MaiDreamin: Why I Constantly End Up In Akiba Despite the Need for Eyebleach

Okay, first the disturbing moment and then we're going to pretend it never happened. I've been coming to Japan since 2007 and this morning was my first experience with a train pervert. And of course because I escaped for so long, I couldn't get a normal 'grab your butt and run' pervert. Nope. I got the guy who rubs up against you for 30 minutes. No, not like 'I'm really close to you because the train is so crowded'. At first I thought maybe that was it so I tried moving... and he followed me. I tried moving again but I was pretty stuck because of the number of people on the train. I spent the entire train ride hoping either 1- he would get off at that stop or 2- the car would clear enough that I could get some distance. Sadly neither happened... pervert stood there rubbing his creepy old man crotch on my behind for the entire train ride. EW! Your fancy suit doesn't make it okay for you to engage in froiterism with innocent college students who are clearly trying to get away from you! Anyways, that's over now and we are going to pretend it never happened.

Anyways, there are a million reasons why today was awesome. First off, we spent a good chunk of Pop Culture class watching movie clips and trailers. One of which was from 'Kamikaze Girls' which I happen to love because it's hilarious. It's also way funnier now that I get the culture jokes, but that's a story for another time. Second, I met a fellow lolita in econ who is going to show me the store where she finds her stuff AND class ended 15minutes early. Now what's not to love about any of these things that have happened so far?! Sit back. It gets better. As soon as class was over, I hopped on a train at Yotsuya, transfered at Kanda, and went back to Akihabara to do what I had been planning since June: go to MaiDreamin.

MaiDreamin is a Maid Cafe in Akihabara with multiple chains of the cafe throughout Akiba. There's like 6 of them on this one street and they're all super successful. Why? Because they are AMAZING! This isn't like the 2 other Maid Cafe's I've been to before. This was by far the most spectacular service I have had anywhere in Japan.
When I walked in, I was given my own personal maid, Mariko, and my presence was announced to the entire shop (of course, everybody applauded. It's part of the ambiance). I was referred to for the entire time as either "Princess Jennifer" or "Master". Okay, a little creepy in English, but in Japanese it was adorable. Mariko asked me about where I was from and talked to me about lots of things. Another one of the maids came around when Marko was busy and made sure I understood everything that was going on since it has been discussed that my primary language is English. They thought my Japanese was cute! My treats were a chocolate bear parfait named kuma-chan and a white peach tea. After I got my food, all the lights were turned off and exchanged for party lights for the "Live Show". It was so adorable, the maids danced and even sang a little! They got the audience involved, clapping and joining in on a part of the dance. We also got various colored glowsticks to play along with. The whole experience was just pure sugary fun! It costs a little more than others I have been to, but honestly the quality makes it 100% worth it and I would recommend MaiDreamin to anyone planning to go to a Maid Cafe. If you ever go to one with me, we'll definitely be going to one of their branches!
At the end of my hour (all these places charge a per hour sitting fee if you haven't noticed the trend), I was in a great mood. I couldn't bring myself to leave Akiba and I did one of the craziest things a girl can do in Tokyo: I took on Akihabara all by myself.

You may not fully understand the meaning of that if you haven't been, but I assure you it's quite the undertaking. Remember how I mentioned in my previous post that it's kind of like the internet in real life? Consider that. You'll understand why I tend to go here in groups. It's perfectly safe, just kind of creepy.
I shopped around and looked for more fun anime merchandise. Sadly I've been out of the circuit for too long (my last new series was Code Geass... in high school... so yeah, I'm behind) and I'm not up on all the new stuff they'e selling merchandise for. I had fun though, I wanted to buy a ton of it for art references, but managed to control myself. Now I'll be the first to admit that Akiba throws a LOT of learning curves at its customers. I'm about to spare some of you a lot of pain with a quick lesson I learned today. We're going to talk about "Shichaku-wari".

This place is creepy. Stay clear of anything
that looks even potentially skeezy. 

