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19.11.11 Restaurant Alcatraz and Club Camelot in Shibuya

Me and Marcus were late, really late. I didn’t even have any time to style my hair hahahahaha. We were supposed to meet Maki and Kohta again, this time inside Shibuya station. BUT, since we were late and none of us had a cell phone, finding them was really hard. We had agreed on a meeting point, but still – we couldn’t see anyone.

I asked Marcus if it could be that they were waiting for us somewhere else or that they had left already, and we decided that it would be smart if Marcus could look around while I waited, just in case they came later. I was waiting for some time and suddenly Maki and a British friend of her appeared. I apologized for being late, but she told me she were also late. She told me she tried to call Marcus, but couldn’t reach him. I explained for her that we didn’t have cell phones with us. She also told me that Kohta were late.

PHEW!!! We thought that we were late, but lucky us everyone else were late too!!! Believe it or not, although I’m late very often I actually hate being late.

We were supposed to eat at The Lock-up in Shibuya, but ended up in Alcatraz. Both of the restaurant has a “horror-ish” theme. I have been in different restaurants with funny and interesting themes before, but not something like this! I hadn’t heard of Alcatraz before, but I’ve heard a lot about The Lock-up. According to Maki Alcatraz isn’t very different, and since she have been in The Lock-up more than in Alcatraz, we decided to go to Alcatraz! :)

To be honest, I think it was more kinky than scary… I’ll let you see what I got later. First, I wanna show you what Maki ordered:

Maki was driking from this cute boy's... or girl's head! Boy or girl, the hairstyle was AWESOME~~~

Maki's friend and his drinks!

Marcus and I with our drinks, lol

My drink hahahahaha

I’m not sure what I think about Alcatraz, though… It was cool to experience one of these horror themed restaurants, but I won’t let them have more money from me. We had to pay table fee and the food and drinks were expensive – which isn’t really that bad considering that it’s not common to pay tips in Japan. But in this case I wish I could pay tips instead of table fee. The good thing about tipping is that you’re giving a feedback and a waiter would usually give better service.

The drinks are very funny, but that didn’t save me from being disappointed when I saw how little we got. The food was also nothing to be happy about, like with the drinks; we got very little for the money.

It wasn’t expensive compared to Norwegian prices, but compared to other places I’ve been in Tokyo and around the world in general. I know you’re kinda paying for the experience too, but the experience wasn’t exactly worth it.

There were shows there every hour, but in my opinion the “”"show”"” was just a man in some kind of a costume in the dark walking around in the dark trying to scare people. lol. I have to admit that I was screaming like crazy when he sat next to me – but it was more like because it’s how I react when a stranger sit next to me in the dark. lol

The service there was also really bad, the waiter never came to ask if we wanted to order or to check if we needed something. Every time we wanted something we had to make a lot of noises to get attention.

We had our own room – I like it when we can sit alone without being disturbed. But that’s the only positive thing I can tell about this place. For some people this might be a bad thing as some people would feel that we were kind of isolated. I’m a person that likes to be in more private settings when eating/drinking so I can pay more attention to the people I’m with, so this was perfect for me.

I wouldn’t recommend them… It MIGHT be fun if you’re in a silly mood and aren’t planning on going somewhere else later. If you’re going to spend even more money on a club later – save your money for something else instead. It can be really expensive if you decide to eat and drink here.

Anyways, Kohta came a little bit later and it was nice to see him again.

Kohta and I with the restaurant poster thing!!!

We decided to go to Club Camelot to have some fun. Unfortunately, Kohta had to leave already.

Inside the club, a girl talked to at me. I was a bit surprised and though that she probably thought I was someone else – but after a second I realized that it was Marina, the girl I met last week! So random! Jarrod was there too. Marina asked me if I was doing YouTube videos, and I said that I have an account where I uploads blog related videos, but that I’m not really a vlogger. She told me I should meet one YouTuber, and introduced me to Philip. I recognized him, my gyaruo friend Max is featured in one of his videos which someone linked to me long time ago!

Club Camelot was a really nice club with 5 (if I remember right?) floors. If you get in early the entrance fee isn’t much – and the drinks are 500 JPY only! I noticed that the DJ’s love to play the same songs… It seems like the 109 stores and the clubs in Tokyo are playing the same CD with music from 2005, lol. But I don’t mind, the songs are good and mixed well together!

I hope I can come back to this place one day!

After this Marcus and I went to McDonalds, again. LOL!! I don’t know why we always end up in McD??? We’re the king and queen of McDs!!!

