Early in 2018, a permanent Pokémon Café opened in Tokyo, and I was lucky enough to be able to visit it when I was in Japan! It’s been just about a year since I went, but I’m finally getting around to sharing my impressions… with lots of photos, of course!
Read MoreContinuing my series of Tokyo trip coverage, I’ve posted a video of all the stationery I bought when I was there! Check it out below!
One of my favorite purchases was the Nintendo Badge Arcade sticker book, which comes with 301 different stickers modeled after Nintendo Badge Arcade badges! I had no idea they even made one until I saw it in a book store at Narita airport when we were heading back to Australia. Talk about lucky! If you want to order one, they’re available to ship internationally on Amazon Japan.
Forgive me for not including extra photos of my stationery in this post, but I’m running behind on some things and didn’t get a chance to take them this time. I’ll be including stationery from my Tokyo trip in photos I post to my Instagram account over the next couple of days, so please head there if you’d like to see more!
Finally, if you haven’t seen my Tokyo games haul video and post yet, be sure to check it out!
For the second post in my 2017 Japan Trip series, I’m sharing my video game haul! I mostly wanted to get this one out of the way so I could open up all my games and start playing them… Such is the way of the blogger! If you’re eager to see more posts about where I went in Japan, don’t worry, more will be coming soon.
In total, I picked up 18 games while I was in Tokyo, and the vast majority are otome games. Like my previous Tokyo DisneySea post, I’ve made a video in addition to my usual photos and text for folks who like to watch haul videos. Check it out below!
I’m thrilled to kick of my Tokyo 2017 series with one of my favorite days of the trip – Tokyo DisneySea! I’d never been to Tokyo DisneySea before, so when I started planning this trip, it was very high on my to-do list. Disney parks are especially magical during the holiday season with the special decorations and shows they put on, and DisneySea was no different!
On my last trip to Japan, I pledged that I wouldn’t leave the country before visiting the Kit Kat Chocolatory, a one-of-a-kind store in Tokyo that sells Kit Kat flavors you can’t find anywhere else. Well, a whole year and a half later, I’m happy to say I did visit it, and I even tried some of their special edition flavors!
Back when I wrote about the Hello Kitty regional Blendy stick a few months ago, I resigned myself to never being able to try them due to their limited distribution even though I was traveling to Japan. Imagine my surprise, then, when I ran into some at a souvenir shop that specialized in food at Tokyo Solamachi! Of course, I was utterly thrilled and proceeded to buy them immediately.
Interestingly, the only flavor this particular shop stocked was the Tochiotome Au Lait from Tochigi prefecture, which is north of Tokyo. As you can probably tell from the packaging, Tochiotome is a type of strawberry that is particularly famous in Tochigi prefecture. Though I’ve eaten my fair share of Japanese strawberries, I don’t know if I’ve ever tried the Tochiotome variety, but I can say that Japanese strawberries are some of the juiciest, most flavorful berries I’ve ever had!
Each regional Hello Kitty Blendy stick box comes with 10 individually-wrapped packets for 10 cups of strawberry au lait. I believe I paid ¥600 (more or less $6), which might be a tad pricey for this sort of instant drink, but I was happy to spend a little extra for a region-exclusive item.
According to the back of the box, there is a special monkey trainer Hello Kitty design that, if you’re lucky, you’ll find on one of the packets in the box. A quick Google search tells me that Tochigi is famous for a theme park that used to have monkey troupe performances that closed in 2013, but will have a memorial hall opening this October. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky enough to get the special design!
I didn’t expect the box to reveal a cutout of Hello Kitty’s face when opened! It’s products like this that really showcase the amazing attention to detail and presentation you’ll find in even the most mundane items in Japan. Limited edition packaging is certainly a surefire way to get me to buy an instant drink I would normally pass over in a shop!
Unfortunately, while the strawberry Hello Kitty adorning the box and packets is all-around adorable, the drink itself wasn’t particularly impressive. The Tochiotome strawberry flavor was definitely strong and sweet, but I don’t think strawberry au lait is really my drink of choice.
Sure, it would be great if the drink itself was as thrilling as the packaging, but I’m still very happy that I was able to try one of the regional Hello Kitty Blendy stick flavors! Though I couldn’t find a seller that ships the Tochiotome au lait internationally, there is one that stocks the Hokkaido café au lait! I may have to give that a try…