day 0: flight & day 1: arrival in tokyo

not much to tell from the flight. it was long. i slept mostly the entire time, only waking up to eat and to watch big hero 6 with hubby. (i feel bad. he had downloaded all this anime for us to watch together on the plane. i was just too overwhelmed and cranky. sleep was the better option.)

not exactly sure when this became my official airplane attire,
but it's what i always wear when i travel

fancy-pants departure gate

interesting tattoos

specially made playlists

meal # 1: chicken in some creamy sauce and
potatoes, corn salad, bun, and brownie

i guess the movie he was watching was pretty funny

meal # 2: cup noodles, sandwich (blech), and cookies

girl beside hubby "startled easily", according to him

meal # 3: omelet (?), bunwich, fruit (inedible)

i wish...

welcome to tokyo

after we went through customs (which took longer than it needed to because the people on the plane told us both forms were one per couple. no. one was. the other, we both needed but only one of us had so i had to get out of line and fill one in and wait for my turn again.), we had to find the JR ticket office and turn in our exchanges for passes.

and then find where to buy tickets for the airport limousine bus. i didn't see a counter like there had been in narita airport but the was an information desk. i asked the chick and instead of just answering the question, she asked me which hotel we were going to. i told her and she had a blank look and repeated me. smart and overly organized as i am, i made cards with the hotel name and info on them for each of the places we have booked. i handed her the right one and she did some clicking on her computer. after a few seconds she said the bus didn't go to that hotel. i was confused. i was 95% sure i saw online that it was one of the stops, but i was too tired and confused to argue. she pulled out a tokyo rail map and highlighted where we were and told me there was a keisei train that went very close to our hotel . i asked if, since the JR passes we just got didn't cover the keisei line, we were better off taking the monorail to hamamatsucho station and walking the rest of the way. she said we could do that but we should transfer at hamamatsucho to the yamanote line and get off at tamachi (one more stop). hmm. why didn't i ever notice that station before? 

so that's what we ended up doing. it's pretty easy to navigate the tokyo trains if you know where you are going. and they have attendants that speak english to help if you need it. with the passes, you have to go through the sections with the man in the booth behind glass. everyone else mostly buys tickets at a machine or has a suica or pasmo card (rechargeable fare cards) where both are swiped or deposited at gates.   

tokyo monorail

my first vending machine purchase of the trip

while we waited for the monorail, we both got a drink from a vending machine on the platform. hubby got an apple flavoured tea, and i just got plain old jasmine. (he downed his. mine is now sitting in our fridge.)

the ride wasn't long. hamamatsucho station is a lot bigger than we ever really noticed last time. i figured out pretty easily which train we needed to transfer to. (hubby was worried so i asked the ticket guy and he said exactly the same thing.) the problem really began when we tried to leave tamachi station. we had never been there before and i had no clue which way it was. there was a fairly unintelligible area map posted, but we pretty much did the 'start walking in one direction and hope it's right' thing. we didn't do too badly. by the time we really needed it, hubby had gotten the gps on his phone to start working and we were on track. (i STILL can't get mine to realize we've left ontario.) 

on the way, we were passing a lawson's convenience store. they are the only place WITHIN japan you can get tickets for the ghibli museum. armed with my cheat sheets on which buttons to press on an all japanese screen, i tried my best. it was our last option. but they are indeed sold out. :( so sad. 

cute old style pay phones

lawson konbini (convenience store)

*waaaaaaaah*

i also bought another drink - tried and true royal milk tea and an omurice onigiri - with gudetama on it! i had seen someone eating one on a video i watched while "researching" and it looked good. (it was! we did a taste test video. not sure if i'll ever post that nonsense or not...) also, an umbrella, because it's raining. and cold. boo. 

ate it before i took a picture, but i have video for later

we finally got to the hotel and as we were checking in, i noticed a pamphlet on the counter with a picture of the airport limo bus and it's departure and arrival times to the hotel. ......argh! thought so. anyway~  shouganai.

