Flowers and shopping.

25th July

 

A bit of a lazy day after the travel of the previous ones.  So not much to report here.  I amused myself by taking some shots of the flowers blooming rather nicely in the garden and we went to Yodobashi camera for a bit of omiyage (or maybe not ) shopping.

 

LEGO Click Brjck

23rd July

While traversing the outlet’s of Manza, I found an interesting shop on the map.  Curious I made sure that we made out way nearby.  Why?  Because it looked a little bit like this:

 

 

That’s right! It’s a shop devoted ENTIRELY to LEGO!

 

Nagano, Manza onsens and Outlet stores.

22-23rd July.

 

In the vein of visiting onsens (hot springs) and the like, parts of the family met up and off we went to the wonderful place of Nagano to visit the Manza Prince Hotel which is generally a ski-resort.  During the summer, you can generally stay at ski resorts for a cheap visit and they also often have onsens.  Wheee! off we go!

 

Lazy Saturday in Japan

Saturday 21st July

 

Hmm, a lovely lazy day at home with a short trip to the shops to get some t-shirts.  And ended up up with some little extras as well.

 

The morning Started with the most delightful of starts.

 

MELONPAN!

 

A bun with some melon flavoured stuff on the top.  Great!

 

Then I turned on the TV hoping for some Saturday anime.  It appears I was out of bed too late and the panel talk food shows had already started…

 

 

Then not much, but the shops revealed some good stuff.  A couple of print t-shirts for less than 20 bucks and an Arms Micron Prime Vehicon toy!  Woooooo!  While in the shop, I thought I’d take a shot of the little Transformers section.  It’s small, but that is due to the shop being a department store.  The toy section was pretty much just a forgotten add-on really.

 

 

Just picked up the Vehicon as he was the one I wanted most.  Will drop by an actual toy store later and grab some more and maybe others, I know I am after a Breakdown and have a small shopping list from friends.

 

Then some more general perusing, of 100 yen stores ( I love these places!!) and the department store taking some shots of stuff I like.

 

Aren’t these little hanging couches cute?

 

 

And some chairs that I wanted to send home last time, because they look rather comfy, but are too big for the post office to handle.  Sad face…

 

 

And that pretty much summs up that day.  nice and easy, some good stuff.

Hakone, onsens, ninja volunteers & Mangoes.

19-20th July.

As usual we went for our start trip to Hakone for some quick onsen (hots springs) joy.  The train ride to Hakone was uneventful.  We went for lunch at Gora Koen (Gora Park) which was all the way in the hills, which isn’t surprising considering how hilly Hakone is.  Here is the most interesting train ride as the train has to zig zag it's way through the mountains, There is only one track for the returning and  going trains to use so one will have to sit in the station while it waits for the other to meet up.  Very interesting! 

One thing I was surprised to see was there were some umbrellas at the station with a sign saying they were free to use, as long as you brought them back!  Wow, couldn't have that in Perth!!  They would get taken home and forgotten about! 

 

 

 

 

Micron Arms Gobu mini review. And Pants.

Day 1 of my Holiday in Japan.  Well, officially day 2, but since I spent most of yesterday flaked out from the actual getting here (Always unable to sleep on planes), I am going to call today day 1.

In fine form I must say as well.  First trip to the local shops for a check of my preferred game shop, which sadly has a heap of PS1 titles, but nothing in the Saturn range.  Across the road to pick up some comfy Pants.  It’s incredibly humid here and my shorts are a bit too hot for hanging around the house.  Great pants, nice and light.  And check out those colours!!


Damn they are some fine looking pants!







More interesting stuff, ie Gobu after the jump.

Oh, Skoops, you’ve done it again!!

Another day, another coffee adventure.  This time, back at Skoops the gelato place where I had a good cake/icecream and coffee combo before.  This time they had another awesome deal.

 

 

 

And there we go!  A skoop of ice cream and cheescake and a coffee.  In the foreground, we have the caramel cheesecake and a skoop of strawberry gelato.  In the background is the cookies n cream cheesecake and hazelnut icecream.

 

All this for $5.95!!!

 

Deeeeelightful!  The caramel cheesecake was incredible!

 

Thanks again Skoops!

Shockwave. FOC–ing good!!

LOOK INTO MY EYE!

Whee! The final of the Fall Of Cybertron trio from series one thankfully happens to be a bit of a corker.  He is a “Revealer” class size, which is the new version of Deluxe, named so because as you transform them, their heads pop up in some funky way.  Both Jazz and Optimus are a bit boring in this respect (and hinder the toy a bit as well), but Shockwave’s actually works quite nicely and due to his large chest, it isn’t that destructive to the rest of the toy.

Anyway, that’s enough of an introduction, lets have a closer look at this short-packed chap from wave 1 of the new Generations toys!

FOC Optimus Prime, getting there.

So after the sadness that was Jazz, Optimus presents himself for a perusing of the most scrutinising  eye.  Hmm, didn’t know that perusing could be if a scrutinising nature.  Nevertheless, Optimus is marginally better than Jazz, despite his relative simplicity in design and being of a slighter  build than Jazz.  Believe it or not.

 

FOC Jazz, Oh dear…

The prospect of another pre-Earth Transformers game has me salivating in excitement.  The prospect of TOYS with Cybertronian modes from that game, Fall Of Cybertron is just too damn exciting.  I now have Jazz, Optimus and Shockwave.

Sadly I was sorely disappointed with old Jazz here, which sucks, because I like Jazz and I like his vehicle mode here.  Let’s have a closer look.

Amazing Cupcake work!

Once again I find myself impressed by a friend’s handiwork with the medium of cupcakes.  This is a different friend from the Cookie Monster Cup cakes I was on about before.  I do believe that these are mighty impressive.

 

They were made for a cinema theme and she whipped up 200 or so for it.  Rather annoyingly, despite being on site at the time and after she made it known that at least one be kept for me, it did not eventuate so I am unable to describe the taste…  Anyway enough preamble, on with the photos.

 

 

 

 

Wow! Lookit That!  Real popcorn on those popcorn ones, copious amounts of icing on thenormal cupcake one, a meringue with a bit cut out for the flake piece on the icecream on and  Real Fairy floss (cotton candy depending on your origins) on the fairy floss ones. 

 

Pretty impressive looking hey?  Considering how she isn’t even a caterer or anything. Maybe a new line of work should be there for her.  All that study as an architect as well…

Energon Swoop & Grimlock

When Transformers go horribly, horribly wrong.

 

I was excited when these guys came out ages ago.  Hanging on to the tail end of the hit and miss Energon line.  Well, most of the Autobots were a miss, but the Decepticons were quite cool. I was surprised to see two Dinobots make an appearance and they came in a double pack, so no extra hunting required.

 

I love the G1 Dinobots.  Robot dinosaurs are pure awesomesauce, on the meat of fantastic in a winning sandwich and so I was pleased to see how faithful Grimlock looked to his original self and thus I blindly bought this set.  Of course, back in those days, video internet reviews were nowhere near as commonplace as they are now.  Had I watched some I might have changed my mind…