Hello!!
SO today was the first full day in Japan and we decided to head to shinjuku where the first activity of the day would not be breakfast but rather it would be me finally getting to visit a cat cafe!!
So we cautiously bought our subway ticket bc it was honestly so confusing at first so we asked the guy at the ticket booth instead... so embarrassing as well because my mum made ME do it omfg pls let me go back to being a child

Anyway, we got on the JR line and headed to Shinjuku. Got off at the main exit and went searching for the cat cafe location, we walked the wrong direction at first lmao
but eventually we found it haha
it was on the 3rd level?? I think :S
My mum is deathly afraid of cats so I had to go in alone :( which is so sad lmao
I just sat there at first and took pics of the cats.... they totally ignored me and didn't let me pet them like bruh these cats are legit so spoilt they don't even care about visitors which is sad bc i wanted them to love me just a lil bit ya know
I spent a whole hour in there to fulfil the 1000 yen starting price cos I wasn't really guna pay all the extra fees lolol
Left and met with my mum lol i feel so bad that she couldn't come but she was happy enough that I could have fun and she could be the FK away from all the cats LOL

Next destination would be to go to CoCo Ichibanya to eat curry!!!! I was so eggcited bc I have been wanting to eat this for such a long time. LIKE literally since 2012 (which is when I saw it in itsjudyslife's japan vlog) - I even saw the franchise in Shanghai BUT i resisted and was like I NEED TO EAT IT WHEN IN TOKYO LOL
So yeah it didn't disappoint, it was so delicious ~_~

After eating, it was basically time to walk around Shinjuku to buy things and such
I wanted to go to Donkiquote and Tokyo Hands - took so long to find each location... we got lost so many times haha we have the worst sense of direction!!! My legs died so hard omg
TOKYO HANDS IS AMAZING I CAN'T BELIVE THEIR VARIETY!!! and Donkiquote is crazy packed with so many things, anything you can imagine, they have it (bought so much makeup from there omgad)
Also got to try Cremia!! which was the soft serve icecream that has 25% more cream than other soft serves. It came with ice coffee and we also ordered a slice of cake.

At this point, my lactose intolerance was at an all time high :(
Decided to do more shopping at a Hello Kitty gift gate haha i went crazy in there and i mean it SEEMED like i only had a few things but it ended up costing quite a bit >_<

Had dinner at Ippudo and my god it was the best tasting bowl of ramen in my life!!!! There were so many choices for dinner and wowe if we had a few more days in Japan I would've totally gone back to eat there again
After we ate we just decided to head back to our hotel in Asakusabashi
Bought some snacks at the convenience store as usual
And yeah!! Day one of Japan complete!! :)
Be happy and goodnight




i'm one month behind on blogging and i want to rip out my eyes
I HATE when this happens but my life is too hectic right now and when it wasn't I was a lazy poop
so essentially i hate myself
: (

Hello
So my dad came around to our Hotel and was basically going to take us to the airport. We ate some breakfast before leaving and it was just a basic Shanghainese breakfast but I was so sick that I couldn't keep much down. I made the mistake of eating the Xiao Long Bao... I was basically only eating it because I knew this would be my last time in China eating it before I go to Japan and eventually back to Sydney. So I went to town and ate like 5... but then it's like filled with an oily soup inside so... that's not good for my sensitive stomach.

Went back to our hotel to get our luggage and decided to check out of our hotel. There was literally no taxis... it's so hard to hail taxis in Shanghai lately and I don't understand why...
SO, guess what we had to do???
We had to wheel our heavy ass luggage all the way to the freaking train station which is a 15-20minute walk. WE WERE SWEATING SO HARD BY THE END OF IT.
Caught a train and yeah thank god there was seats lol.
Once we got there, we checked in and there was some issues with something in our main luggage and we had to take out a phone and a portable charger. We looked like we had done something wrong LOL.
Ate some snacks and then headed inside the gate. Said bye to my dad haha he is going to stay in Shanghai for another 3 weeks basically.
My mum and I went in to the beauty duty free shops and such. I decided to spend our last bits of chinese RMB (yuan) on Starbucks. Bought a "tall" raspberry passion shaken iced tea which is size small for normal english speakers LOL, a red bean cake (for my mum) and a warmed up Caesar wrap. Cost us a total of 69 Yuan (equivalent to $13.57) which is so cheap!!!!!!
The caesar wrap was bomb diggity like damn it tasted so good and so did the passion iced tea!!!! and so did my mum's red bean cake thing... like wowe I'm like now a total Starbucks convert.
Finally got onto our flight and we walked on!! What!? I have never done that...and the whole flight.. all the speaking it was all Japanese lol holy shit.
It was also only legit a 3hour flight but they served us lunch!!! WHAT??? And it tasted so decent... and the food had a "keep warm" hot plate under it and it was REAL cutlery (not plastic shit).
Wowe... JAL was impressive.