after a brief stay in the hotel room to check it out and freshen up (see hubby's first official bathroom review), we were planning to go to tokyo station to see their shopping area - character street, ramen stree, and okashi land. but apparently japan is not participating in daylight savings from 2010-2019 (?? ooooooookay - could have sworn they did when i was there last) so it was an hour later than i thought it would be. it was already nearing 8 and those places close at 8:30. (another crappy thing about here is the non-standardization of opening and closing hours here.) so, i made the executive decision to walk down to hubby's favourite ramen place from last time and take some tokyo tower pics along the way. on the way back, we stopped at 2 more convenience stores and bought more snacks but i'm too tired to detail all that too. i'll just let the pictures speak for themselves for now. 

view from our window

first sakura picture i ever took personally

they'll be better in daylight...

tokyo tower

hubby's favourite ramen place
no idea what it's actually called...
i call daimon ramen (cause it's next to daimon gate)
hubby calls it "boots ramen" ~you'll see

a small dish of salt is placed near entrances to drive off bad spirits
(supernatural DOES make some sense)

order vending machines are typical at ramen restaurants -
just put in the money, pick what you want,
take the ticket printed out and give it to the server.
seems to be an unnecessary step but saves a lot
of hassle when there is no bill to settle.

boots

chashumen

more from hamamatsucho area~

i have an obsession with koban ~ satellite police "boxes"
(essentially a box with an officer, located quite frequently.
japanese police officers main duty seems to be to give directions.)

7 floors of karaoke

we didn't go here this time but hubby ate here before

daimon

japanese convenience stores - konbini - are da bomb!

bull dog sauce - i must buy some!

entrance to zojoji temple - i have plans to come back here in the daytime.
this is where the funeral scene in wolverine was filmed.
there are also rows and rows of jizo here (seen on my previous blog).

konbini 2 - 7-11

konbini 3 - family mart

even though we didn't do much tonight, i'd call the first day a success!

all my bags are packed - i'm ready to go

in exactly 24 hours, my plane will be landing in tokyo. i'm so excited! how can i possibly sleep?

i just finished packing. no matter what anyone tells you, there's something to be said for doing things last minute. i may be slow and somewhat inefficient, but i'm extremely thorough. and for once, i don't have that "what am i forgetting?" feeling. (i probably just jinxed myself. i'll let you know. lol.) note: the only thing i think i forgot to pack that i had meant to was an eye mask (a panda!) that my SIL had bought me one year for christmas to use on the plane. boo. 

i'm going to do my best to keep up with the blog this time. *fingers  crossed*

oyasumi~

shop till you drop... literally

i know you've been on the edge of your seat waiting to hear if i ended up getting the rest of the things that i needed before we leave for our second trip to japan that i mentioned last time... you can sit back now. we went all the way downtown (toronto) yesterday instead of our crappy local malls and we were quite successful. 

since the last post, we actually went out twice. once a few days after the last attempt to said "crappy local mall" - bramalea city centre. although it has been renovated and is quite a bit nicer than it used to be, it still lacks a lot of good stores. the only thing i managed to cross off my list that time was the sunglasses. i ended up getting a pair of mens. i liked them when i tried them on in the store, but since then, decided i'm not that big of a fan. i was going to return them yesterday if i found something else... but alas, that was the only thing on my list i wasn't able to find. i'll make do with the new ones. hubby also found a pair in our basement that SIL left behind when she moved away 7 years ago. and, of course, i have my current pair. 

current pair, SIL's, new ones

i also hemmed one of the pairs of jeans i bought. i was wondering if i really needed to hem the second pair. i wore them that day to test it out. turns out, yes, i should have hemmed those too.
i also decided i needed new undies and yoga pants for the plane. (bought undies, couldn't find yoga pants i liked.)
i tried to return the lip rings. can't return body jewelry. duh. i just bought another set, this time from spencers. it was a 5 pack of rhinestones - pink, blue, very pale purple, very pale yellow (which i thought was clear), and... i forget. maybe it's only 4. 

there is a long story about the tattoo which i'll explain later.
and, just cause it's on there, i decided to make the 3 bdays cards 
i need and the craft supplies ended up being moot because
i'm buying a gift for someone instead.

