Tokyo Recap - Part 3

I want to share my Valentine's Day pictures in Tokyo with you. It was such a fun V-day and we took some great pictures to document our shenanigans.



We started our day walking through Tokyo, passing by shops, walking over bridges, seeing Sumo wrestlers, and checking out the quieter side of Tokyo on our way to a theater. A movie for one of our favorite video games, "Gyakutek Saiban" aka "Phoenix Wright" in America, was released in theaters so we wanted to see it.



While we waited for the show time, we went to Pietro's for lunch.


The pizza was so delicious!


The view of Tokyo was beautiful on this misty/not quite rainy day.


Yummy beer!

When you buy movie tickets, you actually get to pick out which seats to sit in which is pretty cool. You also get this nifty little tray for your food and drinks.


Oh! And there was a gift shop there to buy items from the various movies playing. We picked up this program slash photo book from the movie.

Afterwards, Aaron took me on a shopping spree and I picked up some cute clothes, fake thick framed glasses, and bunch of bento stuffs. Then as we walked back to our part of town, we passed by the Tokyo Sky Tree:


Then we went back to Akihabara for food and fun. We wanted to go someplace different for our V-day dinner. Where? We weren't sure until we ran across Bar Rythm, which is a little darts bar two flights of stairs down below one of the side streets. It was bright, friendly, as was playing JPOP music we know, AND they had omurice there (which was what I wanted for V-day dinner).




What is omurice? It's just about the coolest thing in the world! It's a Japanese omelet, made of fried rice cooked with ketchup (or some type of tomato sauce), topped with an omelet, then (the BEST part!) a picture or phrase is written on top with ketchup. Omelet made of rice... Omu rice... get it? xD


Getting omurice with a fox on it was one of my main goals while in Tokyo. It made me so happy to get it! The gal who served us giggled when she asked what I wanted her to draw on the omurice and I asked for a "kitsune onegaishimasu" (fox please).

After Bar Rythm, we headed to Club Sega to play some games.




I won that mouse pad and mouse out of a crane game. Took a while, quite a few 100 yen pieces, and help from the nice Club Sega guy, but I got it and it's currently what I'm using at my computer right now.

We did two more awwwwesome photo booths as well. Easily the best pictures of us ever. Apparently a big feature of these photo booths is that they slightly enlarge your eyes. Regardless, I LOVE these pictures. It's us in our element~ being in love and having fun with each other. ♥

Then we walked around Akihabara a bit before heading back to the hotel and crashing. So probably spent 3 or 4 hours that day walking. Good times!


Being in Tokyo with Aaron and having a super cute dinner for Valentine's day was better than all the chocolate and flowers in the world. *^___^*

Thanks for hanging in there~ this was a long post. Have a great night!

Tokyo Recap Part 2

Just out of curiosity, how do your store your clothes? Hanging up in the closet? Folded in a dresser? Folded on your shelves in your closet?

Mine are mostly all folded on shelves. Very nicely. Clothes come out of a toasty dryer and are folded to avoid wrinkles. I only use hangers for items that will wrinkle if folded.

My reasoning is that it drives me crazy bonkers when clothes fall off hangers. I would rather iron clothes than have them fall off hangers. This may sound a teeny bit extreme, but yeah, that's just how I am.

Now that I have that off my chest, let me show you some more pictures from our trip.



The Bandai Building, next to our hotel, had lots of statues of it's various mascots. It was fun taking pictures with them. Actually, each time we walked by, it seemed there were always people taking pictures here. Fun times are had outside the the Bandai Building!



One morning we had breakfast at this cute cafe called Ko Hi Kan. It was so yummy! Aaron had a roasted chicken sandwich with egg salad sandwich, and I had cinnamon toast with syrup and whip topping. It was a fun way to start the morning.

The name of the place is kind of a play on words: "Koh-hee" is how the Japanese pronounce coffee, and "kan" is best described as "a place of" (for example: a theater is "eigakan". Eiga = movie, kan= place of. A place of movies is a theater). So Ko Hi Kan is "a place of coffee". Pretty neat huh?







A good chunk of our time was spent in Akihabara, which is filled with people, games, anime, people, figures, video games, people (lol), electronics, and themed restaurants galore! What's really cool is how deceivingly large stores are here. They may be only 15-20 feet wide, but they have multiple stories (some as many as eight!). It was fun/interesting getting around these types of stores.



