Last day of Golden Week, spent hanging out in Shin Okubo...

The last day of Golden Week, was May 6th, a Wednesday. Our family did the same thing last year too and we had so much fun, that we decided, to do the same thing this year as well. : ) We went to Shin Okubo, located in Tokyo, Japan. Shin Okubo, is what folks in Japan, call Korea Town. Searching online though, I find westerners who do not live in Japan, call it Korean (with an N at the end)... Korean Town.  So either way. : ) Korea Town, Korean Town or Shin Okubo works too. : ) If you live in Japan though, they do call it Korea Town. : ) Or Shin Okubo. Phew. Longest explanation in history, sorry. : ) Usually Tokyo is jammed packed with people. Like seems... with millions and zillions of people. And millions and zillions of cars. Lots of traffic. Etc, etc. However while most Tokyo city dwellers are off enjoying the inaka (countryside) (where we live, hahaha) often at some onsen, resort in Japan, or maybe a small overseas trip to Guam or Saipan, or camping. So while they are off enjoying the inaka/countryside. Us country folks... like to use that time to go to the big city of Tokyo, for a day excursion. : ) Last year though we had lunch/dinner at Wendy's after walking and window shopping/sightseeing around Shin Okubo. This time though we had planned to have lunch in actual Korea Town. If you do not know, South Korea is famous for fried chicken. When we went to Korea one time, with the boys when they were super little, there was fried chicken shops everywhere. Smelled divine. : ) So, yep...plan #1 is Shin Okubo, and walk around, sight see and then plan #2 fried chicken! : )

This was very cool. Moving chopsticks in a big bowl of (fake) noodles. : ) 

So many shops and signs in Korean! Very cool! Felt like a little getaway. Hahaha. After buying Branden a new tube of face wash (he used the same one/type last summer and loved it) and a pack of "baby feet" type stuff for me. We went to lunch. We did stroll all along Shin Okubo first though before lunch. : )

Noboru had been researching what the Japanese feel... is the best fried chicken shop in Shin Okubo. He had read many reviews and widdled his list down to 2 shops. Then he asked my opinion. After we both checked the menus.. both out online, we decided on this place. Do not quote me on the name. But it is called, Chicken 456. Chicken 567. or perhaps... Chicken 678? @_@ I am sorry. I have totally forgotten the name. But it does have 3 numbers/digits in the name. Should be easy to find. First off, they gave each table of customers some cabbage salad and some daikon in a silver bowl to nibble on, while waiting for our food. I love cabbage, cooked or raw, any kind, is fine with me. So, we 4 munched the cabbage salad, Noboru munched the daikon. Each table had forks (I am assuming for western tourists, lol) and also chopsticks. There were 2 westerners sitting next to us, on the left of us. : ) Very nice young couple (mid 20's if I were to guess). : ) 

