The Search For Christmas

Well, I suppose that this will be the last I write about Christmas now that it's come and gone for me. It's already Sunday afternoon as I write this.

Aside from going to Disneyland, my parents got me this adorable teddy bear. It came in my mom's care package. She's so soft!

I didn't take pictures of them, but Daniel's mom sent me some adorable Hello Kitty socks! They're all in the dirty laundry pile now because I've been wearing them often. Also got an emergency travel kit for women, which I'm sure will come in handy. She also sent Belgium waffles and cookies too, which were delicious!

And even though yesterday really didn't feel like Christmas without our families, we started the morning off with A Christmas Story. We got hungry shortly after and our fridge was empty, so we headed over to Mister Donut for the first time in a while. I especially wanted to see if they had any Christmas-themed donuts to make it seem a bit more like Christmas.

Unfortunately the only Christmas-y thing they had was the Mont Blanc strawberry cupcake. Compared to the kinda bland tastes of the other donuts, the strawberry frosting on that cupcake tasted so strong. I really wasn't a fan of the sugar donut I bought, though the glazed tasted good as usual. We both felt so full after though!

After this, Daniel said he would take me shopping to buy me some Christmas gifts. We decided we'd just go to Shinjuku and I was pretty happy!

One of our first stops was Cecil McBee. This long-sleeved T-shirt came with fake glasses.

My other two gets, courtesy of Daniel~ With this I was finally upgraded to the official Cecil McBee membership card, and I got a 1,000 yen off coupon to use the next time I go shopping there. Unfortunately they didn't have the top I really wanted to get, but I'm happy with my buys.

A onepiece from Maison Gilfy. I might wear it with skinny jeans for now since it's too cold for shorts and tights/leggings for me!

I didn't realize there was a WC store in Lumine Este, so I was pretty surprised when we ran into it. I just love these tights! I wish I had the amazing ability Japanese girls have to be able to somehow keep warm with just tights in the winter so I could wear these already. If there's any random warm days, I'll pull these out for sure! I especially love the first ones with the Kumatan heads on them.

Through all of this I wanted to find a new skirt, but unfortunately the weird horizontal line skirts are featuring in most of the stores aren't too flattering on me.

I'm so excited to wear all of my new stuff! Gotta do lots of laundry first though. Thanks so much Daniel! <3 And of course, thanks to our parents too! I miss you all!!

After shopping, Daniel and I watched Christmas Vacation, Rudolph, and Home Alone. After watching these American Christmas movies, it's strange to look at the view we have outside, which is so different from any view we ever had growing up. But all in all, it was still a nice Christmas.

Tokyo Disneyland

Continuing on with Christmas...

Given that Tuesday was my last day of classes, Wednesday Daniel and I went to Tokyo Disneyland! We took around 200 pictures, so I'm going to try to not post as many as we took here, but I ended up posting a ton of them anyway... Oops.

Just to give you the image that you're about to teleported to a magical land!

Just inside the main entrance a gorgeous Christmas tree could be found.

Just beyond it, Cinderella's Castle could be seen.

A Christmas Party

Merry Christmas everyone! Even though today's finally Christmas, today won't be the last of my Christmas posts since I still have to finish my Tokyo Disneyland post and write about today.

Our Christmas party last Sunday got started a little bit late since we took too long shopping.

But boy, did we have have a lot to snack on.

This dish was eaten all up pretty quickly. I don't think something that small was meant to feed 40 people though!

Once all the food was set out, the eating and the mingling was on.

Shortly after Daniel showed up to join me there, one of the guys on exchange from my school performed a magic show for us. The stuff he did was really impressive. At one point he volunteered me for one of his tricks. I picked a card from a deck and he would guess what that was based on waves I sent out to him. Or something like that. In either case, he guessed right that I chose travel the first time. Then he had someone completely different come up, and even that person was able to guess that I had chosen travel again. I was pretty shocked. After that was over,  I chose a card again. This time I actually chose sex. I thought it would be the same as guessing as before, but he started to ask me questions in order to guess what the card was just based on those. It kinda got a little bit embarrassing, but I managed to stay with it until the end. Afterwards he even thanked me for being mature enough to go through with it.

Shortly after we all started to play Bingo. Whenever someone won they got to pick a number from  a bag and that number was the gift that they got. The idea behind this was that everyone brought gifts and this was how we got to decide who got what. I had nearly everything filled out but one remaining for pretty much every combination of Bingo I could win before I actually won.

