I've only got one, but I definitely plan to get more someday. ^.^

2.  Lip tars

I really don't need more makeup, but I have to say that I really really reeeeaaaally want the lip tars from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics! <3 They come in so many vibrant, fun, and unique colors, and you can also mix them together to create your desired shade~! The possibilities are endless with these! Also, even though the tubes they come in aren't all that big, these can definitely last you a long time since you really don't need to apply all that much product. A little drop will go a long way. :3

3.  A Deco Kit

I've always wanted one. x3 Well, actually, I would probably need more than one kit, since I plan on going deco crazy whenever I get around to purchasing some. I'm definitely going to cover my Nintendo DS, my Tamagotchi ID L, my cell phone (whenever I happen to get one, anyways), my compact mirror, and so on. :D Lols! I would so deco anything and everything I possibly can! xD

4. Tokidoki USB Flash Drive

Okay, so maybe a flash drive can be useful, but the reason I want this is because not only is it so adorable, but it comes with cute tokidoki themed desktop wallpapers, icons, avatars, and screensavers for your computer! <3

5. Tokidoki Figures

My husband started me off on wanting to collect these little figures. I've been a fan of Tokidoki merchandise for awhile now, but I never once thought about buying the figurines, until I received one of Polpettina as a gift. x3 Now I simply must get them all!

6.  More ID! Tamagotchi Home Station Plus

I've been keeping my eye on this ever since I got my Tamagotchi ID L. With this, you can play new minigames and create your own wallpapers for your home and clothes for your tamagotchi to wear, as well as make your own meals and toys, too! ^.^  Before you can create anything though, you first must collect ingredients by playing the mini games. This is compatible with both the Tamagotchi ID and ID L. 

7. Nintendo 3DS

If you had read any of my recent posts regarding video games, you would already know why I want this. 'Nuff said.

8. Hello Kitty Toaster

.....Who wouldn't want to have Hello Kitty's face toasted on their bread?

9. Kobato Manga

I recently finished watching the anime for this series, and fell in love with it~! <3 It's really sweet, innocent, and touching. Now, I want to move on to reading the manga! ^_^ 

10.  Kaomoji Plushies

So cute, you can just eat them up, right? xD  I want these soooo much! They're just so adorable!!!

And that concludes my list... For now. ^.~