Day 12: Shinkansen to Kyoto

Today we went to Kyoto, we used the shinkansen (bullet train) which travels from Osaka to Kyoto in just 15 minutes. The interior of the train kind of looks like an airplane, but as we had non-reserved seats we could pick where we wanted to sit. During the trip you can buy some candy and drinks from a trolley (on longer trips the trolley passes by multiple times).

My original plan was to take the bus from Kyoto station to our hotel. However, as we had quite a lot of luggage we decided to use a taxi (2 taxis actually, as everything did not fit in 1).

We checked in at the Apa Gion hotel, but as we were still too early to enter our room we stored our luggage there and went on our way to explore Kyoto.
Our first destination was the Golden Pavilion, as the name suggests it is a big gold building in a huge garden. The entrance is a bit confusing, you have to pay an entrance fee, but the fee that is on display is not the one you have to pay if you only want to see the pavilion (the actual fee is lower, and I'm not sure what the more expensive one is for). After paying you are handed a ticket, that you give back almost immediately again.

The Pavilion is right at the beginning of the garden, but you are send on the long route by staff. Being the nature loving people we joined a group of people just emerging from their garden walk and went straight to the Pavilion. We were pretty disappointed, the Pavilion was smaller than expected and just did not give us the wow vibe, so after taking some photos we left again to search for Mimuro, a kimono store I wanted to visit.

I had read about Mimuro online, as I was searching for a good place to buy a silk kimono. We had to search for a while, as there weren't that many route guides online, but we did find it eventually. Upon entering the shop we were enthusiastically greeted by an elderly woman, who showed us around on the ground floor. This level holds yukata including special yukatas for taller and/or bigger people.
As I was planning on buying a silk kimono we moved to the first floor. This floor is a lot bigger, with stacks of kimono everywhere. The shop lady explained what kinds of kimono were sold on this floor and in which price ranges. I explained that I would like a kimono for more formal occasions, thus she showed me a few furisode with shorter sleeves. While I was looking through the different colors and motifs another man showed a furisode with longer sleeves, but as this was even more formal (and I felt I wouldn't get that much wear out of it) so I decided to stick for the slightly less formal furisode.
I decided I wanted a pink kimono and found a beautiful salmon one whit a blue print at the bottom. The sales assistant showed me how to put on the kimono and what I needed to complete the outfit, which included a silk kimono where I settled for a nice red one. I ended up whit a huge pile of kimono items.
If you ever decide you want to buy a new kimono I would definitely advice to go to this shop!

We decided to return to the hotel to store my new purchases there and put our luggage in the room. The hotel is conveniently located bordering Gion, so we had decided to have dinner there. But, it seemed like Gion was deserted! As there wasn't much activity here and it seemed like a lot of shops were closed we chose to first go to the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine (or the gate shrine as we conveniently called it) and find a place to eat afterwards.

As you might have already guessed we aren't really the temple/shrine loving kind of people, however we really like the Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine. The atmosphere is great, especially when it is getting dark and the lanterns are lighted. We walked around the premises a lot, took many photos and bought our own lucky torii!

The plan to find a nice place after the temple visit didn't really work out that well, the places we could find did not look or smelled good. So we went to the one place you can find nearly everywhere, yes you've guessed right, McDonalds.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 11: Cat Cafe

We started this day with breakfast at McDonalds, where I had some kind of green drink. It tasted awful, but at least it looked cute. As we had no real plans for this day I had asked if we could return to Maiden Clothing for some more shopping.

On our way to the shop we passed a sign that started meowing when you walked past it. As big cat lovers we were naturally drawn to the sign, but as I had set my mind to shopping we first went on to Maiden Clothing. One of the things that I bought at Maiden Clothing was a Musee du Chocolat Switching JSK, that I instantly fell in love with. Of course with the Big Step building being right across the street we played some more pinball.
We went back to the cat cafe, with the bad experience from Seoul fresh in our minds. However, this cafe was way better, the cats were relaxed and really enjoyed to play. You pay for one drink, which is served in really cute cups, and an entrance fee and can stay for up to one hour. You are also handed a small amount of cat treat, we were quickly surrounded by a big group of cats hat were all trying to steal the snacks. We managed to stay the full hour (normally we aren't patient enough).