Noboru went to this fried chicken restaurant you guys and ordered soup! Kimchi soup. Yes, that is so funny.... he went to a chicken restaurant and did not order fried chicken at all, lol. However he *loved* the soup. He said it was so good. However only thing he mentioned was the soup had onion in it and he said he had never seen that soup, made with onions...like EVER. And ya'll know he hates onions, with a burning passion. : ) LOL. So, he just picked the onions out. But he still loved the soup. But, the onions being in the soup gave us a laugh. I tell ya, you got to keep your sense of humor in times like this. Meanwhile, the boys and I ordered get ready for this. It said, 16 sasami, which means chicken tenderloin in Japanese, basically 16 chicken tenders/tenderloin.  If you have ever had a fried chicken tender...you know 5 is plenty enough for an adult. So, we ordered 1 of those platters, since it had 16 chicken tenders. We figured, 5 for Noah, 5 for me and 6 for Branden would be plenty. Well enough to fill us up, for lunch. 5 whole chicken tenders. Anyway...so we were all excited. All waiting. And 10 minutes later...the kids and I had no food. @-@ Noboru was half done with his soup... so he ate slowly. Even though I asked him to eat it, while it was hot. But he felt badly about us, just watching him eat. @_@. We tried not to look. : ) It wasn't his fault of course. I'm a very chill...type person. I'd seriously NEVER need an anger management type a class, if you know what I mean. And Noboru neither but...his fuse is a tad shorter than mine is. And he felt so badly for us....and so at the 10 minute mark, he was getting a bit upset. Anyway...at the 12 minute mark...he starts looking at the menu. And right there... in the menu it says...to make it fresh...it can take up to 15 minutes on the fried chicken meals. Alrighty, mystery has been solved. Now he was relaxed. No more worries. All very normal now, that we know. Good thing he did not complain or anything. : ) Anyway...so the food finally comes and see this picture? The portion was like really REALLY small, you guys. If you reading this... are the family cook. Or if you have ever gone to McD's or The Hard Rock Cafe or anywhere and ordered 5 chicken strips. You will know...16 strips should have been a huge size platter. This was...and I am not kidding you...about the size of a Popeye's Chicken and biscuits combo for 1 person. Maybe could be enough for 2 people, if they weren't super hungry but 3 people, forget it. I am kidding you not, you guys. Noboru and I look at each other. @_@ Like...whhhhat?! Now he's like saying..."this is like, half smaller than what I was thinking."@_@  And then he said..."but this took so long...if we order another...I imagine it'll be another 20 minutes!" Okay the 2 other westerners are still waiting for their food, we are speaking in English since we only speak English for our family and are tables are quite close to one another...now I can see Noboru has made that sweet young couple now worried about their meal. Hahaha. Sorry, you two. : ) Now...I cook chicken a lot at home...you guys know that. And I can safely tell you... that this was a chicken breast, but sliced into strips. I looked very closely at this. And some pieces....strips were so small...that they were McD's chicken nugget size and a few even smaller than that. Nope, not kidding. I did remind Noboru..."it is what it is"...And there's no need to make anyone nervous (the wait staff, the young couple next to us, etc etc, ykwim). The kids are having a good time...I am having an incredible time. We did not know...their true portion size of the strips. Since this was our first time to this restaurant. But...now we do. So we got much smarter for next time, right? : ) He said..."you're right baby and I'm sorry." : ) I know Noboru just worries about the kids...meaning, did they eat enough..about me meaning, did I eat enough...so yeah he was honestly just really worried about us. So he had good intentions too. So, Noboru asked me, "do you want me to order another platter of this?" I said, "honey don't even worry about it..it's only lunch" And that was it, we ate.... the kids and I shared 1 of the tiniest chicken strips platters, that you have ever seen. Hahaha. : )  Oh and for what it's worth...the cost of the chicken strip platter. $26 US. 2600 yen. @_@  Oh and..it did come with a few fries mixed with the strips. It did not mention that on the menu *however*...the fries were ice cold, must have been fried that morning. Hahaha. : ) The flavor of the chicken was super delicious though! Very delicious. Will we go back? You know what...for the price and the amount you get? Honestly maybe not. But we'll see. : ) Oh forgot to add this... though...all the waiters were young 20 something guys and they were all gorgeous and looked like members of a Kpop boy band. : ) I much prefer my husband though. But yes, the waiters were very easy on the eyes. : ) 

Yep, told ya. You can see Noboru reading the menu over again/once more in this picture (gosh was he worried about his kids and wife or what, lol)....and that's when he found it said 15-20 minute wait. : ) Noah waiting at the restaurant, but you can see his nice summer hair cut, pic here. Sorry, I didn't even give Noah a chance to look at the camera. Just a quick snap and put the camera back in my bag. : )

Perfect view of Tokyo Skytree, while leaving Tokyo and heading to Costco Chiba New Town.