And just because we love to have pictures of us together – we had to take some purikura:

My outfit: scarf: Glitter, top: D.I.A., pants: GALSTAR, belt: D.I.A., fishnet stockings: Clio, boots: Wild Rose

Shit, I really can’t remember so much more about this day… I’m starting to forget… I don’t remember the details if I don’t have a picture of it… I really, really need to finish my blog posts asap!!!

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Posted 26 januar 2012 § Food and Drink § Friends § Outfit § Traveling § Tutorial ♕‡ ♕Comments (5) ♕302 views ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

18/19.11.11 Nightlife in Roppongi

Lolllllll, after the responses I got on the last entry about the date format change, I decided to switch back to the old way as it seems like it wasn’t only here in Norway that writes date before month! Thanks for telling me everyone! I like it much better this way anyways, so I’m happy I can have it like this!

About this entry, I finished this entry long time ago – but somehow I had forgot about it and didn’t publish it! Stupid me. But here you go!

I was still a bit tired from our sightseeing in Hakone earlier that day, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to go clubbing. Marcus and I decided to go to Roppongi that night.

The last train to Roppongi was going from our place a little bit after midnight, so I didn’t have time to do anything else than my hair at home. I hurried up, did my hair and packed my makeup. We left our place around 00.00 and took the train to…. somewhere. I can’t remember the name, but I remember we had to walk the rest of the way to Roppongi. Well, walking itself isn’t the biggest problem but walking around in heels that has started to fall off is… not what I prefer to walk with. Gah.

We arrived Roppongi 01:00, found a McDonalds (McD). We sat there and I did my makeup there. It’ surprising how many McDs that exist here! I’ve seen them everywhere, in almost every bigger streeets. And even more surprising, a lot of them are open 24/7.

I…finished my makeup 02:20, loooooooool.

We first went to a bar called Black Horse if I remember right. It was free entrance, but the drinks were rather expensive – not surprisingly. Marcus and I had a lot of fun, and when we finished our drinks we decided to go to an another place. Bar/club jumping, kinda.

While we walked there was a lot of people that tried to convince us to get in to their bar or club. A lot of them will tell you that it’s free entrance, but when you get there they will tell you to pay entrance fee which will include drinks coins/tickets worth the same price as the entrance fee. Which is, well – not exactly what they told us in the beginning. It might sound like a good deal, but in reality you’re actually risking putting your money on something that might suck.

What if you get in and find out that the bar/club isn’t good after all? Then you’re stuck there until you’re finished with your drink(s) AND the drink menu might even be limited for you since you’re paying with drink coins/tickets. So my tip is, if you can’t research in beforehand or haven’t heard any recommendations and need to find something on your own; stay away from those places. Don’t waste your time on such bars/clubs. If the place is good, they wouldn’t have this stupid thing telling people that the entrance is free when it isn’t, simply enough. It’s just a cheap way to get in customers.

Anyways, while Marcus and I walked around, one guy told us to go to his place. It was free entrance and the first drink would be cheap if we brought with us his visit card, he told us. We were thinking, well, it was only a few steps away so why not?

As he said, it was free entrance, and we got drinks at reduced prices with the ticket BUT we could only pick from a few drinks. And of course, all of them really sucked. And there was no one else there but a handful of people either, lol. Super awkward.

Marcus paid the drink with a 5.000 JPY bill, and was promised to get the changes back a little bit later. They explained to him that they didn’t have enough changes. Marcus got served his drink, but did not get the changes back.

Like, isn’t this giving the place a bad impression enough already? I mean, how can a bar NOT have enough changes for 5.000 JPY?????? What if there was a lot of customers there, would they tell everyone to wait for the changes? Would it even be possible to remember how much people are supposed to get back??? I doubt.

When they came back to Marcus they asked if he paid with a 1.000 bill JPY.

No.fucking.way!!!!!! How can they insist on letting their guests wait for their changes, and later not remember how much they have to pay back the guests? For me, this place didn’t seemed serious at all.

Luckily Marcus got his money, and right after we finished the drink we left.

Basically, all we did that night was club/bar jumping – and I saw a lot of stuff.

I have to say that I was very surprised about how different nightlife was in Roppongi than in… let’s say, Shibuya. There was a lot of people being too drunk everywhere… Girls sleeping on the streets, people throwing up in every corner. Well basically, the whole Roppongi smelled like vomit. LOL

At first I got very surprised that people were vomiting in clubs and such, but I got used to it after a while. Really classy, eh?