We had dinner in a conveyer belt sushi restaurant, and got an ice cream from a vending machine.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 10: Lolita Shopping

Today we went on a lolita shopping journey, as I'm aware that not all of my readers are that interested in lolita stores I will give a brief description here and link to my lolita blog for further reading (just click on the brand name to be directed to the right page). As AP had released a collaboration with Disney yesterday we started at the Disney store. I wanted to buy the beret and dress. When we arrived at the Disney store I found out that both the dress and beret were sold out :( As I loved the series and didn't want to leave empty handed I bought a necklace, bracelet, tights and a bear dress (it is the same as the human sized dress, but you can use it to dress up your Disney bear).
After leaving the Disney store our first destination was Maiden Clothing, a secondhand shop that sells used clothing. I had already read on internet that you had to use the green elevator to get to the store. However, upon finding the sign outside we could not locate a green elevator, there was another normal grey elevator that we used and also led to Maiden Clothing. I was really disappointed, there were hardly any lolita dresses in the store, so we left pretty quickly. But to our great surprise we found another sign for Maiden Clothing, in front of the building next to the one we just entered. Here we did find the green elevator, and upon exiting it I entered lolita heaven. Lets just say I spent a good few hours browsing all the dresses and left with a few shopping bags ;).
Our next destination was BtSSB, as the atmosphere wasn't at all welcoming here we did not spend much time here but decided to go to Angelic Pretty.
The Angelic Pretty store was easily recognizable by the pink storefront. The shop girl here was pretty friendly, but there wasn't anything I really liked so I left quite soon to continue my journey to Innocent World.
Innocent World being one of my favorite brands I felt right at home, and left with a pretty big bag filled with lolita items.
Next on my list was Metamorphose, but on our way there we passed the Big Step building, where the Kera shop is located. At the Kera shop I bought the newest GLB and another older one. On our way back to the exit of the Big Step building we passed a hall filled with pinball machines, varying from quite recent to really old ones. We spent a lot of time trying out various pinball machines. While my father continued playing on the machines, my mom and I went downstairs to buy some gashapon (those eggs with toys in them). My mom chose a gashapon with angry cat key chains and I picked a Sylvanian Families one.

After we had all finished playing on the pinball machines we went to look for the Meta store, which was quite hard to find, but we did find it in the end.
On our way back to the hotel we also passed Bodyline, as it was right on our route we decided to see what they offered. And I actually left with a few items.
After recharging a bit in the hotel we left again to stroll around the busy shopping streets, when shops started to close we went to the same okonomiyaki place as yesterday, but contrary to yesterday we had to queue to get in. Luckily it was only a short wait and we were soon enjoying our meal.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 9: Universal Studios Osaka

Today we were going to Universal Studios! We had planned to leave at 7:30 am, but we were all already awake at 5 am. So we decided to get ready and leave, arriving at the Universal gates at 7 am.

At this time there was already a small queue that we joined. We had already read that the park opened earlier than the official Park opening times, but we had not expected that there would already be such a crowd at this time (the parks official opening time was 9 am).

A bit before 8 am we were allowed to enter, our JR tickets got changed into the real Universal tickets and we were free to explore the Universal World.

I had read that you had to get tickets for Harry potter world, so I run to the ticket machines. Like a mad man I sprinted past and together with the Japanese people. However, after a short sprint I found myself standing in front of the entrance gate of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter area. I was kind of confused, until a staff member congratulated me on entering the Harry Potter area. Turned out I had placed an Olympic record for nothing ;).  My parents quickly joined me and after taking some photos we entered the area to join our first queue.

We decided to first enter the queue for Ollivanders, and after a short wait we could enter. It was funny to experience the wand choosing, but unless you get chosen it is not very exciting, I would definitively skip this if there were a long queue. Of course I could not leave the Ollivanders wand shop without buying a wand, so I bought the one from Hermione Granger. It was still pretty quiet in the Harry Potter world so we were able to take many pictures and film quite a lot.

After the Ollivander shop we decided to go to the Hogwarts experience. However, on our way to the attraction we passed some toilets and as we were expecting to wait some time in a queue we decided to use them. Of course when you enter a toilet in the Harry Potter world there is one thing that cannot be excluded... Yes, you could hear Moaning Myrtle being her irritating self!

On to the attraction, this was the first time we experienced Universals weird timing system. According to them we would have to wait 150 minutes for this ride, but in the end we did not even have to wait for 60 minutes. The queuing area takes you through the Hogwarts green house, and eventually leads you into the Hogwarts building.