We all had a super long drive back to Chiba and Costco, so we all stopped for drinks at 7-11. Noboru picked this drink. I picked a jasmine tea. However, I tried a drink or two of Noboru's Lemongina. I know this drink has been getting lots of buzz for the past couple months. 1 of my friends says it tastes like dirt/soil. @_@ Hahaha. Another says it is straight up gross. Another completely disagrees and says it is totally delicious...like lemonade with fizz. So, I finally had 2 sips of this. My thoughts? I didn't like it. I'm really sorry for saying that. But, it wasn't my taste at all. To me it tasted more like grapefruit versus lemon. Coming from America...we know lemonade. How many of us grew up selling lemonade on our street/block as children? I know, I had a lemonade stand every summer, growing up. I know what lemons taste like, I love them. And I know what grapefruit taste like, I dislike them very much. To me...this tasted way way more like sparkling fizzy grapefruit soda. I would never buy this. Noboru hated it. : ( In fact to him, he also said it tasted like dirt.  What's up with that description, you guys. He is the 3rd person, who mentioned dirt. @_@ To be fair...I don't taste any dirt or soil type flavor at all. But it does taste like a grapefruit soda to me. To me, it does not taste lemonade-y at all. Not even 1 dot. Not even remotely lemonade-y. The kids each picked an orange water. 

I really dislike going to Costco on holidays or weekends, you know how I prefer quiet weekday mornings instead. However...since we were going to be driving past there anyways...and considering I was going/planning to go to Costco the next day anyway. We figured, we might as well go there. Also we were thinking about dinner. What we should eat for dinner. We were stuck between Jolly Pasta or getting a giant whole already cooked pizza and bring it home from Costco. Plus we picked up the few things we were going to get. So it saved us a trip the next day. : ) Tissues were super cheap. Antibacterial wipes, these are the best. Mozzarella cheese (for pizzas or baked ravioli etc) and huge hunk of colby jack for Mexican food night) And frozen pizzas for emergency dinners. : ) Like if Noboru is working at night... we can throw in a pizza or two and have some salad to go with. Easy dinner. : ) Costco was busy, but not as full as I imagined. We easily zipped in grabbed our stuff and paid and grabbed the pizza and left. We were in there, no longer than 20 minutes tops. : )

The stuff we brought back from Shin Okubo.

Branden's face wash. He loves this face wash especially in summer/hotter weather. And I picked up another foot treatment, since it's flip flop and sandal weather now. : )

Also, Noboru picked up another First Treatment Essence for me from the Missha retailer chain store/shop.. for one of my Mother's Day gifts. It was on a slight sale there...Golden Week sale. And about 5 Japanese women were picking up a bottle each of it, when we first entered that store before lunch and about 3 different Japanese women were picking up a bottle each, when we swung by the store after lunch. Noboru was like...super surprised by the extreme popularity of the product I am currently using...he said.."that stuff is so popular", he knew I just purchased that bottle online and have been enjoying the essence a lot. Anyway, now I am well stocked with that stuff. It's good stuff. : ) 

They gave us so many samples. Shin Okubo has an official Missha retailer, The Face Shop free- standing store. All sorts of beauty and cosmetic shops. : ) Missha also is available to order online for us, in Japan. Which is nice for me to know, because since I live way out in the middle of nowhere, I can at least order online and they can ship to me here at home, if ever I need it. : )

After going to Costco, we swung by the drugstore to pick up some essentials, shampoo and conditioner refills. Some face wash for Noboru and 1 for me. And some pineapple popsicles for the boys/kids.

Branden's on the left, Noboru's in the center and mine on the right (Noah uses whatever I use, since he has very sensitive skin). I am using Hado Labo cleansing foam at the moment.  It's very gentle for my face... which I need a gentle cleanser and I also like foamy cleansers, not cream ones. So, I am liking this lately. Only thing I wish, is it had a better scent. It has no scent...but I can smell a slight something. Wish it smelled like green apples or bananas or green tea or something fresh perhaps. Oh well. : ) It is a great basic cleanser. I wash my face twice a day, morning and night so my cleansers go quickly. : ) Will, I repurchase it again...maybe yes, we will see.... I like that it does not dry my face out at all. But...on the flip side, I do like a nice light scent of something. Hmm, we'll see. I am enjoying it a lot, for now though. Anyway that's how we spent our last day of Golden Week.

