Getting the boys Fall and winter ready clothes-wise and the Simpsons/Family Guy crossover episode...

Like I had said, a few posts down, we have been busy getting both Branden and Noah, Fall and winter ready clothes-wise too. On September 21st (Sunday) the 4 of us went to our nearest Old Navy in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, it's very convenient for our family to get there, in fact we don't even need a highway to get here. : ) So our closest/nearest Old Navy is in Ibaraki prefecture. Like I said before is... we really quite literally live teeter tottering Chiba and the Ibaraki border, which is a very country/inaka part of Chiba, versus the busy bustling Chiba city. But our nearest bustling city would either be Narita (which is small) or Inzai (Chiba New Town area where Costco is) or Tsukuba Ibaraki. : )

I see you Old Navy! : )

So Sunday September 21st, we went to 1 mall which was just pictured above and shopped at Old Navy. Would you believe there is no Uniqlo in that mall?!!! @.@ So we hit another Aeon also in Tsukuba and went shopping in Uniqlo (Noah got a pair of tan cords from Uniqlo and some cute pjs, Branden got a pair of sweatpants for being comfy at home) after we finished with Uniqlo, we ate dinner in the food court. The kids had a rare treat....Mickey D's. : ) And I had a foot long veggie and cheese sub, that was it for me, no fries or anything. The kids were stuffed. I was stuffed, Noboru was off getting a beef bowl while I took this pic. : ) It was a long day, but we were happy we were getting prepared for the colder weather for the boys...so that was a relief. : )

I don't want to say every weekend, but usually on the weekends most of the time or..often I'll just say often...there is a sale to be had on Gap Japan online. Gap was having a 40% off sale that weekend while we were in the market for some new Fall clothes. However...many things were selling out like hot cakes and I just felt better seeing in person at the actual shops for the kids. 

Three Old Navy bags, 1 Uniqlo bag and a Cecile bag (online shop in Japan) which sells great pants for Noah's size, great quality, always cute and price super fair. 

First time for Bran to buy adult men's jeans. Though he did get men's shorts this summer. The ones which looked the best on Branden were the premium ones, so we bought him 2 pair of those. Noboru and I told Branden all important things about finding good men's jeans. Make sure your butt looks nice in the pair...very important fact. Some jeans have too big pockets and you end up with temporary pumpkin butt syndrome. Some jeans have too small a pockets and it makes your butt look super weird. You need to try them on in the mirror in the changing room and turn around in the mirror and check out your butt Branden...very important!!!! Noboru chimed in...yes your mom is right! Branden tried on every style that day...some gave him pumpkin butt. All the things we warned about. These premium ones right here....fit him perfectly! His dad agreed, I agreed. Believe me, I worked in retail all through my university/college years, I know this stuff! ; )

Two long sleeve men's tops in size small from Old Navy for Branden. 

They also had some on sale long sleeve tops for 300 yen, around $3 US.

From Old Navy California to Tokyo...clearly a shirt for us in Japan. : ) And an Old Navy rocks tee with a cassette tape graphic. These will be Branden's house shirts this Fall and winter. Loved the price on these. 

Love this Mac & Cheese tee so much, couldn't possibly be any more American than this. : ) I wanted this shirt for Branden and was going to order it from the US website this summer, but it sold out too fast. We picked up the men's small and medium for Branden.

Nothing is better and more useful than a plain white long sleeve shirt because they can wear all their short sleeves with this underneath. This single handily extends the life of all their short sleeve tops. This was on sale for 780 yen or so by the way.

Like this...see mac and cheese tee on top of a long sleeve white shirt. 

Regular clothes on top and comfy house tees on the bottom.

Plus 2 Old Navy sweatshirts. Small fit okay... but because you layer this on top of a long sleeve...I always pick a slightly bigger sweatshirt. So picked Branden a medium, plus we use our dryer at home in Fall and winter almost 100% of the time, so if it does shrink a pinch, we won't mind. 

Sweatpants for Branden from Uniqlo size medium...again the smalls fit granted... but we will most definitely be using our dryer once it gets too cold to hang clothes outside. 

Regular clothes on top, house or comfy clothes on bottom.