Once inside you are handed a paper that kind of looks like a newspaper article, we weren't completely sure what use it had, but we just followed the Japanese people. It turned out that the papers were just to distinguish who had not yet gone on the ride from who had, as there were lockers in this area (everything in Harry Potter style of course) and ingoing and outgoing people got together here. After handing back our "newspaper" we finally really got to enter Hogwarts. This is actually just an extension of the queue, but there is a lot to see here, so times seems to fly. I really loved to see all the rooms from the movies, and it was pretty amusing to hear the characters speak Japanese. The rooms finally led to the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey attraction. You take place in a row of 4 seats, that kind of look like school benches. The Benches start to "fly", they are placed on an arm, that is placed on a rails, making it possible to move pretty freely. The attraction uses both movies and real props to create a sense of flying through various scenes whit Harry Potter and his friends. The real story is a bit vague (if there even is one), you start out being chased by a dragon, into the forbidden forest were big spiders are approaching you (yay for fear for spiders -.-'), and suddenly are part of a quidditch game. All of a sudden there are dementors chasing you across the quidditch field. When you are completely surrounded by dementors (I really have to give credits to whomever designed the dementor props, they really gave me a chill) the dragon suddenly turns up again. You end up escaping the dragon and the ride ends...
As my mom has motion sickness we had agreed to meet her back once we finished the attraction, giving her a chance to explore some other parts of the Harry Potter area. As she did not know what everything was she decided to just join a random queue and see where she would end up. It turned out she had joined a queue for Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (Smekkies in Alle Smaken in Dutch). Somewhere in the queue she was handed a piece of paper whit something written in Japanese on it, whit a bit of asking around she found out that you could only buy one box per person and this way they knew who had not yet bought one.

We all met again at the exit of the Harry Potter ride, where I bought the ride photo and a hair bow with a dragon on top. The shop offered a lot of cute wearable merchandise, so I tried on a few different options.

We wanted to try Butterbeer and my dad wanted the souvenir cup, so we waited in another queue (not that long this time). While we were waiting a Hogwarts student choir was performing.

After buying some butter beer we left Harry potter world and moved on to see if there were still biohazard tickets available. To my great enjoyment they were still being distributed, so we quickly joined the queue for a ticket. The return time was 17:00-17:30. It was around 10 am now, so we still had more than enough time to do whatever else we wanted.
First we went to the hello kitty area, as that was our original reason for going to universal. The Hello Kitty area is in the Kiddy zone, next to Sesame Street and Snoopy.

The Hello Kitty area was pretty easy to recognize, as everything was decorated in a bright pink color. There were a few shops here, a kiddy ride and the photo "attraction". Our first and main goal was the photo, so we went inside one of the bright pink buildings and waited in line.

In the first part of the queue you can see a few paintings of Hello Kitty inspired outfits.

At the end of this first queue a staff member was waiting to inviting you to Hello Kitty's party, she just needed to know what name to put on the invitation (if you are in a party with multiple people only one person is allowed to give their name). After being added to the invitation list you are allowed to enter the next room. This room is basically a playroom, giving kids a chance to let of some steam after the first wait and allowing us adults to take some cute photos.

As you've probably already guessed once you leave this room you enter in a new queue. Luckily there are a lot of Hello Kitty themed things to see here, so the wait doesn't feel that long.

Once you pass this queue the name you gave in the beginning is announced and you pass on to a new room, where Hello Kitty is waiting. There is a member of the staff making photos and giving comments on how to pose. They really take their time and it doesn't feel rushed, resulting in a few really awesome photos!

The Hello Kitty shop was mainly focused on kids, so there wasn't that much for us to buy, but I did end up buying a Hello Kitty Halloween dust plug for my phone. My mom wanted to buy a Hello Kitty shopping bag she had seen people carry around, and this seemed the most logical place to find it. However, it turned out that they were not sold in this shop (we were able to buy it in a different shop later on). After going inside the Snoopy land we left the Kiddy area to find a place to eat (we skipped the Sesame Street area).

I love themed cafes/restaurants, so I really liked the American dinner place in Universal Studios. Sadly, it was really crowded so we couldn't find a place to sit (seating in self-service restaurants was a real problem in Universal, mainly because people seemed to use the places as a lounging area, without eating or drinking anything, we even saw some people sleeping at the tables :o). Because of the seating problem previously described we decided to try our luck at a table service restaurant. We choose a nice looking pizza restaurant, and were seated with a minimal wait.

We wanted to order 3 cheese pizzas (in Holland it is pretty normal to eat a pizza per person as the pizzas aren't that big here), but when we tried to order them, the waitress told us we could only order 2. We never really found out why, the waitress only kept repeating that was enough, okay... :p In defense the pizzas tasted awesome!

