Snail Mail /10

So this utterly amazing parcel appeared in my mailbox the other week. It had traveled all the way from Spain, sent from the lovely Damaris who blogs at The Cat you and Us! You already know that she is one of my favourite blog gals and I'm sure we would be ultra friends in real life too :) Her parcel was so so special and everything in it made me do huge big smiles!!!

When you first find a Gachapon capsule, pastel pink and twine you know things are going to be wonderful :)

I made sure (before diving in) to appreciate all the pretty tape she had used on all the little parcels!

Wowsers! Blown away + cheeks hurting from smiling so much! I have to mention that adorable cat purse because I don't think I got a good close up photo of it. Damaris was also very smart to include the little info card inside to know it's by Kishboo! They make such pretty bags and jewellery!

Check out that adorable Christmas card, I can't imagine a card more perfect and yup it definitely matches our pink tree! On a side note we thought we might have issues this year with Peachy and the tree but she was happy just to munch on the bottom non-breakable ornaments :) OH OH and Japnese kit Kat!!!!

On an extra side note, it's been a really intense last week with Peachy suffering a brown snake bite.  Peachy is a warrior princess though and despite being still really sick, I have lots of faith in her full recovery :)  I might blog a bit more about it all but she's still in the thick of it so it's nice for me at the moment to distract myself with super happy things like snail mail!!! 99% of the other time I'm giving Peachy gentle pats and telling her how pretty she is :) :)

How frighten cute is that patch and sticker by Pony People, Ben remarked afterwards that I pretty much have to make that planter now - eep, we'll see might be a big challenge!!

The Japanese candies were so perfect, we both got to travel to Japan last year (separately *sad face*) and Damaris and Dani are still blogging their awesome adventures of Japan over on their blog at the moment.  They take such amazing photos you definitely need to have a peep!

Ariel biscuit! oh my gosh, how cute is that and I can personally say the apple crackers were one of the best things I've eaten :)

And then an actual Ariel pin from their trip To Disney Sea! *gasp* it's now one of the most special things I own, it's glittery and pretty and the clasp on the back is shaped as Mickey! How cool is that! I wore it out the other day and was super worried about losing it but it seems to secure really well so I probably should get over that paranoia! Oh and the Gachapon had Sailor Uranus!! Eep, so so wonderful and I feel so lucky to have received everything inside :) :) So much thanks, special lady!

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Japan goodies

It's finally time to show you the things I picked up in Japan, our luggage was super tight so I definitely restrained myself most of the time, but I still wanted to buy a few cute things myself :)

Above is what I managed to fit into my suitcase and I'll show you some details below :)

I think I already showed you my small loot from Kishi station - on a side note, my pin collection is so pretty at the moment!

I call these my regional gifts and they include the Gunma (prefecture) sake cup with the horse mascot on the front (currently holding some pens in my room). You guys already know about the horse shoe crab origami and did I show you my handmade turtle keyring from the turtle station? There's also the ceramic rabbit from bunny island and the handmade cat I bought from the onsen we visited when we were stuck in Nagasaki. When I got home I discovered the cat was actually a peg, how cute!

Can't leave Japan without some stickers and a monster :) I used those stickers for a cute reason, which I'll explain in a second :)

Gremlin above is modelling the collar I bought for him, it's so cute, or should I say, was so cute! we go through so many collars and cat bibs because they just seem to loose them all the time!

You can see the cat collar again in my daiso loot collection! The book in the middle, I've filled with all the stamps I collected across Japan and my instax photos and those stickers above + fun paper miscellaneous thing I collected. It's such a nice little book and now I'm sad I didn't buy more of those books - only 100 yen each *gasp*

My sailor moon loot, so happy to see sailor moon merchandise in Japan!!

Our friend Teruko loaded us up with lots of amazing goodies, I love those sumo guy postcards which are currently hanging on my wall!

And how sweet is this tea towel calendar!

In nara dreamland we discovered boxes and boxes of old maps and park guides, so fun to see what the park looked like back in its heyday.

And lucky last my Gachapon loot. You can see above the two sushi cats I managed to find in Tokyo - definitely very popular and I was happy to get a cat donut as well :) :)

I'm going to do two more Japan posts before its back to normal blog viewing. I'm going to do a food/kombini post and also a campervan guide (including things that were helpful to us) for those who may be interested in doing the trip themselves. It's been a fun blog ride and on the flip side I'm also happy to update you guys on all the exciting things that have been going on, back in Australia too!!

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Presents

I realised I have a lot of little cute gifts I have been given and I always like to share them, so here they are! All the little toys are gifts from Ben, the artwork is from our friend Phil and the book was my anniversary gift :)

my keychain collection grow!

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Key Ring Collection

For some reason I never got around to posting my keychain collection even though these photos were taken ages ago.   Ben and I often fight about who has the coolest collection but it's pretty obvious I do :P  Ben is keen for our collections to be judged but I don't think we could find unbiased judges because our two collections are super different his being mostly metal or wood and usually with a moveable part - very gadgety! Whilst my collection is definitely more on the cute and plastic spectrum.