I liked the marled gray sweatpants Bran got from Uniqlo. I have noticed quite a few marled things this season from either Gap/Old Navy and now Uniqlo too. : )

Noboru picked up 2 house/comfy tees from Old Navy for 300 yen too. Both were, you can tell for the Japan market. From California to Tokyo. And the other one has an interesting letter O...that made Noboru smile. : )

Noah picked up this 1 long sleeve top from Old Navy. 

A pair of corduroy and a pair of jammies for Noah from Uniqlo.

A perfect color and pair of cords for Noah. Cords are so nice for kids in Fall and winter. Looks so warm. : ) And a nice pair of jammies. I like that the stripes on the arms are different than the main part of the shirt/top. They did have fleece or super warm jammies, but honestly with the floor heating we use in winter and the central heating our house is like an oven...a nice comfortable oven, mind you but oven nonetheless. So fleece jammies would be overkill for our home, so these are perfect material jammies for our home. Not too thick, not too thin. : )

From Cecile, Noah received 3 pair of pants (2 pair of jeans and 1 pair of cargo pants) 1 pair of jeans with cargo pant pockets, love these! 1 pair of regular jeans without/sans cargo pockets. And 1 pair of olive green cargo pants...really cute and preppy plus the cords from Uniqlo. So again...4 new pair of pants..not a bad start for the Fall and winter season. 

Two pair of Noah's pants from last year were too short this year. So he no longer has those (not pictured). Meanwhile these 3 fit Noah still...albeit a bit worse for wear...so we are keeping these and these are now for him to use as play clothes...pants he can wear to ripstik in, play soccer in...nice to know he has 3 pair of play pants now. Plus the nice new 4 pair for school up above.

Uniqlo order that Noboru bought me. 

One winter vest and 1 winter coat. The Ultra light down jackets at Uniqlo are super popular. Branden and Noah got some last year that still fit, with room to spare, plus Noah has a fantastic Gap bright yellow winter coat that has room to spare still too. Meanwhile back to these 2 in this picture...see how the one on the left has like a diamond quilting type pattern.  

They had a regular vest last year, but this diamond quilted one is new this season and I love it. With a long sleeve black tee or turtle neck and jeans. Can't wait. And it's super thin so no added bulk, but it's hella warm! Super warm!

The women's ultra light down jacket in basic black. And on the website it said for the women's they made the sewing part in the front, the rectangular squares semi curved to give it a more feminine look, I really liked this a lot. : )  Anyway, I'm really happy with my Uniqlo winter vest and winter coat. And again they are super thin, but super warm, just without all the extra bulk (don't really want to look like the bulky Michelin man at all, you know how coats seem to do that to people, luckily these won't do that, hahaha).

Tuesday September 23rd was a holiday here in Japan, so the boys had a day off school. It was the "first day of Fall" we thought what a fitting way to spend the first day of Fall... by our family going Fall and winter clothes shopping. : ) We have 2 near-by outlets, this one pictured here and another one. 

From the outlet you can see a nice big buddha statue. : )

This day we hit the Gap outlet and then the regular Gap store..both stores are in Ibaraki prefecture of course. : )

Our nearest Auntie Anne's handmade pretzel shop. 

The 4 of us had our own pretzel before leaving the outlet mall and headed to yet another mall where the Gap store is/was.

Gap outlet and Gap regular store. 

Branden got 2 nice Gap long sleeve tops in size small in the men's section from the outlet. They were like 1200 yen each, so a pretty good price and both really good lookin' tops. And now, Branden has 2 long sleeves from Old Navy and these 2 from Gap, so 4 long sleeve tops total, not counting his white long sleeve tee that can be combined with any of his short sleeve tops. Plus the 2 new pair of jeans. No jeans from last year fit Branden today...length wise or anywhere. I think next month we will get Branden a pair of olive green cargo pants or another pair of pants. But he's nearly done. Especially considering he wears uniform to school Monday through Friday.

