Only in Japan...

Wow, what kinda hot dogs are those, you ask?  

Well on the top left, we have the plain hot dogs, and on the top right we have salsa hot dogs. 

But check out what's next: tuna cheese dog.... what the heck is a tuna cheese dog??

it sounds really gross.... and next to that is a bacon egg dog... (why not just make it a sandwich?)

and lastly, double cheese dog.

When I saw that tuna cheese dog, I was like, "EW! Who would get that?!?!" So I said to my mom, jokingly, "Mom, wanna try that one?"

sadly...she was like, "oOo, that looks good." 

She really is Japanese. I forget that sometimes....

What in the www?

I figured it has been a while since I did one of these, "what in the whole wide world" pics. 

So here we go. Today we have more train fails...

Here is the first guy, with hair bigger than his whole head. I can't figure out if he's trying the "ikemen" host look or a jigger look. The shoes and hair call for two different styles in Japan...

This one was really clear. We had the Japanese cholo crew on board. It was weird cause he kept looking at me so I finally just took a pic and pretended like I was asleep.

This was just funny cause no one wanted to sit next to him lol... Those two seats were empty but ppl would rather sit next to me, a foreigner. Maybe they were scared.

Oh my gosh... This is something that happens way too much. Girls wearing short skirts and not closing their legs when they sit. WTH?????? No wonder there are so many pervs here in Japan... Ugh!

Fall in Japan

I love living by a river in Japan. 

I've lived in a few areas in Tokyo, and two of those places have been near the river. 

What's great about it is that they have trees lined up around it that are so beautiful during all seasons. 

In spring, we have the cherry blossoms that cover the river in light pink petals. 

Fall (although the leaves have started falling off) sort of looks like this:

These pictures are old and the leaves already started falling off...

But the colors got deeper and it was SO beautiful. It was too cold to stop and stare for a long time though, so I usually just sneak a peak and walk home =P

Anyway... It's really feeling like winter here, I can't wait for summer!!!

Updates and previews...

This is what I feel like my past months have been...

I haven't had time for anything else really, just school work...school work... and work. lol.

Anyway, I have a few videos I've been working on and just need to finish up a few things.

I had a request on making a purikura video, that I feel so bad that it took me this long to do... and also some nail videos. 

and some of the nails I had done but not edited the videos for...

hope you guys stick around for those... probably in the next few days lol. 

Bwaaaah! Now back to my papers that are due this monday. (-_-)

Xmas...chicken?

We don't really eat turkey here in Japan. In fact, it's really hard to find it and would probably have to go to costco or something to get some. So for Christmas (not that they really celebrate it) they usually just have cake and go on dates with their girlfriend/boyfriend.

That being the case, I was really shocked to see KFC(..yeah I know...) advertising for Xmas meals! Usually even convenience stores like 711 and Lawson are advertising Xmas cakes that you can pre-order. But KFC had this one:

Now the thing that bothers me most is how that chicken is only $56!!! Lol, actually more than that when you add the exchange rate... What the heck Japan! I bet you it's extra small too...

Oh yeah, and also you can buy beer in KFC lol...

that's it on the top shelf...smh...

Finally, some Halloween Pics!

Haha, Ronald totally looks like he's perving at me in the last picture!

Anyway, so it's been a while. Busy with school work and trying to sort some schedule conflicts for next year. But anyway, for now I'm just glad that the semester ends soon (-_-)

Anyway, Halloween was ages ago, and because I was working I wasn't able to take much pictures, but here are some of them:

I was yuki onna, some snow spirit lady that well kill people lost out in the snow or something horrible like that, but when I put a full white face, it looked a lot more scary I think so I tried to tone it down.

Of course, I gotta hold my Rilakkuma. P.S. I didn't have a pure white kimono or yukata, so it looks a bit silly but oh well... It was a kids halloween party lol.

Us being silly, lol. Luv the aloha even though she's dead lol. 

Costumes at Japanese Halloween Stores

So I haven't had time to do all I wanted with halloween this year.
I'm so busy with tests, papers, and presentations (not to mention work) that I barely have time for myself.
I really wanted to get my halloween look down but it's so rushed.. and the first halloween party I'm going to is tomorrow at work. I was going as a snow queen/yuki onna (a snow spirit in Japanese that killed people with her kiss/breath?) any who, I hope that I didn't over do it.
I am going in white face paint... and I hope the kids wont all scream and run away...
heck, it's halloween right? lol
anyway, here are some crazy pictures from the halloween section at stores in Japan. This is a wig...titled "Samurai wolf"....... Need I say more??

