I've been quite sentimental lately about Japan and my trip there last year. Isn't it always like that? How you really start appreciating how good something actually was, sometime later after it happened? I love looking at photos from there, and I can really remember the feeling I felt when I took it. The smells, the sounds, the air, even my mood that day. Many of these photos are from around Kyoto, both from Gion - the traditional geisha district - and the Fushimi Inari shrine, and the days we spent there were easily some of the highlights of the trip.

I'm definitely going back there someday, Japan is by far my favorite country and I felt so at home when I lived there. I miss my host family as well, the district I lived in, my class at the school, evenings in Shinjuku, the trains, the polite people. All those stereotypical things that don't get enough credit for how amazing they actually are. Everyone should go to Japan at least once and experience that, it's absolutely marvelous.

Here is some pictures from the area I lived in. It sure brings back memories!

So in the beginning of this year I wrote an entry about a web shop which sells second hand with japanese street style in focus. You can read more about the shop here, but today I'll show you how to buy from the shop, since this was requested. I'm not going to actually pay for anything, just do a little tutorial through the process. I haven't bought anything from this shop before so I can't for sure answer every question about everything, but I'll do my best to make everything little bit clearer. :)



So here is my example item that I'm going to "buy". After making sure that the size is right and the condition is as you wish, you'll put it in your cart by pressing the カートに入れる-button. Simple as that!



So after pressing the "add to the cart"-button, this is where you'll come. If you want to continue shopping, you simply click on the 買い物を続けるtext, otherwise you'll click on レジに進む, which means "go to payment".
Something that can feel a bit confusing is to, in my case, see the 13,200 yen-text inside the right side circle. This doesn't mean that you have to pay 13,200 yen, it just tells you that you need to by things for another 13,200 yen to get free shipping, which you get when you buy for over 20 000 yen. The ordinary shipping is on 500 yen for oversea costumers.



As usual when you're going to buy anything from a web shop, you'll be asked to register/log in before purchasing, or just buy without registering. If you have an account on Usagiyouhinten, you can write in your registered e-mail and password in the first two first boxes. (メールアドレス=mail address, パスワード=password. Knowing katakana is very handy here!)
If you don't have an account, 初めての方 is where you'll look. The left button is for those who wish to register on the site, and the right is if you just want to buy without any register. Option 2 is what I'll go for this time.



Time to fill in some information. Please feel free to ask me if something is hard to understand.

So yesterday I, Lina, her sister Hanna and her mother went to Shinjuku and visited a Cat Cafe. Yep, a cafe full of cats. This cafe had around 30 if I remember it right, and I got the feeling it was a little bit too much for the cats themselves to feel comfortable with it. We visited Calico Cat Cafe in Shinjuku, and they had two floors with, of course cats, and some other things to do. They have free manga to borrow, a TV with Wii and a separate room for eating. They didn't have much to choose from when it comes eating/drinking, but since people probably go there for the cats and not the food, more wasn't really necessary.
My first impression was that the employed were really kind and used to foreigners, and that every room smelled like cat-pee. The hygiene was overall good, and it was very important to change shoes and wash your hands before entering, but the smell wasn't very nice. However you got used to it after a while, and the room where you ate were perfectly fine. :)
I feel a little bit sorry for the cats though. They really didn't seemed to be happy at all. No one even looked at the toys when someone tried to play with them, and they really seemed to unlike being touched. The only time they came close when you fed them with (very dry) chicken. So you can say that the love felt a bit fake haha.
Though it was an interesting experience to do, and we concluded that we're going to visit another one in Ikebukuro another time, which only have around 13 cats and seem overall better than this one. When that time comes, I promise to bring my real camera and make an entry about that as well.

Here is some pictures from the day! And sorry for the bad quality, but at least it is something.