After a while we went back to Black Horse. It started to get really crowded there and basically people were really drunk. I saw a lot of stuff. People fighting, old man with backpack dancing idk what he did, and so on.

When we got tired, we picked up our stuff in the locker and went to a McD and had breakfast there. I ordered a McMuffin, but it didn’t look like a muffin????????????????? It was more like a burger with sweet bread??? I was expecting a muffin-muffin????

According to Marcus, I nagged about this muffin-burger thing for quite a long time, and I remember that he was really tired of it. Ooops. I was really sad when he told me to stop and just eat it instead, loooool.

Me, being sad, eating this """"""""muffin""""""""""

I still wanna know why they named this thing a muffin!!!!!!!! And since I have a lot of smart readers, maybe some of you know why???

We went home right after the morning trains started to go. I guess I was really tired, because I seriously can’t remember anything after getting on the train.

Anyways, I had a lot of fun with Marcus and this experience was absolutely something I won’t forget – this was a really crazy night. My impression about nightlife in Tokyo is exactly like everywhere else I’ve been – crazy, skanky but totally fun!

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Posted 19 januar 2012 § Food and Drink § Traveling ♕‡ ♕Comments (11) ♕521 views ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,

11.18.11 Hot spring bath and Hakone

 I changed the date format in the blog post headers, as my boyfriend a few weeks ago told me that it’s only in Norway that people write date before month. Thinking that most of my readers are international and I mostly write in English, I guess it’s less confusing the way it is now.

We woke up 08:50, which was really late thinking that we wanted to get up 08:00 soonest. The snooze mode on the phone makes it sooo easy to sleep some more instead of waking up and do all the important things!!

If it wasn’t for that the breakfast in the hotel restaurant was closing 09:00, we would probably sleep some more and not wake up until right before check out time, lol.

We came a few minutes before the restaurants last serving time and got our breakfast served immediately. The meals are prepared in beforehand, which is OK for me as it wasn’t anything that were supposed to be hot or super fresh that we got served.

You can see what we got served on the picture (which I got from ASHINOKO ICHINOYU hotel website) to the left, I have no idea about what most of it was LOL. (click on picture for original source)

It was really good! Like the dinner the day before, this meal was also Japanese. Like I wrote in my last post – I hope I can eat more of this kind of food again. I like eating new and exotic foods, and next time hopefully I will do some research/ask a little bit more so I can learn how to eat it right and what all the different things are. I usually don’t eat the food if I don’t know what it is, but this time I didn’t feel sick or anything (it’s only in my head, but still)- I guess it was too delicious to not eat!

After breakfast we went to the open-air hot spring bath in the hotel. When I got in to the change room, I realized how much it sucked to not know ANY Japanese in Japan. I usually ask Marcus to translate for me, but this time I was alone. I wished I knew some basic Japanese, because I was so confused when I got into the change room. It was a list on the wall which I somehow think was either rules or instructions, which made me even more stressed and not wanting to do anything stupid.

The list was there for a reason, right?

I totally didn’t know what to do.

I wasn’t sure where to store my clothes and such, but in the end I stored them in a basket and hoped I did right. I got out of the change room, and to my surprise it wasn’t anyone there. That means I didn’t need to worry about doing anything stupid in front of anyone! Phew!!

The ladies open-air bath (click on picture for original source)

Marcus was on the other side of the bath, and I heard he spoke to me.  He told me he was alone too. So, even though we were separated, we could still talk to each other without disturbing other people because there was no one there!  :fingerv:

The bath was good and I felt so awake and relaxed after it. I have to admit that I at some point was really worried, tho. The fence around the open air-bath area wasn’t very tall. When I was standing, I could see the top of people heads outside. I mean, what if an taller person walked by? They would be able to see me!

We went back to our hotel room and packed. While I packed, Marcus gave me a little present. I opened it, and it was a jewelry from Swarovski!

I don’t have any clear picture of it while I’m writing this entry, but I took one with my webcam right now:

It matches my ruby ring which he gave me three months earlier! Pretty!!!

We checked out of the hotel and walked back to the bus stop we got off on last night because the harbor was next to it. We had planned to take a boat to the other side of the water.

We were in the blue boat to the left. :) Surprisingly, it was a lot of elder Japanese tourists there. I think I was expecting it to be more western tourists there, and from what I recall - we were the only westerners there lol.

The boat was "pirate" themed :'D There was a "pirat" inside the boat, I wish I took a picture with him :'D

View from the boat

It was extremely windy this day, so we were inside the boat most of the time. Luckily there was a lot of big windows inside the boat so we didn’t miss anything.