All in all, I think we had a pretty fantastic Golden Week. 2 days before Golden Week kicked off, the kids and I flew to Guam for the weekend, we got to see the movie Home. What else did we do for Golden Week. We hit the Gap outlet and Old Navy for summer clothes for the kids. We had a nice backyard family BBQ. We also had many good eats here at home, we played the family board game Sorry! We had many family movie nights with popcorn and snacks. And we ended our Golden Week sightseeing and looking around Shin Okubo/Korea Town. All in all, it was a pretty nice Golden Week for us here. : )

Golden Week...

I hope everyone had a nice Golden Week, if you are reading in Japan and well, if you are reading outside of Japan, I hope you are well and had a lovely week too! : ) These are just a few bits of what we did during our Golden Week. On Showa no Hi, Noboru and I took Branden and Noah to the movies to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This was an excellent movie!!! Also, I have to mention, that I enjoyed seeing the co-creator of Spider Man, American comic book writer, Stan Lee make a cameo appearance on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie, he was in the audience at the graduation, I noticed him immediately! : )

We brought plenty of snacks to the movies! After the movie, we went to Nitori and after that, we went to the Daiso and then to the Ohsho for dinner. 

Picture are from, dinner at the Ohsho, the night we went to the movies! This restaurant always has such great prices!

I was asked to share, some pics of what I am changing the bedding to. : ) This pic was taken at the Nitori in Inzai, actually a day before we went to see Spiderman. Our bed is dark chocolate brown wood and what we had on it before/previously, was a navy blue and white blanket from Target, which is pretty nice, no complaints... but we also had it forever and it was time to switch things up. So, I looked online at Nitori and I liked this one. So, this is the duvet cover we have on it now. It is striped too, but has different shades of brown all the way to a light cream color. 

We also have 2 night stands in dark chocolate brown and I had been wanting to put baskets in those, for quite a while, these are the baskets. 

The same day we went to Nitori in Inzai, we also went to Costco to get breakfast stuff. Nothing too major, sausage, eggs, English muffins (I freeze half and take out as needed.) And tortillas, the big sized ones were out ...the day I was there, figures! Hahaha. : )

And these pancakes, again we freeze 1 and then just microwave the ones we want and they have margarine and syrup inside and they're so good and the price very fair. 

At Noah's class meeting, one of the things the teacher said, was she wants everyone to bring a magazine holder/book holder. This was the first time, I have ever been asked to have either of my kids to use one at school (they have them in their rooms though). Again I know every teacher is different... so perhaps she knows this way works best for her classroom, besides it's only 100 or so yen, so no worries. We bought ours at the 100 yen/Daiso and same for the Monsters University, writing notebook, Noah needed a replacement for school. 

We 4 all picked out... the one we thought cutest for Noah to take. Noboru said, "this one, is red, white and blue! lol, I didn't even realize it or make a connection, but yeah cool! I personally liked and focused more on the fact it had the cute polka dot and stripe combo. 

Put a name sticker on it for Noah, and he is now using it at school. : )

Bought these plates at Nitori.

Have been wanting to buy hangers for Branden, checked the Daiso and you know for hangers their prices were not so cheap! Checked Trial and again not as cheap as they were last year there, so picked these up at Nitori, 10 hangers for 190 yen was a fair deal!

The bedding. The duvet in queen size, we bought in Inzai, but the fitted sheet they were out of the size we needed, which is why we went to a different Nitori the day we went to the movies. No big deal though, we have quite a few Nitori locations, that are close for us to get to.  : ) 

Yep, paid 400 yen for the big washer to wash up our new bedding, meanwhile hung the duvet outside in the backyard to get nice and fat from the sun, tossed the sheets and duvet cover in the dryer and went home and made the bed. 

Also during Golden Week, Noboru suggested we go to Tokyo for the day, since most city folks were probably camping or trying to enjoy nature. So that's what we did Sunday, May 4th, we went to Tokyo, to enjoy a day in the city! We took these pics as we were driving in our town that morning. 

Beautiful big open spaces, fresh clean air, rice fields a plenty and yep, following a tractor, which is pretty common around where we live in rural Japan. : ) 

In Tokyo.