I THINK that this is the name of the store, but it might be the act of what they want their lady customers to do.Only person I know to go to with Japanese questions I am DEFINITELY not going to ask this.  From the outside I saw a school uniform and a maids dress. I THOUGHT it was a cosplay shop. Having not actually found one yet I was really excited and walked in. It was not a cosplay shop, and I ran out in about a quarter of a second when I saw the wall. What Shichaku-wari does that makes it very... ahem... Akiba... is that when customers come in, they are requested to try on one of the costumes and have a photograph taken by the employees. If the employees like the photograph, it is placed on the wall. I'm sure you have figured out by now what kind of costumes they were selling. This is not something you run into very often, but it is an example of why it's important to be highly aware of everything around you. Especially somewhere like Akihabara.

Luckily the rest of what I found today was fun and not painfully offensive to my poor eyes. I found a life sized statue of Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelian. That practically counts as homework because we're studying it in class tomorrow for our Anime lesson. Maybe eventually I'll watch all of it, from what I hear it's supposed to be pretty deep. I'll give a final verdict on whether or not I want to after tomorrow mornings lesson.

I saw so many figurines I wanted to buy!!! I promised myself I wouldn't, that was hard to keep... but I was good and I just looked.

I also kept myself from buying more manga I don't need. That wasn't easy either!


I made myself go home around 4 to (narrowly) avoid rush hour. I picked up Starbucks so I could grab a Tokyo Tumbler. Then I went by the make-up shop to grab HeroineMake eyeliner and mascara.  For me, that stuff is the best in the world. Nothing else I buy is ever the same, whether I get it in the states or in Japan.

The rest of the night was basically laundry and chatting with various people. Overall today was positive :-) Even the suckish and the crazy doesn't overshadow the great things that happened. Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!

Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn

Tokyo Stock Exchange & Beautiful Hula

Today I am feeling so much better than I have been! Good timing too, because today was busy! First off I had class today. Econ ended about an hour early because we took a field trip to the Tokyo Stock exchange! Even though it was technically after school, we still had to end class early in order for everyone to arrive by the scheduled tour time. We were perfectly allowed to take pictures, but we weren't allowed to use flash so it was difficult to get many good images. I won't know for sure what all turned out until I look at the pictures larger on the computer, so for now check out my fancy schmancy visitor badge and the big trading board. The Tokyo Stock Exchange was 2 subways and 1 train away from school getting back to the hotel ended up taking me almost an hour! 

By the time I got to my room, I only had about 20minutes to put down my school stuff, take a quick shower, change into something not sweaty, and get back to the train station. You may be wondering what I could possibly be doing that would have me in such a hurry. Well, I'll tell you. I was riding down to Shimbashi to meet up with the Oshikiri's! Yuka had a hula dance performance in Tokyo tonight and was kind enough to invite me to watch. Her parents met me outside the JR exit. I had never met her parents before tonight, they were so incredibly nice! Yuka, if you're reading this, please tell them I say thank you again!!! We ate dinner while we waited for the performance to start. I had the privilege of trying several new dishes while talking with some great company. The first performance set began at 6pm with a second performance set at 8pm. Both performances were amazing and all of the dancers were extremely skillful! Hula is a beautiful art and I am so happy that I was able to watch tonight! I took a short video of a portion of the second performance set.

It was great to see Yuka again after such a long time, and meeting her family was absolutely lovely. Eventually the evening did have to come to an end, and we all returned to our trains to go home. I could probably have told you more about today, but I've just realized that it's almost midnight and I have to be awake at 6:30am to get ready for class. Whoops! haha :)


Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn

Take it Easy, but Enjoy Yourself

I took it easy today so I could rest up and feel better in time for school on Monday. I'm happy to report that I am definitely improving. Though the whole sleeping for 12 hours thing probably helped significantly...

Anyways, when I was finally ready to start my day, I had breakfast downstairs at the hotel and then walked down to the English church about 10 minutes away. Those are EXTREMELY difficult to find normally, but my hotel happens to be right near one! Everybody was super welcoming and it was a great service. 