We passed many beautiful temples on our walks through Tokyo. This one was one of the larger ones we passed. I think we actually ended up taking pictures of every one we went by.





When we went out with Sam, we stopped at this nice place by Senso-ji Temple for soba and ramen. In a lot of places, especially ones that are owned and operated by an individual, you order and pay at a vending machine then take the ticket it gives you to the cook who then prepares and serves you your food. Most restaurants have examples of their meals on display so you can see the various foods that place offers, and the corresponding number next to the meals makes ordering on the vending machine pretty easy.

After dinner, we all went to this incredible place called "Figaro's". It's a small bar that holds 12 people, plus 3 at the bar, great mood lighting, with jazz music playing in the background, and the nicest/smiling bald bar tender I've ever seen. He was excited that we came to his little place, and we had a chance to chat back and forth in English and Japanese. I wish we had places like Figaro's where we live.



Then we went to this tiny little bar called "Usagi" (which means "rabbit") on the fifth floor of a building you would miss if you blinked. It was owned by this hilarious old couple, which made this already "home-y" place even better. We are definitely not the type of people who go out and "party" but we were in Japan and with a friend, so we figured why not live it up a little? *Cheers!*

The next day was the day we went to Wonder Festival, which I will save for another post. This one is already pretty long! Thanks for hanging in there and making it through this post. *^_^* Have a great President's Day!

Tokyo Recap - Part 1

*yawn*

Hey guys! Excuse my tiredness, I woke up at 3:30 this afternoon. Not because I'm lazy, but because I am trying to get my wacky sleep schedule on track.

Our flight from Tokyo on Thursday left at Noon, arrived at LAX at 7:30 that same Thursday morning. We totally went back in time!

The flight from LAX to SeaTac left at 10am and we arrived in Seattle around Noon-ish. Then our friend picked us up and drove us all the way home. I think total travel time was something like 16 hours (including the layover in LA). Aaron and I took a power nap, but didn't actually go to bed until the wee hours of Friday morning.

Enough about sleep, though, I want to show you some of the pictures we took! These Tokyo Recap posts are going to be picture heavy, so please bare with me.

Our hotel was located a few blocks away from Senjo-ji Temple and it's gates.

Kaminarimon is the first thing you see when going to Senso-ji. It's biggest feature is the red lantern in the center. I just love how big the lantern is!





The details on the gate and statues are incredible. I'm so glad we took these pictures the night we arrived in Tokyo because the next morning this area was packed full of people taking pictures.

When you pass through Kaminarimon, you arrive at Nakamise-dori. It's the street located in the middle of the two gates, and is full of shops. During the day this street is lively and full of fun sights, sounds, and smells. At night it is brightly lit so you can see the beautiful Japanese paintings on each of the stall doors.




I "leveled up" my Japanese speaking skills at one of these shops. At a cute toy shop I found a Totoro pin I wanted to buy my sister. The two little old ladies who ran the shop were very surprised with how well I spoke when I asked to buy it. "Jouzu!" (great job!) they said with surprised and happy looks on their faces. Then I proceeded to knock things over with my American hips and dropped by coins over and over and over again. They kept telling me "daijoubu, daijoubu" (It's ok, don't worry about it) with gentle smiles and a comforting tone. Good times.

After Nakamise-dori is Hozomon, the inner gate that leads to Senso-ji Temple.



Again, the detail on the gate was incredible! I'm pretty sure we stood and stated at each of the gates for and easy 10 minutes. They are just so beautiful.

A short walk from Hozomon is Senso-ji Temple. The brilliant colors on the temple are a sight to see. The red, gold, and black are lit up at night and are just a marvel to look at.





We didn't end up going up to the temple because we were nervous and didn't know the proper etiquette. Temple etiquette is a very serious thing in Japan and we didn't want to be disrespectful. Plus, there was fairly long line to get up to the temple so we figured we'd do it some other time.

*yawn* I think this is going to be all the pictures I can muster up for tonight. Time for some dinner and a movie I think. I'll be posting more pictures and more about our adventures over the next few days. Nite!

Greetings from TOKYO!