We did have breakfast before leaving our home, but we had been in the car for ages and Noboru took us to a mall in Tokyo that had many things to eat, that we certainly don't have in the countryside. 

Krispy Kreme and Ben & Jerry's and...

Auntie Anne's. Goodness! You know, it was nice to indulge that day especially since we don't have these types of shops in the countryside where we live. : ) Granted, I'm glad we live where we live and wouldn't trade living in the countryside for all the donuts in the world. : ) But you know...it was nice to indulge that day. Especially since we don't have this sorta thing near where we live. 

Surprised they were still selling Easter donuts, even though Easter was over! Anyway...

We bought a dozen donuts to take back home. So we didn't eat any there.

We did however have a scoop of ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. I had a scoop of Cherry Garcia and a scoop of...

Peanut Butter Cup.

Flavors inside the case...

Branden had a scoop of Peanut Butter Cup and loved it.

Noah had a cookie one...not cookies and cream, the kind most people think of... but it had a few different types of cookies, he loved it! : )

Hi gorgeous! : )

Noboru and I shared this one 50/50. I loved it, Noboru was more like "ehhh, it's no vanilla!" : ) Hahaha. He prefers vanilla, which is fine. : ) 

Branden and Noah split a pretzel and Noboru and I split one too and that was enough snackage for the afternoon. The pretzel was great, but much smaller in size than, the ones they sell in the states and Guam. But still really delicious. No complaints at all though, we all got to indulge in some treats, we rarely get to indulge in and they were great. : )

People walking in Tokyo! Just enjoying their Golden Week, us too. : )

I have been like *really* really wanting to go to Shin-Okubo, because they have one of the largest Korean community/areas in Japan, online many folks are calling it a "Korea/Korean Town" of sorts. And as most of you reading for a while know, I love Korean skin care! Look at my haul at the Face Shop in Honolulu last year and Tony Moly! I buy Korean skincare also from Aeon and I have bought online from InnisFree! Again, love their skincare. I have also been wanting to go back to Seoul, for a visit, our family of 4 went once... a super long time ago, when Noah was about 6 months old, I blogged about it.  Also, I like to make buta kimchi and also chicken kimchi but ran out of hot chili pepper flakes and ground chili pepper and finding it, the really really hot stuff is hard to find! So...just a perfect time to check out Shin-Okubo! We loved it! They had so many fantastic skin care and cosmetic shops! We also got to check out a grocery store and I found my chili, yay!

Korean flag, Japanese flag! This place was awesome!

Noboru and the kids and I shared a cup of these! We had a big fresh bag we bought along the street, when we were in Korea, years ago, these were just as spicy and so good!

Skincare made of snail is super popular! It doesn't smell funky at all! I have used the face masks before!

The whole couple blocks/area, were skincare heaven and cosmetic heaven for me...bliss! I only bought 2 things, but what I enjoyed the most was looking around! : )

The food smelled so good, in Shin Okubo! What I learned when we went to Korea years ago was, Korea is famous for their fried chicken, whole chicken in a pot type soup, oh man, so many good things to eat and try! We ended up not eating dinner there though. 

Their Face Shop in Shin Okubo had way less stuff/product than the one in Honolulu had and the products found at Narita Aeon too. 

Think mochi with delicious spicy as heck chili! Yumm!

Noboru suggested we hit Wendy's for dinner. Again as a special treat, since we clearly have no Wendy's near us. There used to be some in Tsukuba and semi near us, but they went away, years ago. : (

Again for it being Tokyo, it was a much quieter Tokyo, I think because many Tokyo folks were enjoying camping or off taking trips elsewhere, because Tokyo was just much quieter. See us, country folks got to enjoy the city for Golden Week (well for 1 day at least) and city folks could have very well, enjoyed life in the country. We traded, hahaha! : )  How cute! : )

I had a spicy chicken sandwich and fries and a soda. Branden had the same exact thing as me. 

Noah had a single with cheese... (cheeseburger), combo, with fries and a drink. 

