Kiddy Land: Lauren Land

Warning: This post contains Saturday's events. ^___~

Grant and I decided to go to Harajuku =^.^=. It was his first time there. First though, we decided to go to the grocery store and cook some foodies:

Ramen/Soba/Udon with Miso broth, mushrooms, onions, and chicken. Zo good. Except, Grant didn't like the mushrooms much at all. They weren't so bad, but they did have a strange consistency. Far too many in the dish, too. lolol, next time! =]
I ate zo many noodles. Oh gosh. So sorry, Paleo. Seriously, I'll see you again sometime. The noodles at the grocery here are super cheap. Like ridiculous cheap. This meal cost us each about 250 yen. Not bad. ^__^

Then we headed off to Harajuku ^___^. This fella was waiting outside for us:

Grant really connected with it.
We had also seen this guy earlier:

Aw, reminded me of MoMo and her beautiful butterfly bushes.

Grant and I both had places we wanted to check out in Harajuku, Kiddy Land for me and a bar for Grant. Kiddy Land was supposed to carry Blythe stuff, so I wanted to check that out for Lauren.

We found Kiddy Land pretty soon after arriving.

 Oh gosh. New Furbys. Their eyes are completely Computer-screened-ness. DOWNGRADE.

 Omigosh, Hermione and Ron's wands chopsticks!

There was so much going on in this store. Four floors-worth of so-much-going-on.

And then there was a Snoopy Town floor. Omg, Beth. That'd be funny if Beth didn't really like Snoopy that much and I just thought she did and have been making all these useless shout-outs to her XD. a.k.a. Peace Sign. V(^___^)

lolol, Snootea

And Random cute characters floor:

And then the floor with dolls...:

Most of the Regular-sized blythes were about $183.70 and Mid Blythes were $130.45. They didn't have the petite's for sale here.

It was hard to leave that area, but we went to the last floor with Hello Kitty and Rirakkuma. I felt bad for Grant 'cause I was taking pictures left and right and Harajuku is just pretty much shopping, but he said he didn't mind.

 And Sentimental Circus Stuff! Omg, favorite.

After shopping at Kiddy Land, we went down Takeshita Street with all the amazing clothes. We found a Sweets Paradise there, which is a Pasta and Dessert Buffet. Take a lookie:
http://www.sweets-paradise.jp/menu/

Yeah. You read right. A dessert buffet. You have 70-90 minutes to eat as much as you want. And pasta, salad, and the drinks. It looks like they have bubble tea, too! It's only $16ish too. We didn't go that day. That really requires some serious mental and physical readiness. It's like Man Vs. Food. Oh gosh. We do plan to go one day, though.

We found the bar that Grant wanted to go to and sat down while he tried a new beer. He said he really liked it too. The bar had a pretty relaxed atmosphere.

After, we walked to the vendors nearby that sold Takoyaki. Takoyaki is pretty much octopus with some random veggies fried in a wheat batter in a nice little ball-shape.
As so:

 Some sweet sauce kinda like Oyster sauce and of course, mayo. It was really awesome that he got to try takoyaki, since it was one of the things he said months ago that he really wanted to do in Japan.

AwWWWw yEaAhH! First bite. He let me try it, too. I was kinda scared since the octopus sushi sampling had gone oh-so-wrong at the Sushi Kaiten. But it was actually really amazing! It must have been since it was cooked and had other things with it instead of just rice. I would definitely want to eat some more sometime.

We walked around for a bit more and found a Tower Records building and sampled some music from Japan and the US, like the new Muse cd. The building had so many floors, but we only stayed on the first floor and left to venture more. We found a really pricey, but awesome Lolita shop, Baby the Stars Shine Bright. It's another store I had been shopping from on eBay since I was a wee-one. Well, because of the price, more so just eye-goggling all the merchandise. It was amazing to see it all in person. I didn't take any pictures because the store was so small and there were 4 people working and kind of just staring. There was this amazing Hour-Glass necklace though that was like plz.
I just found out that the movie "Kamikaze Girls" had one of the characters play as the original creator of the store. Even cooler!