The majority of keychains I collected whilst in Japan but I'm always picking up new ones - it's an inexpensive hobby :)

Ben often surprises me with one which I secretly (or not so secretly) love more than flowers!

and finally a picture of all my plush key chains which may be a little cheating but if it has a keychain it goes into the collection!  

Ben (who is back from work as of yesterday - hurrah!) actually taught me the trick to link all of your key chains together onto themselves in one big fun mess :)

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Japan Day 11 - Odaiba

We started the day with the ever so yummy Mos Burger...nom nom!

I think it was here that Ben fell in love with the Mos Burger manager, a lovely Japanese girl, who seemed far to young to run the joint and was always delighted to see us or maybe delighted to see Ben :P

So up until this point I'd crammed in everything I wanted to do and now there were blanks left for Ben things. Ben had read about a haunted house in Odaiba (part of Tokyo) , my first reaction...
"ahhh Odaiba sucks, it's a Western boring sea port!"
I reminded myself that I needed to shut my trap and let Ben have a fun day :)

We got to Odaiba and as predicted boring modernism everywhere, blargh!

We make our way to try and find the arcade and my face lights up...what's in front of me?
A Hello Kitty wonderland..OMG!

This joint was my heaven and even had a Sanrio puricula machine!

The hello kitty land was connected to an arcade so Ben was able to get his masculinity back

We also got pretty obsessed with skill testers during our holiday.
I think I picked up some pretty mad skill tester skills :P

I finished off my hello kitty experience with none other than a Hello Kitty salmon pancake :P As you do!

There was more exploring to do

16 minute memory anyone? 

Two minute noodle vending machine!

Gachapon as far as the eye can see :P

We eventually discovered the haunted house

Ben's heart sunk when he saw that it was all fenced off...nooooooooo, luckily I can read and we simply had to press a button before an attendant arrived to let us in

At this point, I'll admit I was packing it. You know when you're so scared you become really serious and say ridiculous stuff to get out of doing the thing your scared of doing...that was me! I don't know how Ben convinced but eventually he did and I walked up those stairs.... petrified!

It took about 3 minutes of walking through the haunted house before realising it was actually not scary at all and pretty awesomely kitsch!

Ben was sure an actor was going to jump out of one of those bags, luckily my brain hadn't gone to that dark place and I was happily in my bubble of lame-ness and yes the lame-ness continued!

So that was fun!

Afterwards we explored what else Odaiba had to offer, as far as I could tell it was just a big mall spread out with arcades and shops and Ferris wheels and Hello Kitty pancake cafes :P

This themed mall even had a pet store, they sure do love their cuteness

We were just about to head home thinking we had explored everything when Ben happened to walk past Sega JoyPolis...noooooooooooooooooooooo

I thought I had taken all the arcading I could take but I knew I had to let Ben have his day of fun

So through the Sega doors we went

Funnily enough I have only a few pictures from this place, I'm not sure what to call it, it's not really a themepark, there are rides but then there are just a whole lot of arcade games, many many levels of arcade games actually!

No it really wasn't that bad and I kind of got into the shooting-ness.

Ben eventually saw my levels of enthusiasm were escaping and let me indulge in my favourite past time...puricula! But this time it wasn't just any old puricula it was DRESS UP PURICULA!
Man I could have died.
Suddenly I was loving Sega Joypolis!

Me in the change room, in my bunny costume

We choose, or maybe it was, I choose the 'love theme' where we had to do all the love poses.
I don't think we have ever laughed so much together

And that's where my pictures finish up, there were some other highlights from Sega World including this ride, or well walk through ride called 'Prison Break' which I'm guessing is a movie or video game or something. When Ben and I went to line up it was only Ben and I in the line. The Japanese ride attendee who would walk us through must of died a little when he realised we couldn't understand Japanese, but I have to say he did a stella acting job of staying in character, explaining the story line and creating suspense all with limited English :P  Probably my highlight... little bit scary, little bit kitsch!

There was also another attraction called 'house of the living dolls' where we had to walk through a dark corridor and be scared by a cute Japanese girl standing in the shadows. We then sat down in a dark room and listened to a Japanese story. At this point I was so glad I couldn't understand Japanese cause I think I would have peep my pants from the scariness!

Before leaving we went on this half pipe snowboard ride. I wussed out (again!) whilst waiting in line, but the line attendant, stopped us and when I explained through charades that I didn't want to go on the ride cause I thought I would throw up he simply said I wouldn't. So I gulped down my terrified-ness and experience snowboarding like never before.

I'll stop rambling now, but I'll just say despite my reservations at the start of the day it actually turned out pretty stellar!  Ben and I headed back to Asakusa, got a kebab for dinner (sshhh, it's sort of Japanese-ey) and spent the night watching the manga movie Makoto!

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