Once we touched down... smelt so different which was a given but yeah immediately everyone's so polite and everything's so neat lolol.
It's so scary when the language barrier hits you when you're in a foreign country... It's actually TERRIFYING LOL...  Thankfully this woman at the counter was super helpful and sent us on the right subway to get to Asakusabashi which was where our hotel was.
The train ride was hella long and it was anxious times because my mum and I kept doubting whether or not we were on the right subway line... :\
Also the whole time I was on the subway, I kept thinking in my mind "OMG I'M IN JAPAN I'M ON THE SUBWAY, THERE'S ACTUAL JAPANESE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF ME AND NEXT TO ME OMF OMG FOMGOMG OMMG OMG WHAT OMG" LOL like literally that was all I was thinking

Anyway we got to the station and MY MUM TRIPPED OVER OUR BIGGEST LUGGAGE
I DIDN'T STOP LAUGHING FOR 30MINUTES OMFG HILARIOUS - I still find it funny til this day (14.08.16)

Put our stuff away then headed outside to the LAWSONS across the street to buy some food. We went in flip flops lol it was so embarrassing because we looked so crap. As soon as I entered the convenience store... I regretted my shoe choice SO HARD... >_>

Anyway yeah we showered and settled in + ate some of our food + used the crappy ass hotel wifi
Then slept in our tiny ass japanese hotel bed (more like motel if you ask me tbh)
Be happy and goodnight







Hello
Today we headed out bright and early to catch a bus?? that would take my dad, mum and I to the grave of my late grandpa. It was a really long ride and I must say these ladies that were on the bus with us, did not stop talking for the whole trip. I have never been with people who had as much to talk about as they did. I was half sleeping the whole trip but because of their obnoxious voices I could not achieve a full nap... It was the most annoying thing but thankfully, there was air-con on the mini-bus/van.

Finally got there, bought flowers and the pot in which we would burn the "money" and message to my grandpa. We sat down and properly written down our names as a notifier of our presence and who was giving the "money".
We walked there and started to clean despite how hot it was. We put down the flowers and set out the candles then started to burn the incense. It was also really windy so the candles' flame kept getting blown out so we had to keep relighting it.

You know what was the hardest thing? Every time I get there I automatically just start tearing and even writing this recount I'm bawling my eyes out as I type this. And the tears really came around when my dad burst out crying as he was talking to his dad and saying that "We [our family] were doing really well and he didn't need to worry at all" and in that moment I just extremely missed my grandpa. I miss him so much everyday for my sake and my dad's. I feel like the only person who really honestly and truly cared about my dad was his own dad... and his dad is not even around to see my dad living a comfortable, easy life (finally).

Any way back to the recount.
We held the incense and bowed to tell our message to grandpa, once we were done with three bows, we stuck the incense into the part between the candles. Once we had finished doing that, we all started to give the "money" into the fire so my grandpa has money to spend in his afterlife so he can rest comfortably...
Any way we did some more cleanup and spent a little more time there then decided to leave. My dad said a few last words before leaving and yeah.
We headed back to the point where we would wait for our bus to come and pick us up.

On the way back, the ladies started up again and didn't stop talking. I just tried to sleep the entire time.
We went to my grandma's place to cool down and eat some watermelon but also basically to see her one last time since we were leaving to go to Japan tomorrow.
Once we finished chilling out and everything, we decided to leave and head back to my uncle's place to have dinner. Sadly yesterday's cake that my mum bought created a huge reaction between my mum and I; we were both suffering from extremely upset stomachs where any food that we ingested would not want to stay in and basically just kept getting massive stabbing pains... >_>
The food my uncle cooked was so good but I was just in no condition to eat it which was pretty sad in my opinion.