All filled up again we headed to the Jurassic Park attraction. We passed the Jaws attraction that we decided to skip because it didn't really interest us. On our way we also passed some kind of stage for the One Piece events.

The wait time was doable so we joined the queue, however halfway through the queue the attraction broke down. Do not expect any kind of information in English in these situations. After about 10 minutes the ride was once again working and we could board pretty soon.

I had read online that Japanese people did not like to get wet on attractions, which I found to be both true and untrue. It was true because we were joined in the front seat by 2 Japanese people in raincoats, and untrue because we got soaking wet from the final drop (which lifted this attraction from a 6/10 to an 8/10 for me :D). Of course there was a shop right after the attraction, where we could not stop ourselves from trying on some hats.

As it started to rain we decided to find shelter at the Snoopy self-service restaurant (the only place we found a free table haha). They sell delicious milk shakes and cute Snoopy themed food. The cheesecake was awesome, though the filled bread was a bit dull.

We also went on the Spiderman and Space Fantasy rides. With both attractions we used the single riders line, this is a special line for (as the name suggests) single riders. It is used to fill up the single spaces that would normally be left empty. This means that if you go in this line with multiple people you will probably end up separated. It is a bit of a gamble if this line is useful, but we found that we could board the attractions in mere minutes (while the normal wait was at least 60 minutes).
The Spiderman attraction was kind of constructed like the Harry Potter attraction, with a buggy moving from movie clips (but this time in 3D) to real life surroundings. It was quite amusing, but I wouldn't wait in the normal queue for it.
The Space Fantasy ride was way more amusing than I would have expected, it kind of felt like riding the Space Mountain in Disney, but the carts turned on the rails so that you could see all the scenery.
As we had done about everything what we wanted to do we decided to return to the Biohazard attraction. We returned a bit too early, thus we had to wait outside. However, it offered us an opportunity to look at the building that we later had to enter. I really loved the details, like bloody hands and bullet holes on the windows. On top of that, we found out it had been really essential to line up for tickets because several people were turned down because they were completely sold out of tickets.
When we finally could join the queue we were informed you could not wear heels on the attraction, but luckily for the people who did they offered rental shoes xD. My first impression when we could finally enter the building (you first queue outside) was pretty disappointing, there was little theming here. After a small queue you get an (Japanese) explanation about how the guns work. Luckily it isn't that hard, you pull back to reload after which you can shoot one bullet. There is a number on the display that indicates how many bullets you have left. On the display is also a health bar, which slowly decreases as you advance through the attraction.
I was glad to see that after the little gun explanation you advance into the "undergrounds" to the Umbrella headquarters, the whole thing feels really eerie and put you in the moot for some zombie shooting. At the "headquarters" everyone is handed a gun (you had to hand the ones from before back) and a leader is urging you to step inside the attraction (at least that is what I think he was doing, because I actually have no idea what they were yelling :P). You move through the attraction in groups of about 8 mainly screaming, people. When everyone has entered the first zombies start to pop up, which results in a lot of screaming, running after the "leader" guy, and just complete chaos. They also did little performances, for example where a zombie would jump over a bar and pull a "random person" (of course someone from the cast) with him on to bar to start chewing on him. Everywhere I looked there were zombies popping up, from in front and behind you (I really wonder how many people hit the actors by accident :o). There were also some mini-bosses, where we were urged to kneel down, because they used special attacks. New on Biohazard 2 was that they had reload points, where you could get new ammo or health, it was a nice add-on which gave you more of a feeling of really being in a game. In one of the last rooms our health was checked and most of us were "infected", except for 3 people, one being my dad. We were led in 2 different rooms. The room my mom and I went in was bare, but we could look through a window and see the 3 survivors doing something with a machine, after which the window showed the message "you are dead" and we were fried (not literally of course, but there was hot air being blown in the room, so the scare effect still was there). Later on my dad told me what was going on in the other room. They had to enter a secret code (that of course no one knew) to get to the zombie cure, but by entering the wrong code humanity was lost. Even though we could see them, they could not see us, and were thus not aware that we could see their every move :p.
After the attraction I wanted to check out the Biohazard store, where I got myself an Umbrella members pass whit my photo and we all went on a Biohazard attraction photo.

After Biohazard we exited USJ, made some photos with the globe and went back to central Osaka.

We had dinner at a nearby Okonomiyaki restaurant, where we also got to try Takoyaki. Everything was really delicious, but you do need a bit of patience because preparation time for the Okonomiyaki is about 15 minutes.

All photos can be found at my flickr page