so, yesterday~ the items i was still looking for were the sunglasses (boo), a backpack, and a purse. i also added a spring jacket and socks. 

we left earlier this time and the weather was nice (as in not snowing, but still cold as a witch's tit). usually when we go downtown, we (hubby) drive to yorkdale shopping centre, park there, and take the subway the rest of the way. hubby had been looking all over for the new kobe 10s, and yorkdale just happened to have the only pair in his size in all of the GTA, so we picked those up first and dropped off the second pair of jeans at stitch-it to be hemmed before leaving. 

hubby's new shoes - not as bad as previous year's kobes

"yoga hem" - where they reattach the original bottom so you 
don't lose the look of the fading, fraying, or special stitching

i checked a few stores for sunglasses and a jacket too but didn't see anything i liked. (also grabbed a sandwich, cause i was starving, and a blossoming peach tea latte, cause i'm obsessed with them and they are only available for a limited time, from starbucks.) then we hopped on the subway. 

apparently, there was some sort of leak or something on the yonge line so it stopped at union station and went no further. this put a kink in our plans. we had wanted to get back to yorkdale before 2pm so hubby didn't have to deal with traffic - but we had to walk the rest of the way to eaton centre. it was only two more stops but that took longer. (at least it's all connected underground and we were out of the cold.) and hubby was also starving by that time so we stopped off at a random office building/underground shopping complex food court so he could grab something. that put us about an hour behind. and then, i didn't have too much luck at that mall so by the time we were done there, it was after 3:30 already. we decided to stick around downtown and make a day of it and head back home after rush hour (as in after 6:30). it was a long day, but we both ended up going to each of our favourite downtown restaurants for 2 separate lunches.

Brookfield Place - the building's basement connects
to the subway tunnels where we resurfaced

hubby's favourite - ajisen ramen in chinatown

i was saving room for my favourite afterwards
so i only had korokke (potato cake)

i had my usual - kani salad roll and spicy tuna roll -
at my favourite restaurant, sushi inn on cumberland

we also stopped along the way in chinatown at dragon city mall
so i could get... some of these things.
(i don't know what they are called in english. i usually say 'bubble cakes'.
in cantonese, they are gai daan jai - 鷄蛋仔.) 

i also took some pictures of various toronto landmark things that i'm used to seeing all the time but never pay much attention to. 

old city hall at the junction of bay street and queen street
- gorgeous building

new city hall - nathan phillips square

at the bottom of the picture, you can see that people are ice skating

ontario legislative building in front of queen's park -
i used to walk through here everyday when i went to U of T

i did manage to find a jacket at eaton centre at TNA. my winter coat is from there and all the hoodies i wear all the time. i figured i needed a spring weight one. the weather is mostly going to be nice while we are in japan and we will be walking around a lot (keeps you warm) but the day of the youtube hanami meetup, it's going to be quite cold and that's the day where we will be sitting or standing and not moving around much. it was expensive but i love it. 

we looked for bacpacks in every single luggage store and ...whatever type of store west 49 and boathouse are and a few sports stores and even some shoes stores at square one and bramalea and eatons. nothing. i had something in mind and nothing fit what i wanted. i pretty much wanted a similar type of backpack as my old one (the one i took with me to japan the first time, and used for school for several years - to the point where the bottom ripped out). so i had the idea ~ why not go back to the store i bought it at? that would be the U of T bookstore. on a whim, we went up there and, lucky me, they had something very similar. like 7 years later. nice. (both are swiss army.) it does have university of toronto embroidered on it, but i don't care. i WAS a student there off and on for 3 years. i have officially given my current backpack that i hate to hubby. he's already ironed patches onto it. lol.

i love the "smart scan" feature.
the laptop pocket zips all the way open and has a
see-through mesh panel so you can lay it flat at the airport
and not have to take it out of your bag.

superlucky me, they also had a purse i really liked. i had already given up on finding one. i just happened to pass it as i went up to pay for the backpack. it's a cross over the body messenger bag style, which is what i always use anyway, but in a pretty purse form. it's fuzzy grey felt and has a fun hot pink lining with a padded ipad pocket. perfection.