Mina-san, konnichiwa!!

(Everyone, hello!!)


Aaron and I are currently in Tokyo Japan on vacation. Omgoodness!

We spent 18 hours traveling on Thursday and it has been quite a day. We are both pretty beat from all the traveling, but we got to our tiny hotel, showered/changed clothes, and went out on the town.

We stopped by Sensoji Temple and took that picture, went to this awesome cafe called "Figaro" and the bartender was so nice!! He spoke a little English, and he was really encouraging when we spoke Japanese to him.

Great night so far! We've only been in Japan for 6 hours or so but it has awesome!!!

Hope you are all well. And I will post again soon!

Bun + Braid

Morning friends! How was yours Super Bowl weekend? I worked, watched movies, exercised and played some video games. Some of this I did at the same time! I like to think of my self as a multitasking queen. No biggie.

Doing two things at once is something I love to do. Knit and watch movies, play games while listening to podcasts, talking to customers and then talking to friends on Steam... wearing my hair in a bun AND a braid.

I wore my hair like this the other day and got a lot of compliments. Figured since it only took me about two minutes to do, I would make a video tutorial for it. Hope you like it!

*The lighting in this video isn't great... I look like a ghost! Blast the sun for not being out today!

Lost Makeup Tutorial

Have you ever played the "hurry up and wait" game? The oh my gosh this has to get done like right now, ok so now it's done but now is not the right time sort of game? I am no stranger to this game.

When I was in high school my family played it a lot because my dad was in the National Guard Special Forces and had to hurry up to get ready to go to Iraq, but wait until the Army was actually ready to send him. Same thing for when he came back.

Not all hurry up and wait games are bad though. A good example of this is when we decided to open our store. I had to hurry and quit my job, pack up half of our apartment (because our starting inventory was our personal video game collection. I'll show you pictures sometime, it's CRAZY!), and then wait until we could sign all the paper work and get the keys. It was a nine day process but it felt like weeks.

Now the "upcoming project" I have been talking about has been pushed back a bit. How long, I don't know for sure. Probably a day or so. I have written quite a bit of material for it, and now I have to wait. It's not a bad wait, just an I'm so excited to share it with everyone, the anticipation is killing me, but I can be patient because this is just too awesome sort of wait.

While we wait oh so patiently for me to be given the ok to talk any more about this project, I have something to preoccupy us for a bit. While going through some files from my old blog, I found a make up tutorial I did a year ago that was cute but forgotten. No longer shall this tutorial hide in the depths of my computer!

It is in a different format than my previous ones. Let me know what you think of it.

A: Benefit "Girl Meets Pearl" primer to help get rid of my huge pores
B: Benefit "Lemon Aid" to get rid of my dark circles
C: Maybelline "Age Rewind Eraser Foundation" (I admit it- I'm a squinter, I squint in the sun, when I'm concintrating, when I'm smiling, constantly, so I have small wrinkles and this helps)
D: Mark by Avon powder compact
E: Mark by Avon light pink and white eye shadows to highlight my cheek bones
F: Mark by Avon blush
G: brownish- pink eyeshadow over the eyelids only
H: darker brown eyeshadow used as eyeliner along the outside corners only, about 1/2 across top lashline and 1/3 across bottom lashline
I: CoverGirl brown mascara.

Apply primer (A) all over face, using a clean ring finger apply concealer (B) under both eyes to cover dark circles. Then apply foundation (C), and powder (D) where needed.

Using a blush brush, go over both a (E) light pink and white eye shadow and apply above your cheek bones for highlight. This is an optional step, my face just looked dull and I wanted to add a bit more color to it. For blush (F) use a light pink and apply where you normally apply your blush. Because of my long face, I keep my blush on the upper part of my cheekbones.

Next add a pinkish brown (G) color to your eyelids. Follow this with a darker brown (H) on the outer corner of your upper and lower lashes as eyeliner. Add brown mascara (I) on the outer corners of your eyelashes.

This was one of the first written make up tutorials I made. What do you think of me writing my whole makeup routine, not just my eye shadow? Thoughts?

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday! Who's watching the Super Bowl? Not us... we don't have tv and we'd just rather play games together instead. We're not much for football anyways. Hope you are enjoying whatever it is you're up to!!