Friday, 19th December

This morning I got my sleep in as promised. Then we went downstairs to the cafe in the hotel. We were given a drinks menu and Charles cleverly asked in Japanese whether they had anything to eat. The waitress said a whole lot of things and we picked out "Toastu" and said "Yes! Toast! Hai!" so were given toast. Expensive toast.
We took the train into the city one stop further than last night, to a place called Namba. There we went to a Marui department store - the same department store we went to in Yokohama. I was looking for a nice dress to wear to a wedding but everything was too wintery. Charles bought an amazing jacket. We saw the same one in Yokohama weeks ago, and today it was on sale! Hooray! We even managed to get the tax refund.
We found another underground shopping arcade and stopped for a break. Chucky bought a burger and I had a coca cola. Japanese coke is different from Australian coke.
Next we started walking from Namba to Shinsaibashi, the place we were last night. We stopped at a McDonald's because I started to feel hungry. I bought some chips and a chicken fillet, which turned out to be so incredibly spicy that I almost choked and even Charles could hardly eat it. Harrumph.
There were so many interesting shops around. I liked looking in a bead shop that was selling every kind of bead you could think of at a cheap price, plus jewelery components. I didn't buy anything but I got lots of ideas.
We found our way back to Aranzi Aronzo and bought some band-aids with characters on them and a little tin.

Band-aids story: Last night I reached into my health bag and was attacked by my razor, which ate some of my left ring finger knuckle. I bled SO MUCH and then I realise that I'd lost an earring (a handmade one) and then I banged my elbow. So I needed band-aids.

We asked the girls at Aranzi Aronzo if they knew where Victorian Maiden was, which is another Gothic Lolita shop. I like Victorian Maiden because all of their designs are actually wearable (maybe) and really pretty. The girls at Aranzi Aronzo tried really hard to help us, even printing out a map for us to follow. So we followed it and ended up in the America Mura district, which is a shopping area with apparently American things.
We couldn't find Victorian Maiden no matter how hard we looked. We found a 2nd hand Lolita shop though (maybe it was old stock from the good brands) with relatively cheap clothes. I actually tried on a Victorian Maiden dress, and an Angelic Pretty dress, and a Metamorphose skirt. They were all a little bit wrong for me, but I got to think about the styles more.
We went for a walk down the road and found an Apple store where Charles tried all the headphones.
We went down a little side street and I saw a familiar sign: Baby, The Stars Shine Bright! Unfortunately (or fortunately) the shop was closed as it was past 7:30pm. I got to look in the window though!
Took the train back to Shin-Osaka and had a late dinner at the station. Dessert was a creme broulee or something... they sell about 20 varieties of creme broulee in the convenience stores. Some are gross but tonight's one was good.

Saturday, 29th November

Chrissy: Today we went to Yokohama. It took us a while to get there on the train. We looked around in Marui for ages. I thought there was only one kind of cool, or two at most. It turns out that there's about 8 floors of cool at Marui in Yokohama. It's the most amazing department store I've ever seen! Everything was really expensive, so I didn't buy anything. But I really wanted to! Each floor had different stuff, and was made of lots of tiny shops. Some shops were SO PRETTY and had clothes that I could wear exclusively. Then the cheapest thing in the shop is 9800 yen.

We met Emi's friend Ayano and went to have lunch at a curry restaurant. I had teriyaki chicken and curry. It was great! Then we walked to the Red Brick shop building. It was really nice there, but extremely busy. I bought some boots there, made of fake suade and fake leather. They were cheaper than the real suede and leather ones in Marui. They look cool, but are a little uncomfortable. At least now I can stop obsessing over everyone's amazing shoes here.

Chucky and I were tired so we went outside to look at the bay. There was a circle of bubble machines in the open, with children and adult running around having fun, so we took photos of us looking grumpy there.

We went to the shopping centre near the big ferris wheel for a while. Chucky and I had fun playing with one of those photo booths that are made for 15-year-old girls. We took the photos and came out, but couldn't find any photos! We looked all around but couldn't find them. We had to ask a guy where the photos were by saying "Doko de shashin?", or "WHERE IS PHOTO?". He showed us that there's another little booth for you to touch up the photos with effects and draw on them with a stylus. So we did. Then they printed.

We went on the ferris wheel when it got dark, because Emi is a bit afraid of heights and thought it might be less scary at night. It was certainly pretty at night. We could see lights for miles around. Many photos were taken.

We took the train back home at around 7pm. We were totally wrecked, so we just got some takeaway from the bento shop around the corner and watched T.V.