After church, I walked down to Seiyu (which was on the way back to the hotel) and visited their pharmacy. I had never purchased medication in Japan before, so this was an entirely new experience for me. At first I tried just looking around myself, but with the way I was feeling it was just too overwhelming. I went up to the counter and asked the pharmacist what would be best for allergies. She was so helpful! She came over from behind the counter and showed me what she felt would be most effective. On that note, medication is WAY cheaper in Japan than in the states. I saw the size of the bottle and thought it looked like about 10pills so 650yen sounded about right. Realized when I opened it that it actually contains 55pills! Do you know how much allergy medication that is?!?!?! That's absolutely unheard of in the states! I couldn't buy that many at once even if I wanted to, and it would definitely have cost at least $60 if I tried! Regardless, I bought it and it is helping me to feel better.

When I got back to the hotel I skyped with Mom, Dad, and Oscar for awhile. It was so nice to see my family!! We talked for quite awhile because they wanted to hear all about my classes.

Skype time had to eventually end because it was getting very late back home. So I went back out to Seiyu and the surrounding mall area for some adventures! I found some awesome English-fail shirts, and a couple of adorable bento boxes. I also went through the the kids toy section and the electronics section. Fun fact, they have electric eyelash curlers here! AND they keep them with the electronics! How would you even use that?! I don't even understand regular hand eyelash curlers!



Seiyu was, of course, fun. And so were some of the surrounding shops I visited. My favorite though, was definitely BookOff. I LOVE this bookstore! They're always enormous, this location is 4 levels. I purchased a few manga (back off, they're cheap here and I've been good!) and found out something fantabulious. The series I fell in love with back during my first student exchange, is being turned into a TV anime!!!! Now I'll finally be able to find out what happens beyond the second volume! I thought I'd never see it again!
Well, that was my nerd moment of the day and I'm totally proud of it.

Today may not have been super eventful, but it was exactly the day I needed to heal up and get better. I may not be back to 100%, but I am vastly improved over yesterday. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be even better!

Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn

Even off days have their fun sides

  Today was a bit difficult for me because since last night my allergies have been really bothering me, and as a result I'm feel pretty sick. Being sick made it tough to want to start the day when my alarm clock went off bright and early at 6am. But, I pushed through it and got ready to start my day. Classes went well. I did my best to participate despite the sinus pressure making it difficult to focus. Luckily my first class is very interesting, so even when it would've been great to just take a nap I was able to make myself pay attention. 

When classes ended, I still wasn't feeling well but I had made plans to see a friend who recently moved to Tokyo for a teaching job. I really wanted to go see her, so I put aside my feeling sick and took the train (and the subway) to go visit her. I am so happy I was able to see her! We did purikura in Sega World and grabbed some lunch at Johnathan's. Since she has a Japanese phone, we were able to get one of the purikura photos as a digital copy. WooHoo!

We hung out for awhile before it was time for us to go our seperate ways. I stopped by Mister Doughnut on the way back to the train station for an early "dinner". SO YUMMY!!!! 

Now I'm sitting in my room chatting with mumful. Soon I'll take a hot shower and go to bed. That way I will feel better tomorrow. Luckily tomorrow is Sunday and there are no classes. It will be nice to have a day where I can sleep later than 6:30am. It will definitely be great for the healing process.

Peace, love, and hairspray!

~Jenn

First Day of School!

First day of school dress & Sophia University bag 

So now comes the answer to that million dollar question you've all been waiting to hear about: How was the first day of class?

The day started super early, around 6:30am, to allow time for breakfast and the train ride. I arrived on campus at 8:20, easily found my classes, and was seated perfectly on time for the start of my Japanese Popular Culture class. This class is going to be awesome! We are discussing anime, manga, fashion, food, "cute", and advertisements. It's basically what I always do in Japan, except I get a grade at the end. Our main project is a presentation accompanying a final paper about a popular culture topic of our choice. I'm not sure yet, but so far I'm leaning towards Maid Cafes. Now my trips to Harajuku, Shibuya, and Akihabara can be considered legitimate studying! 