socks were a necessity. as with most things, i am exceptionally picky with my socks. i wear one style only and have been wearing the same pairs for about 8 years. obviously at this point, they are wearing out and getting holes in them. i am so sad! they are mens (i detest women's socks. why the hell are they so thin?!) quiksilver ankle socks. but a very specific one. i've tried other quiksilver ones and they aren't the same. needless to say, i have been searching for new socks for a long time. haven't found any that are as good.
the other day, i popped into the mall after meeting up with a friend and went into sport chek to see what they had. i found one 3-pack of women's (shock!) adidas ankle socks that were thicker. i decided to buy them and try them out and if they were suitable, i'd get more. they are okay. they'll do. i guess. 

anyway~ of course the sport chek in eaton centre didn't have them. on the way back home, i went to the yorkdale location. thankfully, they had them. only 4 packs left. i bought them all. that makes 15 pairs of socks. one for every day of our trip.

i already wore the 5th pack

and again, just cause it's on the new list and i feel i need to cover it, i picked up shampoo, deodorant, and candy too. (hooray for hubby's shoppers drug mart discount!) they didn't have the yes to cucumbers make up remover wipes i use but hubby can get those from his own store tomorrow.

swedish berries are my favourite
(for you americans, they are the same as swedish fish
- just raspberry shaped. which makes a helluva lot more sense.)

by the time we made it home (like 8-freaking-o'clock!), i was sooooo tired and my feet and legs were absolutely killing me. this worries me. last trip, i had such a hard time with feet pain. we had to end our days early because of it. 

i wore my new walking shoes, at hubby's suggestion, to test them our and wear them in. they did make a difference (very comfy!) but only a tiny bit. my feet still started to hurt after about 2 hours. idk if it's my arches or what, but i seem to have way more of an issue with this than anyone else i know. idgi.

i will push through as much as i can, but i'm afraid i won't get to do everything i want to do. i'm already stressing about fitting it all in. 2 weeks seems like a long time but japan is amazing and there is SO much to do. i could live there for a whole year and still not get to do everything i want. i could live there for the rest of my life and still have new things to do everyday. AHHHHH! 

(btw, hubby has been flirting with my idea of actually moving there... more on that another time!)
anyway, wish me luck~

the tattoo story: i was totally going to get it. i was already to go - dressed, makeup on, hair dried and straightened. i was planning to head to yonge street tattoos where i've had 2 of my 7 done and got my lip pierced. before i left, i needed to print off the reference pictures. i made them in various sizes, testing them against my ankle to see what looked good. i even went as far as drawing a few outlines. it was then i realized how hard it was going to be to fit in ANY detail at all. i decided i would end up losing too much and it would just look stupid. ugh. plan thwarted.

progression of doodles

maybe i'll just go with some cherry blossoms later on or something...

one other thing i needed to do before we leave was to dye my hair. it's been 5 years since i have been able to do that. i don't like my natural colour. i like darker better. i decided to start out easy this time. it's not as dark as i want, but still an improvement.

inception

and i THINK that's all i needed to do! i'm almost ready. 

...almost.

i've been working on making my own guide book - all the things i'm planning on doing with travel info and pictures and whatever. i need to finish that and get it printed and then we'll have it with us as we go around and i can take notes and stuff. it'll be a cool souvenir after. i've also been working on my pinterest board. everything i plan to do, see, buy, eat, etc. like a checklist. 

other than that, i have to still make those 3 birthday cards for the friends that are ageing while i'm gone and mail out those and their gifts (one gift purchased already, one handmade almost complete, and one that needs to be ordered online and sent directly). 

and then i would like to get a massage. 

and THEN i will be completely ready to go!

oh wait. i have to do laundry and pack too. yuck. 