Noah meanwhile wears regular clothes to school, meaning he doesn't wear a uniform so he needs at least 5 days worth of clothes. A school weeks worth, so to speak. From the outlet, we picked Noah these, in size L/140cm. We did have him try on the 130cm/medium and it fit perfectly right now...however if it would shrink a pinch in the dryer might not fit afterwards...if he should grow an inch again maybe not. So, we picked the size 140cm. Noah may fold the sleeve cuff over once but again it's gonna be layered with something underneath, so a bit baggy or comfy as his sweatshirt is fine. They were 1900 yen each so a pretty good price plus Noboru used a Gap outlet coupon for 20% off on everything we bought that day. Or was it 15%...I forget now, but it was a good savings for these things and Branden's 2 Gap long sleeve tops.  Anyway...we bought 4 things at the Gap outlet these 2 sweatshirts and Bran's 2 Gap long sleeve tops and left and headed to the Gap.

Outside of the Gap but inside the mall...a Gap employee held a box and asked you to put your hand inside to pull out a coupon for 20%-50% off. What luck...Noboru put his hand in there and pulled out a 50% off coupon! Right on! We were buying anyways...and 50% off is so very cool! Just imagine everything we got half off basically. We picked up this top from the regular Gap store for 50% off, size 140cm. 

This very sweatshirt I wanted for Noah... superly bad! Love this sweatshirt! I love the blue marled coloring on this sweatshirt...I love the old school stitching that says Gap NY. This sweatshirt just looks like something very different and believe me...we shop at Gap all the time! This sweatshirt rocks. And again 50% off coupon, yes please....and thank you! I saw this sweatshirt at Gap online in the US. I debated ordering it and that's only because sometimes the Gap in the US the clothes are cut a tad too big...especially for skinny kids like Noah. While Gap Japan has slimmer fit sizes...it's true. And Noah being a skinny Minnie...could use the Japan slimmer sizing from Gap Japan. Then as luck would have it...we saw this online but waffled on the size...they were selling like hotcakes to the point this sold out. So yeah when I saw this in person and we already had the 50% off coupon...yep snatched this baby up right quick! : ) This paired with those tan Uniqlo cords...adorable! : )

Also picked this gray Gap sweatshirt for Noah too, again 50% off. How wicked is that. So add these 2 Gap sweatshirts, plus the 2 Noah also got from the Gap outlet...so far Noah has 4 sweatshirts...and 4 new pair of pants (cords, jeans or cargo pants) He still needs long sleeves but...hey...we are getting there. : ) 

We also got some coupons for this month to use. 

Everything I buy, I wash on the quick wash cycle before it hangs in my child's closet, but ya'll already know that. : ) Also, see the Gap yellow sweatshirt...do you think the outlet size 140cm is slightly bigger than the Gap regular stores size 140cm. Again...no big deal...they both fit, but just something I did notice and why I am glad we bought our stuff in person. Anyway...Noah has 4 new pants, 4 new sweatshirts and quite a few long sleeves in his closet already. Plus 2 winter coats with room to spare. I'd say Noah is 95% ready for Fall and winter clothes-wise. Branden meanwhile no longer wears regular clothes during the day Monday-Friday since he wears a uniform now, but he has 4 new long sleeve tops, 2 new jeans and 2 new sweatshirts and a Uniqlo ultra down with room to spare for a coat. I'd say he's 90% done...plus he has house/comfy clothes with 3 pair of sweatpants (2  (like new) Gap pair that have plenty of room to grow/spare from last year) plus his Uniqlo pair. So again not 100% done, but definitely a step in the right direction. : )

Loved the Simpsons/Family Guy crossover episode so much! I love both shows. Family Guy and the Simpsons has always matched my sense of humor completely. 

Brian and Santa's Little Helper, lol.

"What the deuce vs Eat my shorts" lol...Liked how Stewie looked up to Bart. How Bart said "What the Deuce" (Stewie's famous saying towards the end.) How Stewie dressed like Bart and said Eat my shorts (Bart's saying during the show too). Plus Homer and Peter were such good friends. Brian didn't quite understand or "get" Santa's Little Helper in the least and that cracked me up too. Such a great episode!