My second class of the day is Contemporary Japanese Economics. Those of you who know my feelings on econ classes already know that this will not be one of my favorite classes I've ever attended. However, I can apply the credit towards my International Business Certificate, and 3 weeks of econ beats an entire semester of econ any time!

Origami hats on the bus

After classes ended, all of the exchange students piled onto tour busses for a tour of Tokyo. We saw the State Guest House, Akasaka Palace, the Supreme Court, the National Diet, the Imperial Palace, and Akihabara before getting off the bus at Asakusa. There, I was able to have golden kiwi flavored ice cream, finally track down some post cards, and pick u a reasonably priced UV-blocking parasol/umbrella. After that, we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building to see the view from the 45th floor lookout point. It was so beautiful!!!

Even the bus ride was fun. Our tour guide Eriko from the beginning excursion was leading our bus. She made origami Samurai hats and even showed us a traditional festival dance!

The tour concluded at 6:30pm when we were dropped off back at the university. Most of us went back to the hotel via train. Rush hour is always interesting, it was SO CROWDED!

Once back, I headed out to find some dinner with Lauren and Andrew. We walked around for awhile and went to a different area than we had searched through on previous nights. At first we tried an Italian place in a basement, but it was super crowded and had a very long wait. Ultimately we wound up at Coco's. All of us had some type of pizza and a dessert. It was fun to have a little break from traditional food, but I'll be back to typical Japanese meals tomorrow.

I had margarita pizza and a chocolate mint ice cream pie. Both were very yummy and well earned after such a long day.




Sorry todays post is a little shorter than usual, but I'm feeling a little bit sick. I think it might be from hang drying my clothes in my room after I did laundry last night. Hopefully it improves quickly, it'll be another early morning tomorrow!

Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn

Whoever Said the Internet Wasn't Real Has Never Been To Akihabara

You can't make this up. It's really in my packet. 

First off, the serious business. This morning began with Sophia University Summer Orientation. We received our student ID cards, obtained class information along with their textbook lists, and heard valuable information about the school. For example, we now know the situations in which classes would be canceled for the day. Glad to know Godzilla is taken seriously, but only if his rampages interfears with the Yamanote train line!  For those of you who don't know, that's serious business because he would've destroyed the path to Harajuku, Shibuya, Ikebukoro, AND Akihabara. Like I said, serious business. 

We also found out where and how to sign up for the many activities Sophia University is making available to summer students. Tomorrow after class is the first activity: a tour of Tokyo including the State Guest House, Akasaka palace, the Supreme Court, the National Diet, the Imperial Palace, Akihabara, Kaminarimon and Sensouji, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. We'll have time to stop and explore several of those areas, hopefully I'll finally be able to get my hands on some post cards! 

Look how cute my parfait is!

Of course, I didn't spend all day in orientation. In fact it probably totaled just over an hour. The real action of the day was because it just so happens that a member of our CIEE group, Ed, had his 21st birthday today. So how do you properly celebrate someones 21st birthday? I'll tell you how. You take them to Akihabara and let them pick a Maid Cafe! (Any of you who said "shots", shame on you!)

Lucky for us girls, Ed had done his research and knew which cafe he wanted to go to; the historically themed 'Mononopu'. We starting walking down the main road towards the elusive 5th floor cafe and were lucky to quickly run into one of their maids passing out advertisement fliers. She was more than happy to walk us to the hidden entrance, up the elevator, and into the world of Feudal Japan. Well... what feudal Japan would've been like if it was hyper adorable and had maid service. Everyone ordered a drink (ice milk, melon soda, and the like) and one of the many desserts. I mentioned to our maid that a member of our party was celebrating their birthday today and she was instantly excited. they have a special promotion where patrons receive free desserts on their birthday! And trust me, that's a pretty big deal when you're already paying 500yen per hour just to be there. When his special birthday dessert arrived, all of the maids came over and made a BIG DEAL out of the fact that a customer was having a birthday today. They even sang to him and got the entire cafe clapping and singing along. It was really fun for everybody, and I'm so glad I was able to be there to take part.

Don't I just fit right in? 