When we got off the boat, Marcus and I decided to go to a cafe nearby to get something hot to drink. Oh well, we later found out that it was an restaurant, but it looked more like an cafe and everyone else was ordering coffee and such too.

The name of the restaurant is "Fujimiya"

I had hot chocolate :)

I had a little look inside their menu, and I have to admit that I think their prices are extremely high.  I can’t remember exactly how much I paid for my hot chocolate, but it was expensive enough! Typical tourist places with tourist prices!

The view from the restaurant was really pretty though, so I could still recommend this place for a coffee break.

Some monuments(?) right outside the restaurant/next to the harbor

We took a bus and got off somewhere and…….. took this picture:

Such a unlucky picture of me, but the picture itself is so good so I will publish it anyway~

We wanted to go the ropeway so we took the cable railway (or is it called cable car?).

Cable railway/cable car... thing.

I’m not sure how much time it took, but it felt really long. Especially because we had to stand the whole way. It wasn’t enough seats, gah.

The cable railway map inside the cable cars are the cutest public transport map I’ve seen in my entire life. Some places had small descriptions and drawings that illustrated what activities you could do in that specific stop.

The cable railway map

The view outside the cable railway... Pretty!

Since we sat inside the cable railway for quite a long time (we didn’t go off anywhere to look around, simply because we’re too… lazy?), we got our chance to see a lot of pretty nature.

I have to admit that I wasn’t as much amazed like most of the Japanese tourists were, or…might be they express what they feel in a more noticeable way than I do. lol. Who knows?

It was really pretty, but might be I wasn’t super amazed because Japans nature is not very far away from how Norwegian nature looks. Only with different plants and trees of course. But even though I wasn’t super amazed, I still think it’s really pretty and seriously worth going there to look. It’s really pretty with all the colors… ah, I don’t even know how to describe it – it’s just something you have to see yourself to understand…

We got off in a station that had ropeway over Ōwakudani a few steps away. When we were standing in line, we thought that we had to wait for a long time. But to our surprises we didn’t wait for more than maximum 10 minutes I think. Or, at least it felt so. Might be it was because time flies when I’m with Marcus :hellohjerte:

Hakone ropeway

I guess you can't really see how beautiful this -really- is in this picture, you have to be there yourself to see!

This view of Ōwakudani from the ropeway was so beautiful... Seeing all this BLAHBLAH DON'T KNOW THE NAME OF THE HOT WATER DAMPING VOLCANIC THING made me... speechless? It really made me think that there is so much power in this still "alive" mountain/valley...

We put a coin in a machine thing that made this souvenir coin thing from an ordinary Japanese 100 yen coin!! I know there is many places in the world that has this kind of machines, and I've decided to collect them if I see those machines.

We were so hungry when we got off the ropeway that we decided to eat asap, and not surprisingly there was a restaurant nearby.

"Owakudani Sky Restaurant" was the name of the restaurant

It was really cozy in the restaurant, if you were lucky you could sit next to a window, and from the window you can see a view of Hakone.

As I wrote, we were hungry so we ordered a starter; sausages! hahaha I LOVE SAUSAGES AND THESE WERE DELICIOUS

Lucky me :)

Tempura scampi and miso soup :) It wasn't super special, it was very ordinary. I wouldn't recommend this restaurant if it wasn't for the view, really.

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I think we sat there around one hour, we decided that we wanted to check around. But when we got out, we quickly realized that the wind was so strong that it would be better to not up there in the mountains for so much long. The wind made it feel like it was really cold and my eyes started to get really dry. Besides, it was fog which made the view not as pleasant as it could be too.

We checked around and bought kuro-tamago (black eggs). There is a myth(?) that says that every one egg you eat will add 5 years to your life. Of course I had to buy! It was only 500 JPY.

The paper bag the eggs came in

After buying the eggs we decided to head back home to Tokyo. I slept the whole way home, and we were home 21:00. We decided to eat the eggs~ There was 5 eggs inside the bag.

Black egg!

Inside~ I don't know, I somehow expected it to be super special haha. It sounds so special with black eggs cooked in the volcanic thing that extend your life, but it tasted like ordinary eggs lol. We both ate two eggs and gave the last egg to Marcus roomie~

We  were supposed to see Mt. Fuji while we were in Hakone, but the weather was too bad… I’m actually really sad I couldn’t see it… But hopefully I can see it another time later in my life. I’m still young and I still have many years to live, so there is still an chance?