Now these are some "pants" or underwear... with a tap in the front... uuuuhh....

and this is a boob hat... 

ah, japan, you never cease to surprise me lol

Finding a craft store...

So back home we have Michael's and tons of other craft stores. Funny thing is, I couldn't name a single craft store that I've seen or heard of here in Japan. And I've been here for almost 3 years!
Funny thing is, I was actually gonna google it today when I got home, but I saw a friend with a big bag with a huge canvas or something in it, and I thought..."hmmm she's an arts and crafts kinda girl...maybe she knows", and she did!!!

It's called Sekaido. The best part was that the she said the biggest one was in Shinjuku...right next to the Forever 21!!! I had to go to work after, but I was so excited that I couldn't wait. I figured I had just enough time to make a quick stop, so I went there and bought some body paint to prepare for halloween and work on some looks.

This is outside of Shinjuku station. It was so close!

 OMG It's Forever 21!! But.....I was a good girl and didn't go in... I already did damage in the beginning of the month here.

And there it is, in the red Kanji letters. Even if I walked passed it a million times I wouldn't have known it was a craft store... Geez....

Sadly though, the face pain was crap. It was a liquid type of paint in a tube that said "chromacryl: studen't acrylic". You can use it on the face, it's non toxic and water based. But omg, it was so hard to work with. It just ended up looking really uneven and cracked, no matter how many times I re-did it with thin layers, etc. Dabbing over it with a sponge kinda picked up the paint and leave a hole... ugh...

So I need to find another craft store that sells clown pain in a cream form or something... The section with body paint was so small at Sekaido... Or else I'll have to order some online... Know any good brands? I hear Ben Nye is good.

Halloween Nail Tutorial

Today was a bummy day...

Starting from the beginning with my test in my early morning class. I woke up and left early just so I can get there on time and have some extra time to study, but NOOO all 3 trains I take to school were late.

I lost my planner, skipped belly dancing class because I was looking for it (with no success) and had problems recording the tutorial. Enough with my venting though... 

My creative juices are just not there lately, and I haven't had ideas or the urge to look for inspiration lately, but I knew I should do something soon. So, I did a halloween nail tutorial because the kids at school have been asking when I'll start with them this year.

So here it is... Simple really, I didn't like how the spider came out but I was too lazy to redo it, lol.

The tutorial will be up on youtube. but here's basically what I did:

1. Made a gradation with purple and a white glittery polish

2. Then I drew in the pictures using a thin wand, making "m's" for bats and white for a ghost.

I also did a spider web and a yellow spider, but I'd rather scratch out the spider lol.

I hope you guys like it and would try it out!!

check out

www.youtube.com/rilakumaki 

pretty soon and I'll have the tutorial up

Sleep!!!!!

So I've been having trouble with sleep lately... I mean, I was gonna sleep early, and here I am, doing homework and blogging! lol. I swear it's impossible to get enough sleep and perform well at school (especially if your working at the same time like me). What do you guys do to fall asleep? I don't like drinking warm milk because...well I don't like milk, haha. Calming music?

I always wanted to start doing meditation or some yoga at night to help me sleep. If you guys ever tried yoga, you know how the last 10-15 mins are spent on the ground doing savasana and just relaxing. I loved my old yoga classes where they put towels with scented oils like lavender or lemon grass on it and covered your eyes while you lay listening to the river flowing outside. It always made me really sleepy and I hated getting up when the class ended.

I'm going to start doing that, or at least try. Maybe it can help me sleep and be a de-stressor at the same time. I'll let you know how it works!

Sports Day!

So I have a day off tomorrow!! I actually get an actual "weekend" (as in 2 days off) because I usually work on Saturdays too. So why exactly am I off? Because Japan is great and has really random holidays through out the year. My favorites are green day (like seriously, the color green), respect for the aged day, and tomorrow - Sports day. Now no one actually goes out of their way to play sports, and all the children already had their Sports Day at their school by at least like last weekend or so... But nevertheless most jobs and places are CLOSED, including my job and school <3

Ah! It makes living here great when I think of all the odd public holidays they have here that don't really have any purpose or tradition/thing you do on that specific day. I guess I did go to the beach on Oceans Day this past summer, but it wasn't really crowded.