My uncle's cat for the whole duration of our dinner was so scared, it refused to move. My uncle's cat is THE definition of "scaredy cat". Once people are over, it stays in one place without moving for however many hours they decide to stay. When we were finally leaving... the pressure of so many people walking out got it so scared that it jumped out and ran onto the balcony. My uncle had to hold it facing a wall HAHAHA. It was so cute how it had to be held but then my grandfather taunted it lol and it went ballistic to the point where it cut my uncle deeply in his hand... >_>

After that we walked to our hotel, and my uncle walked my mum and I back to our hotel. Once we got there we got to packing the majority of things so tomorrow would be easy sailing.
Another travel day tomorrow!!
Be happy and goodnight <3



Helllo
Went to Jing An Si to the Mcdonalds to see if they had the toys that I wanted lol ofc that would be my purpose...
But they didn't have it in stock (they only had two and i bought em) so then we told them to order it lolol
Then we left to go walk around and stuff, it was so hot so we popped into Haagen Dazs again because we hadn't gone as a family yet

We were basically eating and waiting til lunch because we were meeting a long time family friend who used to work with my mum. Her name is Kris and yeah we basically had lunch with her in this fancy as heck place. She's also pregnant so we got her a gift (cute bear themed overalls hehe and little booties). Ate there and the food was pretty nice but I must say I didn't like the fish soup at all... it was gross :( But everything else was really nice. I didn't even get the chance to take any pictures because the restaurant was so fancy that whipping out a camera would be so inappropriate.
Also the toilets in the shopping centre that the restaurant was situated in were next level... like wow...it was so clean and smelt amazing... lolol i am literally GUSHING about a public restroom in a shanghai shopping centre LOL

After that we headed to Zhong Shan Park to the shopping centre there because I wanted to get some bras from Gujin. The bra fitter was...let's just say..."very hands on" LOOOOL but it's okay, that's her job and she recommended me some really nice bras that were pretty and gave a lot of support. So sad though because there were so many cute as bras but I couldn't fit them bc my size is considered to be "big" in China?? LOL it's like average in AUS so yeah I could only buy from the "big bras" lol what a joke... >_> Continued through the shopping centre and tried on clothes but yeah nothing was worth buying and also it was making me more and more sweaty as I continued on so I just decided to stop

So... we went back to Jing An Park and WENT BACK TO THE MACCAS AND THEY HAD THE TOYS AND I GOT THE WHOLE SET (YAS)
Also, on our way back to my grandma's house my mum wanted to get these cream cakes from her favourite bakery and also my dad got all these really delicious looking treats.
Had dinner at my grandma's and yeah

Headed back to the hotel and slept early because it was going to be another early start tmrw
Be happy and goodnight


Hello!!!
Today it was Sunday in Shanghai and so it was an appropriate day for my mum to meet one of her close male university classmate PanYi-Shi who is in a sector of chinese politics? or he manages an area close to Shanghai ... not very clear on everything but yeah basically we were going on a joint family outing? lol

First he gave us a tour of the village of universities and also the nearby rivers and river hutts... it was very serene and beautiful but the heat really made it less enjoyable :(
Met his wife and daughter - she wore wedges so I looked like a legit midget :(
We had lunch in a fancy private room with aircon and a private bathroom - and once we had finished eating... it was basically "on the house" bc of his status
After this, he invited us over to his newly built apartment and it was so asian even though it was new and modern...
Gave us watermelon LOL so awkward to eat watermelon in someone else's house in a polite way cos it's so juicy and slurpy... HAHAHA
Soon enoughhhhh we had to go because like we had other things to do (another dinner)

We headed to a place in which I forgot the name of but we had like Hong Kong cuisine with my dad's mum and dad's uncle... which is my great uncle? LOL idk but yeah it was an awkward dinner bc there's like some beef and underlying hate shooting everywhere so yeahhhhhh >___>
Food was good though and I really like my Great Uncle, he's a nice guy and he's sooooo amazing at oil painting like damn he could sell them for like legit prices.

After they left, we decided to go to see The Bund and yeah got there (lots of people as ALWAYS) and took some pics and then we were like tired asf so we just decided to jet and go home to get clean and sleep...
LOL
Anyways
Be happy and goodnight <3