We weren't allowed to open our gifts until everyone had won once and chosen a number. The above is what I got. The sweets inside have been pretty tasty!

This girl got a Pikachu mask as part of her present. I thought it was too funny.

After that we divided out into groups and it was cake making time! Because there were so many people I didn't really help out that much though. They should have bought more cakes to make. Three was definitely not enough.

Our finished cake!

The cakes of the other two groups.

We tried some cake, but we were pretty hungry for some real food. We ended up leaving shortly after, especially since I was feeling pretty drained at that point. All in all, it was fun!

Preparations For a Christmas Party

On Sunday my circle hosted a Christmas party. For some reason I actually volunteered to wake up early and help them set up and go food shopping. Unfortunately I didn't get much sleep that night, so I was pretty sleepy the whole time.

We went to a supermarket called Prospec Wholesale Store. It's a lot bigger from the grocery store near my apartment. I was in charge of the drinks with two other girls, though they mostly took charge. Boy, they sure got a lot of tea! After we chose out the drinks, we started to help choose snacks.

Down one of the aisles, I spotted something familiar...

My favorite brand of peanut butter! But holy cow look at that price: 449 yen ($5.40) for that little jar! Sheesh, that's expensive.

They even had Doritos, so I guess if I ever need a Doritos fix I know where I can go nearby.

But snacks aside, they had some very interesting items at that supermarket.

For one thing, I felt like all of the back shelves and sides of the store were fish! Fish, fish, fish. Fish of all kinds and flavors.

They even have big octopus and little octopus.

Going into a supermarket here is always an interesting experience.

Recently

Recently the weather has been so cold and harsh, often times rainy. Luckily not cold enough for snow, but that wind can be mean.

Since I've decided I want to test out doing a shopping service, I've been visiting Shinjuku a lot.

Studio ALTA has been where I've been frequenting, especially since it's connected right to the Shinjuku station.

Also, for the first time in a long time we actually went out to a restaurant to eat some time last week, I think it was.

I don't remember which day it was exactly, but this was my brunch: Chicken Caesar salad, hot dogs, sausages, and hash browns, and French fries. I couldn't finish it at all, but it was pretty good.

Last Day of Classes

Yesterday was finally my last day of school for this year. Still got a month left before my semester is over though, unfortunately. But now it's finally winter break! The above is a picture of some cute Christmas themed dango (I think) that a friend of a new friend was giving out to us. Another friend of that new friend even gave me a brownie. I was pretty surprised to receive one since I had only just met the girl.

Recently Sunkus hasn't been having my usual bento set, so I decided to experiment with this. It's a bunch of cheese on top of penne. It was okay, I wish I hadn't cooked it so long so the cheese wasn't so melted.

I finally received my mom's care package last night. Included was two packs of mac and cheese! I've been craving mac and cheese for so long. Just thinking about the other pack, I want to eat it now but I really want to save it at the same time... Oh, what to do?

Christmas Lights in Ikebukuro

I realized this is over a week late and I should be doing other stuff, but inspiration strikes at the oddest times. So, let's rewind to Thursday of a few weeks ago (12/9), when after a crappy day Daniel sprung me with a surprise outing to Ikebukuro. The reason? The need to buy a Christmas present at Tokyu Hands.

It was hard not to immediately notice the Christmas lights once you stepped outside of the station. There were other displays, but I didn't get a chance to snag a picture.

A rather blurry shot of the entrance across the street to the road that leads to Sunshine City amongst other shopping attractions, such as the Sanrio Store.

Along the way, I noticed a bunch of bouquets in front of a new game center. This was a sign that the arcade was brand new and had just recently opened, probably during that very week. I think the arcade was simply called Game!. Naturally, we went in and checked out what prizes there were to be won in the UFO catchers.

Oh the prizes we came out with! We got super lucky, since Daniel was able to win two regular-sized Rilakkuma and Korilakkuma and a jumbo one. The jumbo one is so nice, soft, and plushy. We didn't even end up spending that much to win him.

Before heading to Tokyu Hands, we took a stop inside the entrance of Sunshine City for some Burger King. It was a good thing we went too, since I was about ready to kill for a hamburger or any kind of American food that day.

After a delicious fast food meal, we headed back outside and next door to Tokyu Hands. We headed upstairs to the furniture floor, and Daniel bought us two comfy chairs. Our desperate need for back support in our apartment has now been solved. I'm so thankful. T-T Daniel even bought a pink colored one for me, and green for him. With that and our winnings at the UFO catchers, I was feeling much better after!