Finally, we get a store near us...Old Navy in Tsukuba, Ibaraki and a fun dinner afterwards at the “fry your own” skewer buffet restaurant, Kushiya Monogatari

Old Navy is an American clothing company, I love Old Navy! They are the same company as Gap and Banana Republic, as I am sure all of you know. I love Old Navy because, you can buy quality clothes at affordable prices and with having 2 kids, it is really nice saving money, yet still be stylish, plus the clothes are really well made clothes. I would always stock up on trips back to America for the boys and myself, or order stuff to be shipped to Guam and my dad would mail them to me in Japan, or I'd go to Guam and pick up the packages. Then a few years ago, 1 Old Navy opened in Japan. It was  pretty far away, bordering Chiba and Tokyo (though I think Tokyo since the mall has the word Tokyo in it). Then a few other scatterings of stores opened up across Japan. So, I knew they were in Japan, but since my nearest Old Navy at the time was not very near us at all...and a 3 hour round trip drive, plus toll fees didn't sound all too fantastic, we just never went and if we weren't to take toll roads it would be 5 hours according to Navitime (like mapquest for Japan) and considering a 5 hour drive, forget it! : ( Hahaha. : ) Until now, an Old Navy finally opened in Ibaraki. So, needless to say, I am pretty happy. Here is a very rough drawing of where we live versus where the main or central parts of Chiba are versus the main or central parts of Ibaraki are.... to give you an idea of what I am talking about. : ) Oh and yes to be fair clearly... Chiba is in the shape of Chiba-kun (a dog mascot) but again this just gives you an idea, I'm not a professional artist here hahaha. See where it says main city part of Chiba City, or Makuhari. Funabashi, those types of areas. The main parts of Chiba where most of the stores are, shops are, people are, hahaha. That's way on the opposite end of Chiba from us, where we live. Now you see that astrix or sun and it says "us...our fam" That's where we live, literally teeter tottering between Chiba and Ibaraki. We live literally and I do mean literally at like the edge of Chiba.... the opposite direction of main parts of Chiba. When I drive during the day, I constantly see the sign, "welcome to Chiba" and "welcome to Ibaraki" depending if we are going to Saizeriya "Ibaraki for us", the movies, again Ibaraki for us. I can get in my car right this second and drive to the right and in 5 minutes I will hit Ibaraki, no exaggeration! So yeah for us, getting to the Old Navy in the main city part of Chiba... was just never gonna happen, because of where our house is located in Chiba. And given the traffic in Chiba that goes at a snails pace, it was just really again, never gonna happen. Okay and now see one of the main city parts of Ibaraki in my bad drawing pic that says main city Ibaraki, which is Tsukuba,...Tsukuba has everything Makuhari and Funbabashi does, but it's way way way closer for us.  The capitol of Ibaraki is Mito but Tsukuba is a bustling big modern city and easiest for us to access to from where we live. And the traffic does not go at a snails pace between our house and Tsukuba so we can literally zip to Tsukuba and zip back in no time flat. There are many small city's near to us, like the small city Noah and Branden went to yochien in...and also Narita city, is a small city. But the closest big city to us, is Tsukuba in Ibaraki. I can hang laundry outside on the pole for example when heading to Tsukuba and know I will be home, in time to bring the laundry in before it gets dark. If we were to drive to Diver City Tokyo Plaza for example where Old Navy is in Chiba/Tokyo, it wouldn't be a laundry hanging outside type day because depending on traffic the laundry would be out there way past it's time. So when we heard Ibaraki finally got an Old Navy, we were like holy goodness, we have to go!!!! So we did, we went to Old Navy, this post happened April 13th! : ) 

Our closest Burger King, is in Ibaraki, I blogged one time when our family went in there to eat one time. : ) Branden and Noah's dentist, is also in Ibaraki too. : )  Now you know why, when we go to Tokyo Disneyland or Disney Sea it is sometimes better for us to stay at a hotel because though technically we do live in Chiba, we really barely barely do. : ) 

We made it to the Aeon mall in Tsukuba, no toll roads and no traffic problems between where our house is located and to get here!

I see an Old Navy sign! Right on!

Parking our car before we start shopping!

2 hours to charge. We did go back out at 2 hours to see if anyone wanted to use it, but nobody was there or waiting, but we did switch spots to a regular spot afterwards. Like my husband says, it's like going to a shopping mall and someone saying if you shop here... we'll give you a free tank of gas, so to speak. It's free, and our car gets charged. So, heck yeah we'll charge! : ) 

Protected from the sun and rain, this mall has a nice charging station. 

Her seat covers and not sure if you can see the 3 lights near the dash, it blinks blue when she's charging. 

