oh my, more blisters on my feet than I have had in awhile.

I have been having this trouble with maps, especially my city atlas. It seems that none of these maps are oriented north-south. If they are, they have no intention of declaring so. And I can't seem to figure out which direction is north anyways. Fortunately the streets really only go on their crazy twisty way in one direction so I can usually assume that if it's twisting this way I'm walking in the right direction. For the first time since I arrived I did not get lost finding my guest house last night. It was quite the accomplishment.

Yesterday I walked along Meiji-dori into Harajuku. It's a really nice walk. I seem to be located in this weird fashion business kinda district. I don't know if it actually IS a fashion district of some sort or if there are just bunch of little fashion businesses making their own way around here. On the first night I wandered about a bit(while totally lost) and I kept seeing these weird little obviously wholesale fabric stores. I've since tried to locate them and failed. I'll just have to get lost sometime in unfortunate shoes (because that guarantees a lengthy walk) and I'm sure I'll find them again.


Obligatory Shrine Photo that I probably wasn't supposed to take. This shrine happens to be across from the Soom Doll store. All the things I find when I'm not looking for them. Never in my life have I wanted a GPS more. I actually think that might be my big purchase because I just can't deal with walked around for hours trying to find some place. I'm stubborn and I nearly passed out yesterday because I was so determined to find Innocent World. And the WHOLE TIME it was just right in front of me. I never looked up. It's on the same block as LaForet. Maaaaaan....

I did come across this really awesome Design Festa gallery. I was too much of a wuss to go in, and everything was unbelievably crowded. Oh, yeah, of course, Saturday is simply the best time to just happen into Harajuku, one of the most famous shopping districts in this whole city. I was on a quest for an ATM. This was so easy last time I was in Japan. 7&i Holdings(7-11) is everywhere and their ATMs are international. And they still are except they don't support MasterCard anymore. Lucky me because both of my cards are MasterCard. I found a JP Bank and thank god it worked.
I should've photographed all the stores I went into, but I'll do that on some other day when there aren't forty thousand people trying to walk past me right as I'm whipping out my tiny semi-decent camera. I went to Closet Child, they were having this weirdo sale that they have every time I go to Closet Child so I got some weirdo things for really cheap. I picked up this chocolate or something on it(therefore making it $45 or so) AP gingham JSK that I wore to Alice and Wonderland theme restaurant, and a really cute black AP cardigan with these dorky alternating striped and polka dot bows. It was also only $50 and I figured out that's because there are matching holes on the elbows of the sleeves like whoever owned it was shooting up heroin. I like making up ridiculous stories about these items 'cause they just have the most bizarre things wrong with them. It's never as simple as a stain from eating or tea or something right at the waistline. It's always something like weird chocolate maybe spatter across the left breast. I'm sure Alice's amazing dry cleaner will fix my chocolate problem and a couple stitches will fix the sweater. I also bought the heart leopard hoodie($15!), cherry berry bunny tank top ($13!) and the pink punkma biker style jsk($30!). That will do me for brando for awhile unless I somehow magic some money or something. I went to the daiso and picked up a towel so I can actually shower now, slippers so I actually remove my shoes at the door and some other crap. I didn't realize that everything was 100Y unless otherwise marked and I lol'd at the checkout line 'cause I was expecting everything to be like 300Y. I also headed to Kiddyland and bought some household items that just happen to be of Banao for totally reasonable prices. I got a couple mugs 'cause I need to tea and they were only 600Y for something that in the states would be easily $14 or so. I mean, I'm sure with the cost of everything taken in the discount of them being right at my fingertips is lost but it was a fun purchase. I did not buy any stationary. Aren't you proud of me? There has been no food with faces on it and the mamegoma wasn't cute enough. I accidentally found the Volks mega-complex behind the main drag just 'cause i needed a breather from people. I also picked up a couple mameshiba books which are awesome and hilarious.


I met up with another US lolita to head to the Alice and Wonderland theme restaurant. We met at the Hachiko statue which I expected to be about 4000 times it's size. I was expecting this giant dog and I couldn't find it and I was like, goddamn, I must be really blind since I seriously cannot find anything today (after the failure of locating Innocent World, my spirits were seriously crushed). But there it was, this life-size dog statue hidden amongst a giant crowd of people.

There was a wait so we chilled out in Starbucks for awhile just talking about stuffs and other stuffs and much stuffs until 9:30 which is when our reservation that we made right then and there was up. We headed into these giant book pages that slid around to our table. I don't know what I was expecting exactly but I was a little let down. I was hoping for something a little more interactive, but as it was, it wasn't too bad.

My first cheese of Japan! I'm sure this was milk based, but it definitely wasn't "Cheezu Fondue" like it was announced as. Oh Japan! So cute!

I ordered a cocktail that I think she said was Strawberry Honey?

Later I ordered the Drink Me Cocktail that included this really bizarre tiny vial poured onto liquid and I thought it would do something interesting but clearly Japan is aware that I am a sucker and will spend too much money on things regardless of what they actually do or contain because of what I hope they will do.

I ordered eperoncino pasta with shrimp and got this pepe but not peperoncino laden frutti di mare dish. It was really cute. I would have loved to order one of the pies but we were running on a bit of a time constraint so unfortunately this would do. I cracked up a bit because as you can tell, that's not a peperoncino pasta. Oh you silly Japanese!

I also ordered these fantastic little potato dough guys that were coated in cinnamon sugar. I found this to be a pretty awesome appetizer and combo, even if a little unusual.

Dessert was supposed to be mousse and ice cream mad hatter style! It's silly but it was cute. And there was fresh fruit, which is like more expensive than fresh fish here therefore it was fancy. All in all, a fun time had!

My fantastic new friends, Tericka and Dave!
I'm off soon today to Senso-Ji at the mention of the lovely Tericka. I'm full of stupid and I did not even bother to notice that there is a festival going on in Asakusa at this temple that evidently is accompanied by a huge flea market (oh no!). I'm sure I've even seen pictures from this, it seems to one of the more popular ones. I'm going to take advantage of my jetlag and head up there pretty early this morning. After that I'm going to try to hit up Tokyu Hands because I can't think of where else I can get reasonably priced towels and bed sheets 'cause sleeping on this weird maybe clean maybe not crap is really starting to get to me!