Sailor Moon Store

Sailor Moon Store

Japan is the home of some amazing pop-up shops and cafes. Some of them are insane, with reservation only that if you're not fast enough you'll never get the chance to try before they close. Which makes the permanent Sailor Moon store less stressful.  Located in the half basement of Laforet in Harajuku are two [...]

Budget shops in Tokyo

Budget shops in Tokyo

I spent about a week in Tokyo visiting friends. I was able to stay with a friend in their old fashioned tatami mat styled apartment outside of Tokyo. While I spent a disproportiante amount of time in Shibuya compared to anywhere else I had a lot more fun this time then last year. To get home I [...]

Pokemon Center Sunshine City

Pokemon Center Sunshine City

One of the things I've been wanting to do is check out a Pokemon Center in Japan. My friend had some other friends visiting so the four of us met in Ikebukoro station near the owl statue before braving the heat and the packed streets to go to the Sunshine City mall. Since one of [...]

Ghibli Expo at the Mori Arts Center

Ghibli Expo at the Mori Arts Center

I'm pretty stumped at how anyone in Japan gets tickets to visit the Ghibli museum. My friend spent months trying to no avail, but while I was visiting Roppongi Hills was having an exhibit for Ghibli and a cafe to go with it which blew up on my Facebook feed. My friend, her boyfriend and [...]

Mitsuwa

Mitsuwa is a Japanese marketplace in the suburbs of Chicago at 100 East Algonquin Road  in Arlington Heights. There are several other Mitskwa's spread out in California and one in New Jersey. Mitsuwa includes a bookstore, video shop, grocery, food court, and bakery. On weekends they tend to have special events. Books Kinokuniya I always [...]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Last evening there was a showing of the first two movies of Puella Magi Madoka Magica at The Music Box Theater. I'm not really a person to stay up late, so I'm currently exhausted because it didn't end until 1:30ish in the morning. The films were really just a compilation of the entire series in [...]