Now, contrary to what certain gaijin may tell you, there is far more to Akihabara than maid cafe's. After we finished the birthday celebration, we set off for some exploring. We planned to keep today short, so the main mission was to hit only priority places while scouting out other shops for future trips. the first stop on our adventure was 'Animate'. 8 floors and a basement full of Manga and Anime. Nidah and I were hoping to find some Sailor Moon merchandise for a few of our friends, and this place usually has everything. I was able to pick up some cute clearfiles from Code Geass (one of my all time favorites) and Madoka (well, if you're reading this and it's for you, you probably know who you are) but oddly enough no Sailor Moon! We'll definintely have to go back and find it SOMEWHERE. They're releasing a new Sailor Moon series next summer, I know there has to be promotional merchandise in the works. Aside from that, this store really did have pretty much everything. 

We explored a few book stores, costume shops, cell phone cover shops, and places I couldn't even begin to describe.
 Akihabara is basically an otaku's paradise. It has a little bit of everything. You just have to be careful, because it's kind of the internet brought to life without censoring the details. They have everything on every level from failblog to 4-chan, and it's up to you to figure out where the safe zones are.


 Towards the end of the day, we even ran into an arcade to do purikura. They really make great memories, especially the fun we all have decorating the photos! I wish they had these kinds of photo machines in Arizona. They used to, but then gamestop managed to break theirs and now the closest one is in California :(

We left around 5pm to avoid the peak of rush hours. It was much less crowded than the past few days coming home around 7:30.

I used my time coming back early to make a run to Seiyu and grab a few necessities like flip flops, laundry detergent and a pencil case. My total haul for the day is pictured here. I didn't get much in Akiba today, but I thought you still might be interested in seeing todays take home.

Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn

From Sophia to Shibuya: Higher Education and Even Higher Fashion

For those of you who haven't quite connected the meaning of "study abroad", I am actually over here in Tokyo for the specific purpose of going to school. We all like to pretend it's for shopping, but it's definitely for going to school. Classes officially begin on Friday, but today (Wednesday. Aren't time differences trippy?) was the day that we finally were able to tour the 上智大学 チャンネル - Sophia University - campus. 

Everyone met in the lobby at 11:45 and split up into predesignated groups. Each group was assigned 1-3 current students who met us in the hotel lobby, took the train with us to Yotsuya (where the school is located), and gave us a comprehensive tour of Sophia University and the CIEE Study Center. They also answered various questions any student had over lunch in the Sophia University cafeteria. I had katsu and mango ice cream with apple juice. The campus is very pretty, and classes should be relatively simple to find. We don't have room numbers until tomorrow when we go to orientation, but we have already been told that most English language classes tend to be held in building 11. There is a large library, and two computer labs; however we did not enter either of those places because you need to swipe your student ID card and we will not have those until orientation either. 

The only downside is the humidity. I was fine for the first few days, but this heat is REALLY starting to get to me. I had to sit in the study center and cool down for almost half an hour because I was overheating. I even removed my high socks so that there would be less heat, but there's only so much a person can do. It feels like every time I finally cool down, I'm quickly overheating again.  Hopefully it either cools down, or I can figure something out to improve this issue. It's dangerous to be too overheated for too long. 

This was early in the day, so it wasn't crowded yet. Evening was CRAZY!

So to cool off today, we opted for an activity that would involve 2 great things: shopping and air conditioner. A large group of us met up at the North Gate of Sophia and took the train to the famous Shibuya for an afternoon of shopping at Shibuya 109! 

Hachiko is also located in
Shibuya. 

 For those of you who are less familiar with Shibuya 109, I'll give you a quick run down. This massive building contains 8 above ground floors, and 2 basement levels. All of which are full of various shops. There's also a Mens109 across the street, but it's not as big and everyone in todays group was female, so it was irrelevant to us.
I'll tell you from the beginning, I didn't go nearly as crazy as yesterdays Harajuku extravaganza. Although, I did buy a few things in this fabulous culmination of Tokyo fashion. 

Didn't buy this, but I call it
the "classy hooker" look.