So what am I going to do with my day off? ..... Probably nothing, lol. But that's also important I guess. Getting good rest. I remember we were talking about in my psych class about how getting little sleep (even like 6 or 4 hours a night) everyday for a long period of time (the study was 2 weeks i think) is the same as getting no sleep at all for 3 days. I'm sure you can imagine just how unfocused and discombobulated you would get with 3 days of no sleep. When you think of it like that, a day of doing nothing is actually doing a great lot of "something" for my mental state =)
So I'll be chillin with my Rilakkuma,

Napping with him too,

and also spend sum time with my bunny <3

BYS Pallet in Conga Swatches

So I don't know if you've ever heard of this brand, but I LOVE their pallets!
So far I've only bought them in Browns and Conga, but I love swatching them at the stores.
This is the swatches from the conga pallet. They are all metallic and really pigmented!
It's 1,680 yen in Japan and you can buy them in most stores that sell cosmetics. I bought mine from Plaza <3

P.S Please ignore the PJs .... lol

what the??

So I just saw this pic and realized I forgot about it. It was from the summer when I made a quick trip to the combini (convenience store). They had "shiso" pepsi, (the leaf you usually find in sushi), and these two. And my first reaction was, ....what does boabab even mean?? It's brown, and there are pictures of giraffes on it... and that confused me even more. 

Well it wasn't good. And the other one, the green cola wasn't all that great either. Then again, I don't drink soda much, especially pepsi so maybe it just tasted like pepsi and I couldn't tell, lol.

Ever tried any of these or other funky drinks?

Miracle Boober

I'm sure you can guess what that is. And sadly, yes, they do sell and people here do believe in products that are obviously rip offs here... What gets me is not so much the fact that there are a whole bunch of these types of products at regular drugstores (like Rite Aid) but that they choose to use cartoons...on almost all of these to advertise the product. The name? Yes, that too. And also what they have written about the price (2980 = 30 bucks) which reads: boing boing. So this is what they must expect:

Girl walks in store and is stopped in her tracks by the amazing boobs the cartoon chick has. She probably doesn't understand the word "miracle" or "boob" to know that it's a "boober"-makes you get boobs- but she is further convinced by the "boing boing" written above the price. "I want my boobs to go boing boing...Yes, I will by this!"

Who thinks that way... In my opinion, maybe a preteen. Does this mean that this product targets preteens? Probably not... after all, they sell condoms that also have cute cartoon on the box, and those are clearly not for kids right?....

Yup that's right! These condoms are on sale! 36% off!! and that's 7 bucks!!! 

What's your weakness?

So I started going to the gym this year, and although I may miss a day or two I usually go at least once a week. (Actually I only go once a week these days) So once a month we can go and weigh ourselves and find out how well we are doing. The one thing I love about those machines is that well, it goes beyond the simple weight and BMI but also looks in to how much vitamins/minerals, protein, etc you have in your body; how much muscle you have, if it's balanced between the right/left or top/bottom part of your body and beyond. So I went and got myself checked out last week...and I lost 2 kilos, but apparently my body fat % had gone up... and I was told to lay off the burgers and fries. Sad part is, that's pretty much my meal at least 4 out of the 7 days of the week. I really don't like eating at home... And even when I eat something healthy and filing, something in my mind tells me it's not enough and I will stuff some fries, a burger, or dessert or I won't feel satisfied even though I'm full... SMH. Food is my number 1 weakness I think, even before makeup and Rilakkuma. What about you?

KFC Delivery

Does KFC deliver back in the States too now? I was a bit shocked when I saw this on the street before. lol. It would be really good for me, but KFC here tastes awful. Every foreigner I've met here agrees. Apparently Japan looooves dark meat (which is more expensive than white meat here) so the chicken is always soggy n greasy. Yuck... 

What in the www?

So here are some pictures of the "sleeping on the train" snaps I have gotten, and also am guilty of doing! It's funny how they all have open mouths and tilted heads. Cute... until they start leaning on you like the whole ride.... Imagine their head on your shoulder with an open mouth. what's worse, their weight, breath, or drool? lol!