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Posted 12 januar 2012 § Food and Drink § Traveling ♕‡ ♕Comments (23) ♕599 views ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

17.11.11 First day in Hakone

So yeah, I’m back online!

Happy New Year!

Right now the only thing I have on my mind is to write down stuff asap – sorry I don’t have any time to read over my post, so expect a lot of spelling mistakes and sentences that doesn’t really make any sense!

I’ve also been thinking about writing my blog in Norwegian again, but I’m not sure yet. I enjoy writing in English, but my English is so limited so I can’t really express my thoughts exactly the way I’d like to. Also, I know it would be a lot easier to update more often, because I wouldn’t need to re-read anything and writing would take less time.

I need to think more about it.

Meanwhile, let’s go back to November~

Marcus and I woke up really early (compared to what we were used to) and packed our stuff. This day was a special day, we were going to Hakone to celebrate our anniversary.

We had a fight on our way. I really don’t know why it had to happen at that day, we were supposed to have a really nice time together. I know I was being really whiny, pissed off and such, but… I seriously couldn’t help it. I knew on the inside that I should have ignore it, but I don’t know… I really couldn’t control myself. Thinking about it now, over one month after when I can see things in a different view, makes me feel really ashamed of myself. I remember very well what I felt, I just wish I cold think in a another way. But I think it is a good thing that I’m able to see the situation in a different way today at least. It only means that I’m not closed minded and that I’m willing to learn from my mistakes.

I fell asleep on the train, so the five hour journey didn’t feel that long. I was really sad because of our fight, and I was in a really bad mood.

We took the train to Shinjuku and changed train to… somewhere I can’t remember the name of, and from there we took a bus to Hakone. I was prepared for a more painful journey because of all the transportation changes and such, but I guess having someone with me that knows Japanese makes everything a lot easier. I know for sure I would never be able to find out how to get there by myself.

The bus paying system is different from all other ones I’ve seen when I’ve traveled around. When you get on, you take a ticked which has a number on it. The number is telling which stop you got on. If you get on the bus on the routes fourth stop, you’ll receive a ticket which says that. Inside the bus there is an electronic table that displays how much your ride cost, and the table updates itself so you can easily see how much you have to pay when you get off the bus. All you have to do when getting off the bus, is to have the money and ticket ready and put them in the payment machine thing.

I really don’t know why more buses use this system, as it would save so much time for everyone. The bus driver don’t have to deal with any money or tickets, people can easily see how much money they have to pay for the ride and everyone would be happy.

I also really don’t know why I’m writing about this bus thing, it’s not like it’s super interesting and my English is so limited so I can’t really explain in a understandable way how the paying system really worked.

lol, I’m such a loser.

BUT!!! I find this system really smart and I wish we had the same paying/ticket system in buses here too.

We got off the bus in the end station if I remember right, and it felt like we were in a deserted place. It was totally dark, we didn’t know where we were and it was so cold. We walked, and luckily we found a tourist information map. Marcus recognized where we was and he knew we was really close to the hotel we had booked.

I was expecting the hotel to be far away from the bus stop, but it was actually only around 10-15 minutes of walking. When we got there my first impression was that the hotel was quite small and cozy. For those who are interested, the name of the hotel we booked is ASHINOKO ICHINOYU. The hotel had a lot of information in English and one of the receptionists spoke English.

Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the hotel, I'm borrowing two pictures I found on their website (click on pictures for original source)

This hotel had two types of room available, Japanese and Western style. We booked Japanese style. The room had an really relaxing atmosphere and nice details, here are some pictures I took:

The beds, after Marcus pushed them together lol

We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant, which served traditional Japanese food. Too bad I didn’t take any pictures of that either, but here are two pictures I found on their website:

The hotel restaurant

The food we got served (click on the pictures for original source and for more information)

The food was included in our hotel stay, and it was really good! I guess it can’t get any more Japanese than this. It was so many different things which I hadn’t tasted before. I would love to eat this again!

We went back to our room and talked… We talked about our problems and after a while we talked about our childhood. There are so many things we still don’t know about each other. We always talk about our future, but rarely about our past. We were didn’t sleep before 05.30, which was a really bad idea as we had to check out early in the morning.

But hey, this was an conversation we really needed. I know I don’t regret…

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Posted 06 januar 2012 § Food and Drink § Personal § Traveling ♕‡ ♕Comments (30) ♕642 views ° Tagged: , , , , , , ,