Hi kiddo!

It's a newer mall, just opened last year in March and really nice. 

I saw it....smiled and walked a little bit faster!

Thank you Old Navy for coming to Ibaraki! You have no idea how much we appreciate this! The store had a lot of customers, so I don't see this store closing down anytime soon! : )

I was worried if they'd double the prices in Japan. But I was wrong! They are just as cheap and affordable as back home! 

900 yen for these character T shirts. Noah got that heather orange Tom and Jerry one! Also, the sizes are American sizes, meaning Small is a 6-7, Medium is a size 8. I remember when Gap used to be American sizing and then they switched it so centimeters in the kids department. I hope they keep it American sizing! We did our shopping and went back and switched to a different parking space real quick and then had dinner at the same mall, they had so many good looking restaurants in there. 

You could bread and fry your own stuff at your own table. Sounded fun, so we wanted to try!

Plus a chocolate fondue fountain, heaven! : ) 

It's a buffet and you had 70 minutes to eat whatever you'd like. On your mark, get set, go! : ) I'm kidding, I'm kidding. : )

I love how it's explained in English, deep fried skewers buffet, yeah I think they nailed it! : )

As pictured, they also had fresh fruit, salad, macaroni salad, potato salad, pasta salad, all kinds of stuff. 

Pasta as pictured, curry, ice cream. What they offered was a lot! We were ready!

Pretty restaurant!

They had the batter, and panko (bread crumbs), you could pick from a huge assortment of things to try. I picked white meat chicken with no skin or fat and potato wedges and battered those. 

Oil in the center of the table and our sauces.

We had batter and panko on both sides of our table. The kids had a blast battering/breading and cooking what they liked!

Branden picked some beef with no fat and breaded that. 

My dessert platter, fresh pineapple, soft serve ice cream, and chocolate dipped cream puffs. 

Branden enjoying some dessert he picked too. 

I did have some salad with goma/sesame dressing and pasta salad as well. 

Noah, made some chicken tenderloin cutlets and had chicken cutlet curry, he loved that! Branden said great idea and so he made some too.

Branden enjoying his cutlet curry too and Noboru's elbow hahaha, he was enjoying many many things. : ) We stayed the full 70 minutes, boy were we stuffed, we also left with a very heavy Old Navy bag of clothes for the kids, however it was only 7,000 yen. $70 US, so really fair for the amount of clothes the kids got. 

We will be back to this mall, for sure! : )

Good only at the Tsukuba Aeon. We are getting a good amount of these quick charge cards to the places near us that we frequent. 

A good amount of clothes for Branden and Noah.

Old Navy, San Francisco, California. 

300 yen! Yep, love the prices. 

This shirt is ginormous on Noah, but it's a T for Christmas time, so Noah can wear it in November, December this coming year. 

This shirt is hilarious..."wanna talk about it?" "It's not your business" "Wanna Taco 'bout it" lol!

Noah is really super skinny. So the small fits him now and we also got the size medium and at 700 yen each, we were happy. 

Says 1290 yen, but you saw the pic up above they were indeed on sale for 900 yen each. 

These were what Noah ended up with.

Branden got this one too.

But he's also a size small men's now. So the rest of the shirts were from the men's section.

Branden's T's, love that magically delicious Lucky Charms one! Hahaha. 

Branden also got a pair of olive green shorts in the men's department too. 

Love this bag marked...STUFF. : ) 

Toiletry case.

Again loved that the prices were just as fair as in the US, 600 yen. 

They had a bunch of great wallets for 1200 yen. 

Noboru got me this one. Very preppy. 

I like wallets that zip around so I don't have to worry if a card accidentally falls out or anything. 

Also, I received a package from my dad from Old Navy and Gap. 

These are Noah's. Two shirts that say Awesome and 1 Adventure Time, T- shirt.

These are Branden's.

These are mine.

This blouse I thought was so pretty and it sold out super fast online. I'm glad I have mine. 

Also received my black tankini top so it can be worn under my rash guard and swim mini skirt from Lands' End.

Washed everything up and put them nicely in each of the boy's bedroom closets, so when the weather does get nice/warmer, they can wear them. Getting ready for the warmer weather... clothes-wise for Branden and Noah, little by little since the beginning of March.