Purikura

Purikura is a Japanese photo booth "vending machine." It's is a popular activity here, especially amongst Japanese school adolescents and young adults - mainly girls, women, and young couples.

The booths let you take digital pictures with your friends, and then you have a limited amount of time to decorate the photos with the modern touch-screen kiosk. You have free reign to draw or write whatever you want, put stamps/sparkles/glitter on the pics, or even do some major face "enhancement" - which you can see in our giant eyes below.

You can even rent costumes (or wear/bring your own costumes) to dress up for the photos. There are also several make-up booths where you can spend time touching up your make-up before the photo session.

Your finished product is then printed (sometimes on sticker paper), and then you can also choose to send a digital copy of one of your favorites to your phone or email.

The popular machines even have a line, and people are willing to wait to use them!

 

As my friend Anna said, "I am gonna MISS Japan. Where else can I take photos like these, surrounded by girls in maid costumes and men in pink shirts doing Dance Dance Revolution??!?"

Japan is truly one of a kind. Amazing what technology can do in just a few seconds these days. 

I read this is also becoming popular & trendy in the U.S.... is that true?

Kuma Cafe

A good friend is leaving Japan to go back to Seattle, so in honor of her last ladies lunch we headed over to Kuma Cafe to lounge with some teddy bears. :)

I always knew Japan had themed cafes, but I have never been to one before. Kuma Cafe is a 3-story restaurant downtown, literally filled with teddy bears. It was a very cute and baby-friendly cafe! The food wasn't all that great, but it had a really fun atmosphere and good dessert.

The entrance.

One of the many private booths.

There were even teddy bears hanging from the chandelier.

Bear shaped macaroons... and they were very good!

The babies enjoyed playing with the teddy bears, too!

A nice place to relax with friends in a very Japanese setting.  I'll definitely go back.

Grandma's Visit

My mom flew here for Elodie's birthday, and stayed for almost 2 weeks. We had a wonderful time with her here, and wish that she could have stayed longer!

YAY, Grandma's here!

We took Elodie to the aquarium for the first time. Turns out she doesn't like fish very much. Right after the picture below was taken, a fish swam at her and scared her terribly... she jumped and cried SO hard.

I bought a year pass to the aquarium, so we'll be going back there often, and hopefully she'll get used to the fish.

Checking out the fish... which she does NOT like.

She wasn't a huge fan of penguins, either.

We also went out to lunch with our good friends Miyoko and Akko a couple of times. We always have such a nice time visiting with them.

We stopped by Akko's new pet salon that she recently opened a few months ago. Elodie wasn't scared of the dogs at all! Instead, she crawled around the store chasing them.

Akko showing Elodie her dog.

Unfortunately we all got the flu while she was visiting, so we were incredibly sick for 2-3 days during her trip. We were beyond miserable for that time, and weren't even able to leave the house. So we missed out on doing a few things, and it put a damper on her vacation.

But it was still fun to show Grandma some of our new routines, like swimming class and going to a play room downtown. She was able to see what a good little swimmer Elodie is, and how well she does playing and interacting with others. :)

Say CHEESE!

On her last night, Miyoko prepared a special sushi dinner for us. She taught us how to make our own simple sushi - take a piece of seaweed paper, scoop a spoonful of rice and spread it out on top of the seaweed paper, pick out a few ingredients to place in the middle on top of the rice (salmon, squid, tuna, egg, cucumber, avocado, crab, etc), then fold it over, dip it in soy sauce, and eat it! SO EASY! Healthy and delicious!

Sushi spread.

Joe has been back in the U.S. for a couple of weeks for work, so it was great that my mom's trip somewhat aligned with that. It's not fun being here by myself, so luckily I only had to do that for one week.

Thanks so much for coming to visit. We miss you, Grandma!

Happy 1st Birthday, Elodie!

A year ago, we were blessed with a tiny little perfect baby girl. She has been enriching our lives ever since! It has truly been an incredible year. Happy 1st Birthday, our sweet little peanut! It's been the best year of our lives!

A special day, for a special girl. Here's a glimpse of Elodie's day....

My mom and I spent all day Friday baking cupcakes in my tiny Japanese oven. So of course we let Elodie try one, even though it wasn't quite her birthday yet. She had a strawberry flavored one, and loved it!

A pre-birthday cupcake.

She woke up on her actual birthday to this awesome indoor jungle-gym that we bought her.

Happy birthday from Mom & Dad!

For breakfast she had a Cinnabon muffin, and it was gone in seconds! I think we have a sweets-lover on our hands... which shouldn't be surprising considering who her Mom and Dad are. ;)

Cinnabon muffin.

After breakfast, Joe took Elodie to swimming class while my mom and I decorated for the big Hello Kitty birthday party. I was fortunate to find Hello Kitty table cloths, plates, cups, napkins, cupcake stands, etc. all in the U.S. So everything matched perfectly and it was super cute.

I put together a collage of photos in the shape of a 1, as well as a timeline of monthly photos from Elodie's first year. My friend Anna came over to help make the hanging flower pompoms. Everything turned out perfect.

For food we had 3 flavors of cupcakes, Hello Kitty decorated sugar cookies, and an ice cream sundae bar. Lots of sugar!

The decor!

Timeline of monthly pictures.

