Thursday, September 21, 2017

Day Zero

  Instead of calling the day we traveled to Japan at Day 1, lets just call it Day Zero, especially since most of the day was traveling and settling and in everything. Even better is the fact that both my coworker Carrenca and I decided to stay up all night in order to help ourselves sleep easier on the flight. So Day Zero felt like one incredibly long day! 😬
  The night was mostly spent watching youtube videos that I don't remember and drinking lots and lots of iced tea! I also remember struggling to download videos onto my ipad and after hours of tired struggling the solution was pretty easy. And that's why trying to work through the night is always worse then getting sleep.
  I even spent a short while that evening messaging our AirBnB host back and forth. One of the other member of our group arrived a day before us and our AirBnB host; Koichi wanted to meet with him. At some point in the evening he even sent me an adorable picture of them together.

Koichi and Pat

  Finally the morning rolled around and I took my last shower for the last several hours grabbed my efficiently packed suitcase and called a quick lyft to the airport!

Lets try not to die on this flight!
  I am really not a fan of flying so the next several hours were horrible but somehow manageable and although I stayed up all night I did not get as much sleep as I had hoped I would! At one point I did end up watching Kamikaze Girls which was one of the movies I struggled with for so long to get on my ipad. So worth it, that movie is amazing no matter how many times I watch it. 

Japan!
  One of the first things that was overwhelming for me upon landing were the toilets! Never in my life had I seen so many buttons for a single toilet.... though I guess they are more than toilets. Washing and drying options, the sound of trickling water coming from somewhere, heat control, and at least two different types of flushes, 倧 and 小, for a BIG flush and a little flush.
  Getting through the rest of the airport was so painful, I just wanted to get to the fun already(!!), but after getting through foreign customs, picking up our bags, and getting to the train; the next obstacle was figuring out what train we needed. The train system poster looked like a bowl of noodles to be honest, just a mess of lines going everywhere. Luckily everything has English writing below the Japanese though so we managed and made it to our AirBnB safely!
only slightly more complicated then bart

  On our way from the station to our AirBnB I saw not only someone dressed in lolita fashion but someone else carrying an ita bag which made me quickly forget how tired I was; I needed to go shopping immediately.  πŸ˜ 

  I actually almost went out of the apartment with only the comfortable stretchy tights I wore for the plane, but one thing I had learned from the walk from the station to our place was how clean not only Japan is(It smelled AMAZING) but the people too! Everyone was dressed so nicely and not a single pair of yoga pants as far as the eye could see. So I changed into some real pants and THEN headed out to Angelic Pretty, Baby The Stars Shine Bright, Kera Shop, Emily Temple Cute, and Closet Child! It was really surreal passing these places I had only ever shopped online for in person. As silly as it sounds, it was pretty fucking magical.

  I ended up buying some old school socks from AP as well as the Magical Bat Cape. Then I picked up a Innocent World JSK and cardigan from Closet Child. Started filling up my stamp card too aww yeah.

  Afterwards I descided to meet back up with the group and we went out for a few drinks. At one point we even stopped into a Don Quijote near Shibuya crossing and I got an adorable Hachiko shaped taiyaki! And that was it, I was officially in love with cute Japanese snacks.



See that small step? That led to the bar we were in!
Hachiko <3


  Eventually I decided to head home since I was literally falling asleep standing up. And I needed lots of rest for my giant shopping day the next day!


This is actually the Donki in Shinjuku but don't tell anyone. :P




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