Hellos
Had a shanghainese breakfast which was 100% delish but we ordered toooo much for two people :(
Any way,
Today, basically my mum had ANOTHER meeting with her friends but this time it was like a brunch/lunch situation and then my dad and I had a "shopping day" and it was going fine and stuff
THEN my dad revealed to me that he had invited his mother to come along :(
IMMEDIATELY turned me off from shopping so yeah
Went into watson's to buy some tissues and damn the customer service in there is like 3000% pushy af and I hated it so much >_>
Anyways the drama with my grandma was that she totally wasted our time
You know how yesterday we were at Jing An Temple? And at that particular shopping centre?
Because my dad told her about it, she managed to mix up yesterday's recount and today's location...
Today's location was Zhong Shan Park!!! She went to a completely different suburb so we were circling around the shopping centre trying to look for her but without luck in finding her.... WE WERE ON LEVEL 3 AND SHE WAS ON LEVEL 3 BUT WE WEREN'T EVEN IN THE SAME SUBURB LET ALONE THE SAME SHOPPING CENTRE LOL OMFG LIKE WTF

Anyways she got there eventually and we waited for her in Haagen dasz which was one of the dessert places I was dying to try so we bought icecream (basically having dessert first) - my problem when i was in shanghai was that everytime we passed one, I wasn't in the mood to have it bc I was already full but this time I had it on an empty stomach which worked out lolol
Then we went to this amazing western food place called Charme and let me just show you the pic below and literally every dish complimented eachother and tasted TOP NOTCH. We had this seafood chowder in a bread bowl that was LINED ON THE INSIDE WITH MASHED POTATO!!!!!!!! OMFG IT WAS AMAZING

After this, my mum reunited with us (my dad and I sent off my grandma). The three of us headed to my mum's auntie's house and had dinner there which was like seriously injuring on my stomach because I had already been eating hella amounts of food. Her cooking is also super oily so it realllly upset my stomach. Also!! when you go to family dinners esp if you're visiting from overseas, you are pressured into eating so much more than you should because you HAVE to respect them by eating :(
Could feel my fat forming :(
Today my feet also died (again)
Went back to hotel after that and yeah
Be happy and goodnight


Hello
So today we decided to go to visit my dad's mother which is my grandma but yeah for some reason nowadays I just consider her as my dad's mother and nothing else.
It takes so long to get to her house like you don't even understand how much harder that makes things when it's so blistering hot.
From the subway to my grandma's house literally takes a whole 30 minutes which is literally torture because whatever you did beforehand to look good or decent is just completely gone (such as makeup and a sane face lol)...
my dad also insisted that we get fried chinese donuts and srsly it was so hot for that and also me being on my period = no appetite so I was like soooooo not interested
Got dry at my grandma's through the usage of her aircon

Then got ready to leave to go to a restaurant for lunch and once we got there, ONCE AGAIN we were all damn sweaty but thank god the restaurant was sorta fancy so it was instant AC
Ordered so many fish dishes, (regrets) but overall it wasn't too bad, just a bit too oily >_<
Decided to go back and send my grandma home and then we left

We went to Jing An Temple - had some icecream and milk tea at this cafe in Jing An Park
Went into the shopping centre after and bought some rose gold earrings + I got some snacks from the japanese grocery store underneath this shopping centre
After this we headed back to our hotel and chilled out for a bit (my dad napped)

My mum had this reunion dinner with her old friends from university or highschool (not sure) - so we sent her off and my dad, uncle and I headed off to go to eat at a Japanese Buffet
I was so stuffed by the end of that meal... I cannot even express how much I ate :(
After the hearty meal, we visited Xi Tian Di which is this old area converted into one of the "trendiest" and "richest" areas of Shanghai...
But this area was actually where my dad lived when he was younger as well as where he went to school and stuff... but everything has since been knocked down to create everything else :(

Anyways we walked SO MUCH .... my counter on my phone said I had walked 27,615 steps.... which was more than I had walked in disney land in a whole day (23,000+steps)
Retrieved my mum and headed back to our hotel
Died in bed
Be happy and goodnight <3







Hello!!!
DISNEYLAND TODAY
And because of that, we had to be up SO EARLY to catch the train to get there and have a full on day there from dawn to dusk...
The train wasn't very packed which was good, I am sad though that there isn't a special cute train like Tokyo Disneyland has on the way there :(
Anyway we got there and let me tell you... when i say it felt like it was 100 degrees there... I MEAN IT
Like in the city area of Shanghai it's not like super bad because the tall buildings and stuff kind of cut it out but this is basically RURAL SHANGHAI so it's damn hot :(
Got in fairly quickly but because you cannot take in your own food and drink, everyone in the line was just eating (more like SCOFFING) their food down their throat so it doesn't get confiscated LMAO it was funny to watch but also sad because my dad, mum and I were also doing the same stupid thing hahahaha