You can find just about anything in this store, in any style: from sweet innocence to ghetto fab, to sexy hooker. This place caters to everybody and leaves nothing forgotten. 

I found an adorable pair of Japanese heels on sale that fit, so of course I had to make them mine. I also purchased a much needed pair of sunglasses, and a cute pair of shorts. My biggest purchase was the blue and white summer set special I purchased at LizLisaDoll/TraLaLa. It was both adorable and on sale to celebrate the season. I love LizLisa clothing, but they're definitely ones you have to find on sale or they can get very expensive very quickly. I was so happy that I was there during their summer sale!

Mango Passion frappacino gel

 When I reached just below my allotted budget for the day, there was still around 40 minutes left before I was supposed to meet back up with the group at Hachi's statue. That may sound like a long time, but we actually had spent many hours shopping at this point. I didn't want to stay outside in the hot for that long, as you can guess from my earlier statements on the heat, so I hopped over to the Shibuya Starbucks. Their menu has evened out to be highly similar to ours, but I picked the first different item I noticed: a mango passion frappacino gel. You heard that right. Frappacino gel. They blend a sort of pudding type thing into the frappacino to give it a gel like consistency. It may sound strange, but it tasted quite delicious!  


At the end of the day after heading home, I surveyed the days purchases by laying them out on the bed. I am definitely pleased with todays finds. The bulk of my shopping is now complete and I'm on to only Akihabara and a few souvenirs/presents. I'm having a great time, my biggest challenge is dealing with that sick feeling I get when I'm overheating. Overall everything is going well though, and I'm super excited to start class in 2 days!






Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn

Harajuku Girls and a peek into nightlife: the awesome and the annoying

You'll notice todays blog is being posted late... about 4 hours later than I normally post. This is because I just got back to the room (Shhhhh... no telling, tomorrow is a late start day), a situation which I will explain henceforth...

In front of the main gate to Harajuku 

Todays original plan was to spend the morning in Harajuku, the afternoon in Shibuya, and the early evening in karaoke. This plan changed, however, when Harajuku turned out to be far more fruitful than any of us had anticipated. What do I mean by that? Well, these are all of the stores I made purchases from in Harajuku: Paris Kid's, Daiso, Daichu, Margo, K-K Souther, Pet Paradise, Angelic Pretty, Innocent World, Tutu Anna, Amo's Style, Love Toxic, Bodyline, Wonder Rocket, Beam Chara, Momo, and 2 separate crepe shops. Considering I probably made a purchase at 1 in every 20 or 30 shops, you can figure it was an insanely long process even without doing the actual math of solving how many shops that implies my having searched through. 
I did purikura several times, twice with different groups of fellow CIEE students, and once with just myself (because let's be honest, those are totally just as fun). I would be posting those here, but you can only have them sent to Japanese phones. And no, my rental phone would not have made sense because getting them off of it would not have been possible. 

Some of you who know my particular Harajuku preferences may be noticing a key location missing from my purchase list. You may be thinking, "But Jenn, what about BABY THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT?" Let me tell you what happened there. I walked all the way through Takeshita Dori, down to the Laforet building where BABY is located on level B1.5 (yes, basement 1 and a half is a floor), walked into BTSSB and WAS COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY IGNORED.So I thought about it and concluded the following; "You know, it's totally fine. If they want to be rude, they just lost out on a $300 sale and it's entirely their problem." So I simply walked away and got some adorable day wear at Angelic Pretty just across the way. Take that rude Lolitas. You've just lost a valuable customer. 

Everything new in bags 

Aside from Lolita's being as rude as their reputation commonly suggests, the day was fabulous. I was able to enjoy a Strawberry Creme crepe for lunch, and a Strawberry Kiwi Creme crepe for an afternoon snack. Also, Ladies be proud: I didn't buy the adorable maid outfit I fell in love with. Similarly, Gentlemen be disappointed: I didn't buy the adorable maid outfit I fell in love with. 