6 days to go!!

p.s. i know you're wondering what happened with the computer... it miraculously worked when i randomly tried turning it on again! so yay. i have my baby for a little while longer. this is its 3rd life. maybe it's part feline...
i copied EVERYTHING on it to the hard drive including, song by song, almost my entire itunes library (i'm about half done). 

and hubby bought printer ink. lol.

things i bought for the trip - part 2

since i did one last time, might as well do it this time too~ 

hubby and went pre-trip shopping yesterday. not all the way downtown this time. just out to square one in mississauga. it's a trek enough in itself. hubby has told me i am to point out in my blog how much of a sweetheart he is for going that far and in bad weather. it had just started snowing when we left the house and it was quite the dicey drive home, but we made it back in one piece. and although i only crossed 3(.5) things off my list, i'd call it fairly successful. 

this was my shopping list for the day.  

whenever i make to-do lists, i like to make them pretty.
plain paper (or a blank screen) is boring.
and he sure is pretty!

the first three things on the list have nothing to do with japan - just things i need. (my poor computer has been chronically ill for the last two/three years. the other night it finally breathed its last. right in the middle of doing something, it just shut off and won't turn back on again. at least it's not in pain anymore and has hopefully moved on to a better place. it was my true and reliable friend for the last 7 years. since i knew it was "any minute now" for so long, i regularly backed everything up on a hard drive but there are a few things still on there i want since the last save. maybe some kind of computer necromancer wizard can bring it back from the dead just long enough to extract those things. AND my itunes. *fingers crossed*) since the weather was bad, we weren't able to do the multi-stop trip originally planned. 

the tattoo is still a maybe... trying to convince hubby he should let me get it (ie. pay for it - it's money i need, not permission) BEFORE we go to japan. although more tattoos for japan might seem counterintuitive, i already have too many to be allowed anywhere near an onsen so what's one more going to do? for those that don't know, tattoos are still looked down upon in japan, mostly because of the connotation of ties to the yakuza. if you have any, you can't partake in the wonders that are public bathhouses and/or hot springs. boo. 

anyway~ i had a plan to get a very simple torii gate tattoo after returning home last time to signify that major item crossed off my bucket list. i just never got around to it. that's kind of why i want to get it beforehand. i'll get something else as a memento for this one... 

i am going to have to go back out again next week to try another mall for a new backpack and purse. there were hardly any backpacks and what i said last time about purses still holds true. i am too picky. i actually bought a new backpack right before going to hong kong, but hubby is going to use that one. that thing and i did not get along well. i miss my old old one but the bottom is ready to fall out. :(  

hubby suggested i just buy a purse when we get there. i could do that... 

sunglasses also aren't a huge deal. i have a pair that do the job, but they are weird looking. i don't even want a "real" pair. i saw some ones that i liked today but i don't want to spend $100. i don't even want to spend $20!  i just break them. that's what happened to the ones i bought last time. and three subsequent pairs after that. (they made it through the trip to japan just fine, but not so lucky when i started working in a preschool that fall.) too bad. i liked those ones. 

the pair i have now were $8 at a highway rest stop. 

the successful highlight of the shopping were the shoes and two pairs of jeans. 

jeans were a must. i've gained weight since being inactive again and am down to one pair that i can wear comfortably right now. not a big deal when i never leave the house and live in yoga pants or pjs all the time, but for out in public for 2 weeks straight, obviously need more than 1. i only planned on getting one more pair but the sales chick gave me a discount for the second pair. they didn't have the right length so i'll have to get them hemmed. used to that. no big deal.

  

shoes i was iffy on. i have a ton of chucks that i love and a brand new pair of sambas that i adore, but both are very hard/flat-soled and my feet die after about 3 hours. last time, i had a huge issue with that. i had my (very first pair of) chucks and a pair of running shoes. i think i mostly wore the running shoes and even then, by the end of each day, i was hobbling around and practically in tears. a few nights ended early because i just couldn't take it anymore and most days, i woke up in the morning STILL in pain. because of that WITH the running shoes, i know that pain will be inevitable no matter what my feet are in. i was okay with taking a pair of chucks and the addidas only this time, but i put it on my list just in case something came up. and something did!