Grant and I kept walking and then things started to look more familiar. Wait, how did...wait, we're in Shibuya suddenly? Yep, we found ourselves in Shibuya again. We ventured around in the department stores there for a little bit. I had to study though, since I would be going to the Safari the next day. I've been really stressed with school, so I haven't been in the best mood and become even more stressed when I feel I haven't studied enough. I have to work on my mood though and handle things better, I think.

We stopped at a grocery store for a hot minute and Grant bought Purin! Purin is very famous in Japan.

Grant said it was like crème brûlée. Oh-so-delicious-looking.

Yes! So that was Saturday. I'll have to catch up on Sunday's Safari activities soon. ^___^

The Cry of a Mandrake is Fatal to Anyone Who Hears it

Lauren, I hope you got excited while reading that title.

I started writing this a few days ago and came back to it, so this is a few days older. Sorry, sorry. ^___^'

Yesterday, after Grant and I were done with classes, we met and hit up Shibuya.
Here is the tiny animal shop that had tiny kittens in it:

Holy adorable. MoMo probably could have spent the whole day just there.

Luckily we found the Sushi Kaiten place, Genki Sushi, that I went to before with Kirsty, Tom, and Evan on our first few days in Tokyo.

That pork one was awesome. I think the best one (not pictured) was the grilled salmon sushi. It even beat out the tempura shrimp one.
Sadly, I only had 5 plates compared to the 8 I had last time.

After eating, we decided to explore Shibuya a bit, since Grant hadn't before. While we were walking, we passed a sign that said "マンダラケ” "Mandarake"...slowly...beginning to process the Katakana...MANDRAKE! Wait, this place sounds familiar! Wait, I think there are Blythes in there! GRANT, CAN WE GO IN THERE?

Down the stairs we went. I read the description of the store before, that it was located underground, but I didn't think it would be about 5 stair flights down. Grant and I were expecting it to be a very tiny store with a few customers and a really awkward claustrophobic-get-me-out-of-here atmosphere, but we were wrong. It ended up being huge. And yes, THERE WERE BLYTHES. And BJDs (Ball-jointed Dolls)! So many just waiting to be adopted.

Plum?!

And eyechips:

 And even some BJD shoes that were pretty cheap:

 This one had a pretty awesome box (very Monster High-looking) too, but for $667:

It had so many rows of manga and art books. Yeah, Grant and I were in one of the rows and I said, "Man, I really wish I was into this stuff!" and Grant then informed me we were in the Adult Manga Section. The dirty stuff ~manga style~. Oh, gosh halp plz.

 And figurines.

 And big Keys:

 And Gloomy Bear

 And trading cards

 And Nendoroids:

We were really lucky to have found this store, since it closed at 8 and we had to take a different way to get out because they closed off the entrance. Hopefully we'll be able to find it again ^___^'.
Next, we ventured into another underground store that was labeled as a bookstore and had a guy in a panda mask dancing outside. Well, I mean, c'mon. Can't resist a dancing panda.
Yeah, it had way more than books.

 More Blythe stuff!

 And a ketchup gun!

 And old cameras

 OMG, WONKA BAR. ONE DAY. Seriously. I will buy one of these someday. Ughhh, so cool.

I still want it.

And a rifle umbrella! I really wanted to get this for Shawn, but I have no idea how I would get it back. And if he would get arrested. If only he still had his old car, Ruth, to match.

 Snoopy for Beth.

 I got my Christmas shopping done. Haha, seriously.

And that was pretty much the night! The next day, we went to Harajuku and I have a ton of more pictures to share. Lauren will really like that post, too, I think. Man, I really need to catch up! Yesterday, I went to the Fuji Safari Park with Yuuki, Rina, Tomo, and another student whose name I keep forgetting. More on that next-next time ^___^.