And out of bags

So we never made it to Shibuya, but we had a totally rocking time in Harajuku. I bought more clothes in 1 day than I have in the past year! I also learned that if, as a lady, you really want to feel awesome, have a Japanese bra fitting. Just trust me, you'll feel special. 


After all day in the hot and humid with essentially no air conditioning, we were all pretty exhausted upon returning to the hotel past 5pm.   We all collectively decided to relax until 7pm and then meet up for dinner. When 7pm came around, 6 of us headed out to find something delicious looking within walking distance. We found a place that was really similar to where we had lunch in Shinjuku yesterday. I went for the ramen today, always a pleasant choice. It as upon leaving this eating establishment that we found the shiny blue karaoke place. Don't ask me what it was called, but those were the colors on the sign. 2 of us asked about pricing and we were assured it was 1600 yen for all of us to participate for 2 hours. And so the saga begins...


We headed back to the hotel with the intent to meet in the lobby at 10 for karaoke. Back in my room, this is where things started to tumble a bit. I started sorting through my bags from today and noticed something. My innocent world shirt was missing! It's definitely gone, and there's nothing I can do about it. I watched my bags all day, it was never put down, and I have the bag that its bag had been consolidated into. But somehow it is simply gone.

The price may have been a lie, but the fun
was real :-)

Karaoke went well, it was super fun actually! We had a decently large group, a private room, and similar song tastes! We rented the room out for 2 hours, and they flew by so fast that none of us could believe it when we got our 10 minute warning! So, what was the problem? Well... remember how I mentioned that we were assured it was 1600 yen total? haha, funny. It turned out to be 1600 yen total per person. We didn't ask in English, we asked in Japanese. They were screwing with the gaijin. Not cute Mr. Karoake Employee Man. Not cute. Is 1600 a bad price for 2 hours? No. Is it drastically more than the 200-something we expected to pay? Absolutely. It was sort of an unwelcome surprise at almost 1am. 


In the end, today was a good day. It just had a few bumps in the road. I'm glad it was my shirt that went missing instead of something like moms timers I got her for her classroom. I'm glad we enjoyed karaoke for 2 hours. Frustrating things happen, oh well, life goes on. 


Tomorrow we go to Sophia University for a tour of the campus. After which we will make that trip to Shibuya (which will be far tamer than Harajuku for me. I only really plan to hit Liz Lisa). Once classes begin, there won't be much more in the way of epic shopping. In likely decending order of remaining shopping it's down to Shibuya, souvenirs, and Akihabara. Harajuku was always intended to be the biggie, and I'm happy with my new clothing. Now it's time to get down to business! (10 points if you automatically thought "to defeat the huns") 


At this point though, it's almost 2am and I am beat. I really need to get some rest before tomorrows school tour. Send a prayer my way, I'm going to need some extra energy in the morning. 


Peace, love, and hairspray!
~Jenn 

Spirited Away to Studio Ghibli: the story of the tiniest Totoro

 Look right here. Do you see this?! Do you KNOW what that ticket is for?!?!?! Well, I'll tell you either way. That right there is a ticket to the Ghibli Museum. You know, that reservation only peek into the world of Miyazaki that ranges from difficult to reserve to absolutely impossible depending on the time of year. The place that only allows people to attend in 2 hour blocks due to the sheer volume of reservation requests they receive. Yup. That Ghibli Museum. And that, my friends, is where I started my day.

The Museum is only a 1.4km walk from the hotel through a cute shopping alley and a breathtaking park. Everyone met in the hotel lobby at 11:30am to begin the trip, since our ticket reservation began at 12 and nobody wanted to miss a minute. We walked through the shopping area and entered a large park by crossing a lake. As we waked across the bridge, we could see all of the fish. There was even a large water snake gliding through the water below! We passed the boat rentals (a potential activity for another day), the park zoo (yet again, something to check out), and through the parks forest path. Finally, we came to a road which we followed shortly before seeing what we had been looking for. A large gate reading 'Ghibli Museum'.