GOT MINNIE EARS ASAP BC GOTTA LOOK CUTE AMIRITE??? hahaha but yeah first thing we watched was this character song and dance number and it was so cute!!! <3
And then it was time to get fast passes for the only ride i wanted to go onto... which was the TRON ride.. like legit I saw that ride on the ad for Disneyland resort and I JUST KNEW I HAD TO GO ON IT IF IT WAS THE LAST THING I EVER DO... LOL and yeah I went to get the fast passes for it and GOD DAMN it was so hot like legit... WTF
But you know what's the best thing about Shanghai Disneyland?? THE TOILETS... It has full blast AC in there and it's legit so clean... SO SO SO CLEAN... so it was like the saviour... from the absolute blistering heat

Went on the buzz light year ride first bc my Tron ride fast pass was for later on at like 11:20AM
The buzzlight year ride was really cute and fun hahaha ... though my dad had to go alone and he didn't even shoot anything LMAO he said "this is stupid, you guys look stupid" hahahaha
In the gift shop I got the disneyland passport!! and omg omg omg here my quest to get all the stamps begins ^__^
Went to all the places to get stamps and even though it was sort of stressful, it allowed us to visit every "world" within disneyland resort
It was also raining at the time which was annoying to travel through but it did get rid of the blatant piercing sunshine rays that was before. The rain also managed to cool everything down a small tad bit.
When it was finally time to go onto the tron ride, i fast passed the huuuuge line and got in quite fast in the scheme of things. My mum decided to go on with me to "protect" me lmao ok
And let me tell you... the whole experience of just going into the space where you line up to wait to get on the vehicles is amazing... feels like you're actually in the movie tron...
Anyways the ride was actually... terrifying bc of the speed... like my god was it scary... you're literally in a tron motorcycle going loop de loop around a roller coaster thing that has half of it exposed on the outside and the other half inside where there's all these sensory images and sounds and it's a m azi n g
I felt so lucky to be able to experience it but my mum on the other hand came off the ride looking pale af and sick to her stomach... lololol i felt so bad :(

After that it started to rain and I just pulled my parents to every passport stamping location and just tried to collect all the stamps but along the way I bought a lot of disneyland merch... heh :)))
The rain really helped cool down the scorching temperature.

By the middle point we had forgotten that my dad was running low of fuel and needed to be fed lol so we found some random mickey pretzel place and bought my dad some carbs to keep him going lmao and then soon after found some place that served like rice dishes - my dad was all for that so then we went inside and ate some overpriced asf foods :( but yeah it revived us in the way of providing us with energy as well as being able to sit down for like 30min helped a lot.

After that we continued our search for all the passport stamping areas, went through the fairytale castle, the alice in wonderland maze, fantasia gardens and apu taku mountains lolol
It was really nice to just see the places even though I didn't get to go on all the rides (too hot to be in line anyways)

Once i finished my passport stamping, I got my completion stamp!! and received a completion badge hehe and I pinned it on myself immediately
After that we bought some more snacks + drinks then decided to find a spot to start waiting for the parade? But there were only 2 floats LMAO what a fail

We basically wandered around and decided to go to some mickey mouse thing where you get to take a picture with a mickey mouse mascot, so many annoying little kids. I wanted to knock them all out LOL ffs
Nearing the end of the day, my dad was hungry agains so we went to the space burger place?? i forgot the name of it but it's basically disneyland version of maccas. We went in there to chill out bc there's aircon + food. We bought a beef burger meal and a chicken fillet piece meal. Ate it and just used the wifi. There were so many groups of people in there just napping hahaha it was cute bc we basically all felt the same...
Spent a good 2hrs in there cos we were waiting until the fireworks.
Once the time was about 1hr before the fireworks, we decided to head there to secure a decent spot.

I must say, the fireworks were really, really beautiful; it actually managed to make me tear up and I don't know why. And even typing this right now I'm sort of tearing up again as I am remembering how it was like to be in that moment. It's almost like the day could've been 100% shit but seeing the fireworks just makes you realise it was worth it and you appreciate the whole day. IN fact it even has the ability to appreciate the fact you are alive in that moment to be lucky enough to witness something so isolated in it's beauty. I know that seems like an exagerration, but I swear, I've never been in such a magical moment.

On the subway on our way home, I stood for 95% of the time so MY FEET WERE LITERALLY DEAD
It felt like my bones were poking out from my feet or something...
Slept so hard that night lmao
Be happy and goodnight