before the age of converse in my life (starting with that first pair i bought for japan in 2010), i wore skechers running shoes almost exclusively. (before that, high platform sneakers, which were awesone, btw.) but tastes change. i went from superchunky looking, to (fake) althetic looking, down to very flat looking. NOW running shoes look weird to me. i had to wear a pair of my old skechers this past september during my girls' trip because my chucks (the very same) were somewhat destroyed by water and sand when i was unexpectedly thwarted by the tide. i felt horribly self-conscious wearing them. i think it might be because the profile of the jeans i wear now are so drastically different. when i was wearing running shoes, i wore jeans with a flare that mostly covered them. even with the bootcut pair i wore them with in september, they looked too chunky. i mostly wear straight or slim fit with the converse now. this concerned me because how would i possibly find a running type shoe that would be okay with those jeans? 
well... i didn't REALLY, but as we were on our way out of the mall, we walked past the skechers store (i hadn't even bothered with the sports stores like athlete's world or foot locker, etc.) and i decided to just see what they had. there was a slim-looking, all black pair that they had up front. no laces, just the slip on style. and they had a memory foam insole. nice! i tried them on and they didn't look that bad. and such a difference on my feet between them and the sambas i had on. the only problem was that they had no real arch support and my foot was already rolling to the side. 

enter sales chick. she asked, i explained. japan, 2 weeks, lots of walking, blah blah blah. so she showed me another pair, specifically made for walking (NOT running). they have an insole made of... yoga mat. squishy. shock absorbing. odour resistant. cool! also slimmer than my clunky old ones and all black. (like ninjas on my feet - you don't even notice them...) AND the girl was cutie-tootie and started talking to me about japan. quite a long conversation about kitkats ensued. lol. so.... i bought them. obviously.  i'm hoping my feet will thank me and i will have some relief from the excruciating pain to the point that the awkwardness my brain may still register at athletic looking shoes with slim fitting jeans will be cancelled out.

then there is the stud for my lip piercing... *sigh*  i currently have a ring in my lip. i want to change it out for a stud before we go. just less for people to stare at since they already stare a lot. i have both a silver and a black one, but i was thinking i wanted a rhinestone one. hot topic had a nice one but it was 14g and i wasn't sure if i could make that fit. i ended up buying a five pack from claire's even though i would never wear at least 2 of them and one was just a ball stud, identical to what i already have. it had 2 rhinestone ones i could use though. turns out, as i noticed when i got home, not. the way they are packaged made it hard to see the actual shape. one of the rhinestone ones is heart-shaped. ew, no. so only ONE useable stud for $18. bad. i'm so returning them (if possible). i should have just waited. there is a kiosk in sq1 that sells stuff for piercings individually. should have gone there... 

never again, claire!

if i get the tattoo, though, i can get one there. problem solved. 

we also bought some yen (japanese currency, for those living under a rock). last time, the canadian dollar was really strong. almost on par with the american dollar. we paid approximately $1013 for 90,000 yen 5 years ago and we did it at one of those currency exchange places in the mall. we ran out while we were there and it's true that a lot of places in japan are cash only. we ended up getting another 60,000 on two separate occasions from ATMs while we were there, which is a huge hassle and also very confusing. 
this time around, the CAD is pretty shitty. we stopped by an exchange place when we first got to the mall but hubby did some math in his head which is beyond my understanding and said with the rate they offered and the fee, we would be out over $300. that's no good. while i was slurping some udon in the food court, he called the bank that is located in the mall and the guy he spoke to said they had yen at the branch but that he couldn't give him an exchange rate over the phone because it changed minute to minute. so after stopping by a few more stores first, we made our way over there and lined up to speak to a teller. after waiting 20 minutes or so (which made hubby really antsy since he wanted to leave asap before the weather got even worse), the teller told us they don't keep foreign currency in the branch but we could order it and it would take two business days to arrive. he was so pissed! 
we left the mall with none, but there is a branch of my bank in the same plaza as the grocery store near our house that we had to stop at anyway, so we ordered some there. $2188.83 CAD for 200,000 JPY. it should be in tomorrow for him to go pick up. 

so that is my very long detailing of what i bought or didn't buy yesterday. i write these things for myself. if anyone besides me is reading this and actually got this far into the post.... why? lol. but thanks for reading my useless rambling. 

27 days to go!!