 Photos inside were strictly forbidden (as in there is literally a staff member in each room who ensures that your phone and camera remain in your bag) but certain outdoor areas were okay to photograph. The inside was absolutely amazing! It was exactly like stepping into the various worlds of Studio Ghibli. Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausica and the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea; you name it and it was there! Original sketches, explanations of the animation process, recreations of the room where the all the magic started, a short film theatre, and even a life sized CatBus were all included in the experience. Sadly the CatBus is exclusively for small children and the staff members think it's inappropriate to fight the kindergartners on fieldtrip for their place in line. Don't question whether or not I attempted, you may be disappointed in me when I answer. I have never been to a museum that was so much fun, or so crowded! The gift shop looked more like Walmart on Black Friday than a museum on a Monday. Wall to wall people fighting for expensive, but totally awesome, souvenirs. Good thing I had adequate Black Friday training to be prepared for the experience; I had important things to pick up! Outside in the Ghibli Cafe, they were filled to capacity, so since I couldn't get in I just grabbed a Japanese Pair Sherbet in the outdoor stand and watched all the fun around me. There was even a little girl dressed as Kiki, she was so adorable!!!



I wish I could've stayed all day, but eventually my reservation block came to an end and it was time to go back to the real world. Luckily, the real world comes with food.
8 of us walked back towards the hotel to the Kichijoji JR Station and hopped on a train to Shinjuku.

Once in Shinjuku, our first objective was to find some lunch. We walked around near the station for a bit before finding a small restaurant hidden from the main road. Between us we had all sorts of delicious foods from ramen to yakitori, all of which was thoroughly enjoyed.

With happy tummy's, we began to explore the shopping available in Shinjuku. Our first stop was an enormous Forever 21 with 4 levels of clothing! I found something I wanted, but let's just say I was having Gaijin problems. Such a shame too, for cuteness to be so wasted in not joining my clothing collection.

I don't know, but it was in the street

After Forever 21, we went over to the 0101. Inside there were many shops throughout 8 floors, as well as a movie theatre on the opposite side of the building. We looked through what was playing, but today was not the day for movies. that will happen one day after class, but not today. The 0101 included a small Uniqlo (Personally, I'm looking forward to the 12 level one in Ginza). I tried on an adorable dress. The sales clerk in the dressing room started speaking English to me when he saw me, but when I responded in Japanese he went back to speaking Japanese. I was sad to have to give him back the dress, especially when I had to awkwardly explain that going up a size would not help my particular sizing problem (haha, Gaijin problems... at least my waist fitxD). I looked through all the stores on the several levels, I almost bought Japanese press-on manicure (you know like the fancy schmancy acrylics with bows and sparkles and 3D thingys glued to your nails, except for $20 instead of $200) but decided against it because, let's face it, I'd chip one in about 3 seconds.
0101 was followed by Takashimaya Time Square. In similar fashion it contained many small stores including Tiffany's,Hermes, and Gucci, Docle & Gabbanna. I'll admit I took a peek in Louis Vuitton to see if they still had my bag available, and of course I picked up some eyeliner in Tokyu Hands, but I was really only in that department store around 20 minutes before I crossed the 5th floor bridge over to the neighboring bookstore for some fun.
Eventually it was time to take the train back to Kichijoji. The station was crowded with people riding home from work, but we all packed into a train and made it safely back to our home station. Once there, our group split up between the grocery store and the hotel. I made a quick run to

Adorable grapes are yummy. 

マクドナルドfor a teriyaki burger and a fried apple pie. Don't judge me for my tacky American moment, everyone is entitled to one and mine was delicious. I couldn't resist taking a peek at the bookstore across the street I had spotted during dinner. Somehow that turned into 2 more magazines, bringing my total to 4. Not ashamed, I love me some Japanese magazines. That was my last time out before I walked back to the hotel for a relaxing hot bath and some grapes. I'll give you a picture of the grapes; they're miniature and possibly the cutest form of fruit I've ever seen. 

I Skyped with my Mumful and Daddy for awhile too, totally worth posting my blog entry a few hours late. Today was a good day, and plans are being formed to make tomorrow equally fantastic. 

Peace, love, and hairspray!

~Jenn