Japan 2013: HEP 5...is not a disease!

It is however, an extremely slow Ferris Wheel...but we'll get to that later.

Well fellow followers, thought I'd start off the blog with a couple of photos, the first being of the box so you can get an idea of the cell, ahem, bedroom that we live in...you may think this as messy, but when you live in a room this small, any flat surface becomes your best friend to store just about anything.

I would also like to share with you this bag of, what seems to be some sort of edible poo-like substance. It resides in the smoking room next door to ours, which isn't used much lately, so I usually take advantage of this and use the comfy chair and table for my laptop and the extra internet port. Unfortunately, however, the poobag still sits on the table...and I am quite tempted just to put it in the bin...and clearly...it is already past its use by.

Donki Saturday!

Don Quijote or Donki as it is often referred to in Japan, is a popular discount store in Japan that we had heard sold cheap costumes. So of course, we went on an adventure to our nearest one last Saturday. Joining us was an interesting individual from JF house, who kind of invited herself along. By the end of the day, whenever she opened her mouth, I twitched at the mere galling sound of her voice and her cringe-worthy donkey laughter. She is very nice, and was very helpful in getting directions to Donki, but after 5 hours, that was definitely enough.

So Donki was a huge yellow store, where you would have to be blind to miss it walking down the street. It was made up of two levels, the lower level carrying grocery items and the higher level stocking furniture, electronics, clothes and accessories. We made our way upstairs first, and through the kitchen section. The shelves were stacked high and very close together, it was hard enough just trying to get yourself and a basket through some aisles!

I think one of the most frustrating parts about living overseas, is all the amazing and awkwardly sized awesome things that you find that you want to buy, but would end up costing way too much to send back. Unfortunately, this was worse for Carly, than for me, as she found quite a few furniture pieces that were so cheap, but too heavy/big/awkward to post home.

She did however, still end up buying a cool black and white striped mat which will be an adventure to try and get in the box home - but we'll MAKE it fit. Unfortunately, the costumes that we went there for turned out to be almost the same quality as Cheap as Chip outfits, only a little sluttier and about 3 times the price. There was however a Pikahu and Cheshire Cat suit that I thought we both should of got, but Carly pointed out that it was an impulse buy, they were heavy and we'd never use them enough, so instead I sulked but ended up finding a $1 cover for my DS instead, which made me quite happy. The annoying one aka JF girl, preceded to play with the stuffed animals, and pressing the buttons on the ones that sang in high pitched auto-tuned voices while donkey laughing and exclaiming how cute. I was not impressed and left her where Carly was before running back to the electronics department in some peace and quiet. I don't think Carly was too impressed.

Down on level 1, we discovered a few interesting grocery items including - Squid in a bag, baby octopus in a bag, dried squid in a box, tentacles on sticks in a box...and the list was endless, if it was seafood - no doubt you could find it dried, picked, smoked or sealed in one form or another. I did however find some Tim Tams, and Carly found a bag of Doritos. Then we found the alcohol section. One of the most surprising things about Japan is the fact that you can buy alcohol from almost everywhere, and it is just so cheap!

If only a bottle of vodka was $8 in Australia...we even ravaged the alcohol clearance bin which resulted us in finding $3 bottles of Apricot and Peach liquer...we have no idea if these are any good...but for $3...you can't really say no! We left Donki soon after and made our way to another shopping mall on the way home. We had planned not to spend much money, but of course I ended up buying a new watch (hey, it was only $30!) and Carly got some more make up. Unfortunately, (YES! WOOHOO!) the annoying one had had enough for the day, and had to leave to go to our friends house. We were deeply disappointed (delighted) and enjoyed a nice quiet and bitchy trip home on the subway about our day. Needless to say, we have successfully avoided the annoying one since.

Miho Monday and HEP 5 Shopping!

On Monday we met up with Miho to take her out to Lunch, on us, as a special thank you for all her help the past few weeks and for helping us get out stuff shipped off back to Oz. We met up at Umeda and with directions from a kind man, we made our way over World World Buffet...an all you can eat worldwide cuisine! As a surprise, we thought it was going to be $30 a head, as it is quite a nice restaurant...when we found it because it was lunch, and we were girls, it was only $18! So for an hour and a half, we raced around the restaurant eating as much as possible, and laughing at each other when we found horrible foods. We all tried something new, for better or for worse.

Yes, there was cheese pizza; to Carly's delight. We also had some eggplant pasta from Italy, some Pork Steaks from Australia, Potato Gratin from France, Peppercorn Pasta from...somewhere I forget... I also tried Pumpkin Pottage. It was disgusting - I was expecting Pumpkin soup, what I got was stone cold watery pumpkin crap! It tasted horrible! Last, I also tried Nasi Goreng, which Carly had already eaten. It was then to her and my horror that we realised the orange stuff throughout the rice, was in fact PRAWNS and not carrot like we had both thought (even though Carly had already eaten her whole lot without realising, which I found hilarious). So here are our findings, those little beady eyes we had mistaken for pepper...crafty prawns...very crafty!

After the mains, we hit the desserts - first up were crepes, prepared just the way we wanted by a personal chef. Carly and I got the Strawberry and Vanilla Ice-Cream Crepes and Miho got the Green Tea Ice-Cream and Chocolate Sauce Crepes. These were absolutely amazing!

Once we had waited 5 minutes for the crepes to settle, it was time to try the rest of the assortment of desserts. There were two jellies with alcohol and tasted fruity, but like no other fruit we had tasted. Quite tangy, and a bit berry-ey haha they were quite nice. We also had overly rich chocolate fudge, and a cake that had the weirdest texture to it, with a biscuit bottom and jelly top...again it tasted of some sort of berry, and I liked it after a couple of mouthfuls.

We were a little full after the dessert.

Once we had eaten until we could eat no more, we rolled out of World World and headed towards Umeda Centre building and THE POKEMON CENTRE!

I was quite excited to finally go to one, even though I was fairly disappointed once we actually got in there. The hat and scarf I had wanted for a while from the games were no longer available, so instead settled for a cover for my DS.

Our next destination was the HEP 5 Shopping Centre - 5 floors of shopping extravaganza with a 75m red Ferris Wheel which stands at 106m above ground level, and runs through part of the shopping centre. First though, we took our time shopping through the many stores below and buying more things we didn't really need, like these overly large brown and white fur hats for $2.50 each.

We found a few awesome shops - one that was a '3 coin shop' or 3 dollar shop, which actually sold some quite nice things, and in which we spent a fair bit of time and money. Another shop, where we got the fur hats, was closing down - so everything in store was half price. As you can imagine...we went a little crazy in there to. Lastly, we found another UniQlo and bought some more clothes from there yet again. Carly bought a $1.50 and $3 top, and mine was $5...for that kind of money...you really can't say no! If only they had them in Adelaide!

After a few hours, we finally reached the top of HEP 5, and got our tickets for the Ferris Wheel. To our surprise, it had iPod speakers installed in our compartment and the Ferris Wheel only goes around once, and very very very slowly. Which I suppose was nice and relaxing, as we hit some Black Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga and took as many stupid photos as we saw fit before we reached the bottom. The ride lasted around 10 minutes, and the view was just amazing.