Smash cake for the birthday girl!

Family photo before the party.

Elodie telling you she's ONE!

The party was a huge success! We are so grateful that so many friends came to celebrate with us (and that Grandma flew all the way from Michigan to be here for it!).

Awesome friends.

Elodie's swimming buddies.

Of course the highlight of the party was of Elodie eating her cake!

Make a wish!

hmmm not sure what I think about this cake stuff...

It's pretty good stuff after-all! I think I'll have some more!

Don't forget, I'm ONE!

YUMM!

And into the hair it goes.

Do you want a piece? It's really good!

Sure, we'll have a piece with you Elodie!

After the cake, we took her right in the shower room and hosed her down! She was clean in no time. ;)  After the party, it was time for presents!! She received so many wonderful gifts.

Birthday girl wearing her tiara :)

YAY! Leap frog computer!

Cuddly puppy.

Cute pink polka-dot jacket.

Playing in her new ball pit the following morning.

Living abroad and so far away from family during important life milestones is difficult and sad at times, so it was really nice to have an awesome group of friends who understand to be a part of Elodie's special day.

We are truly grateful to ALL of you who made her day so special... both near and far. It was a fantastic day! Thank you to everyone!

I posted an album on shutterfly of all the photos from her birthday. Click here to view it. Password is the same (eidole).

Tokyo Weekend Trip

We went to Tokyo for the weekend with Miyoko and her husband Kiyoshi. Their nephew is a theatre director in Tokyo, and his play was showing in a theater downtown. So we went to the show, and then spent the rest of the weekend touring Tokyo. Even though Joe and I have been to Tokyo before, we were able to experience all new things this time because 1) Tokyo is HUGE and there is so much to do there, and 2) we had our own personal tour guides!

On our way to Tokyo, we stopped in Yokohama to eat at this cute floating restaurant with spectacular views on the bay. Surprisingly, there were quite a few Mexican dishes, so you can imagine how excited Joe and I were! (Nagoya does not have any good Mexican restaurants!) Anyway, the food at this particular restaurant in Yokohama was very good. We both had fish tacos, and they were fabulous.

Floating restaurant in Yokohama.

After our quick lunch, we drove the rest of the way to Tokyo to see the play. It was interesting to watch a play in a language that we don't understand. Surprisingly though, because of the costumes and actors, we understood almost everything. I'm sure we would have enjoyed it more had we actually known what they were saying, but overall we still had a nice time. Miyoko's sister volunteered to watch Elodie, so Joe and I were actually able to sit through part of the play together, which was really nice.

Standing next to the advertisement for the play.

After the play, we went to a really fancy Japanese restaurant in the heart of downtown, right next to the Tokyo Tower. Each party has their own private room, which resembles the culture of the Japanese Edo period. The restaurant overlooks a 71,000 square foot Japanese garden.

It was set menu with 8 courses, all of which were really lovely - everything from the appearance, detail, and taste - was absolutely wonderful. Our set menu included: boiled pike conger & shrimp, deep fried tofu coated with sweet miso sauce, assorted sashimi, eggplant with sesame dressing (my favorite!!!!), tofu in seasoned soy milk, sauteed Japanese sea bass, rice with ginger and burdock root, and fig for dessert. 

The restaurant entrance.

Walking through the garden to our private room.

This isn't a great picture of anyone (except Joe who looks really cute!), but it's the only picture I have of the table and wanted to share what the room looked like.

Miyoko showing Elodie the tea kettle in our private room.

The waitress, dressed in Kimono, who served us each course.

Joe & Elodie with Miyoko's nephew (the director) and his daughter.

It was a wonderful Japanese experience, and I'm so glad we went! The only downfall is that it was very expensive. The set course cost us about 10,000yen each - or about $127.50 per person (and that didn't include drinks!). But the atmosphere was outstanding, the food was delicious, and it was an overall fantastic Japanese experience - so I'd recommend for anyone visiting Japan to go here! Although I should warn you, the restaurant specializes in tofu. ;) Here's the English website if you want to see pictures of the restaurant: Tokyo Shiba Tofuya-Ukai.

On Sunday, Miyoko and Kiyoshi drove us around Tokyo to show us different parts of the city that we had never seen before. Here are a few highlights from our day....

The new Tokyo Sky Tree, which opened this past May 22. It has been sold out for MONTHS!.. and you still can't go up without an advanced reservation.

Pagoda at Asakusa temple.

Asakusa temple, a Buddhist temple built in the 7th Century. It's Tokyo's most famous and popular temple. It is also one of the oldest, although the current buildings are post-war reconstructions.

Nakamise, a shopping street from the temple entrance gate to the temple. Any and every kind of Japanese souvenir can be found here! It was incredibly crowded!

Tokyo style "monjya" in the Tsukishima district. It's basically Tokyo's version of okonomiyaki. They have similar ingredients, but monjya has a lot more liquid and is more runny. It's then eaten directly off of the grill using a small metal spatula.

Joe eating monjya with his small spatula, haha! We liked okonomiyaki much better than monjya.

We also stopped at Daikanyama for some shopping, but I didn't take any photos there. I found some cute moose cookie-cutters, and Elodie got new hair bows... a successful shopping trip. :)

Wow, that was an exhausting but fun weekend!!!