Noboru had a double cheeseburger combo, with fries and a drink. We left our house to get to Tokyo around 10:30am and didn't get back home until 12:25am!!! Granted to be fair, we took normal roads no toll roads/fees. But my gosh it took us forever to get there and back! But you know...we rarely go to Tokyo, well unless a trip to the US Embassy for a passport renewal is needed. : ) Otherwise we never go. So, this was a nice change of pace. And we were all glad we went. The price for gas was zero, since our car is electric, and we did charge for 20 minutes twice, once there and once back. And we didn't use toll roads. All we spent was the dozen donuts or whatever we ate. So a really affordable outing really and so fun! A great way to spend Midori no Hi (Greenery day)

Goodies brought back...

The snail hand cream, part of my Mother's Day gift, I tried it in the store and Noboru and Branden commented how good this particular hand cream smelled. There were many hand creams and plenty of testers, this one smelled best and my hands felt amazing!

I was first interested in this face cleanser last year after watching a YouTube video of someone talking about this, but couldn't find it anywhere, was so glad to have found it in Shin Okubo! Again part of my Mother's Day gift. : )

Hot chili, ground and flakes! Not part of my Mother's day gift, hahaha. : )

Really happy with these!

Donuts, yay Krispy Kreme!

We picked these 12! With a family of 4, that means everyone got to have 3 each! We picked our own, while at Krispy Kreme the day before. It was a nice treat the next day for us. : )

The next few pics are going to be about what's happening on this current season of Grey's Anatomy and The Big Bang Theory, so be warned now... skip if you are worried about spoilers. Derek's sister offers to baby-sit.

The difficult thing is, Grey's comes on at the same exact time as The Big Bang Theory does, different channels obviously, so I have to switch back and forth depending which show is better that week. 

They happened to spot 2 of their friends inside a restaurant and they told people they were working or busy, so these 3 were looking through the window watching them...shocked and surprised! lol!

Yep, you two are busted! Hahaha. 

This is from another week. 

Sheldon was very sad because the character Bob Newhart played, "Arthur Jeffries" AKA, Professor Proton passed away, so this was an episode not to be missed...however at the exact same time, a MAJOR thing was happening on Grey's...Burke made an appearance! Poor Cristina! so there, I was zip zapping between the 2 channels!

Cristina was up for an award or something a few weeks back, she had the votes but was denied because of hospital politics! She was devastated. Meanwhile someone emailed or called and asked her to go and speak about her work in Zurich...after a lot of thinking she went! The one who called for her to speak was, Burke! Important to mention how Cristina was talking in a packed auditorium and someone asked a question...a faceless person in the shadows...and she had the heavy light on her...so she couldn't see and then...he walked out of the shadows and it was Burke! I was like holy crap...holy crap!!! Chills! He offered her a job...again don't read this if you don't wanna know. But again I said that a few paragraphs above, lol. : ) Should she move and leave the hospital in Seattle, where her best friend in the universe is or move to a different country. She sleeps on it and says...I turn you down...I can't work with you, be near you...Burke says...I would be leaving here...I am happily married with kids Cristina! Cristina said....don't worry that I want you...I just wanted to *be* you! He tells her, he is leaving the big huge fancy hospital! Going to Europe to be near his wife's family. And that he is in a sense GIVING her the hospital in Zurich and all the funding she could ever ever want! She said...like... Charlie at the end of Willy Wonka, are you trying to in a sense give me the factory? And he said, yes! And it ended like that...does she end up taking the job in Zurich or will she stay in Seattle? Ack...eek!!! Don't know....though, I clearly think yes, because it's all over online she (Sandra Oh) is leaving Grey's. I think this coming week, I am going to need a box of tissues. Meanwhile the Black List is getting so freaking good as well, thank goodness, that show comes on a  totally different night! : )

Yep, meanwhile in other news that happened during Golden Week, a kitty has moved in the wilderness/vacant lot next door. : )

This is a pic of Branden's dinner one night during Golden Week. Chicken cutlet, I made at home, steamed broccoli, potato salad, fresh cantaloupe, rice and sauce for dunking the chicken in. Anyway, that's enough jibber jabber for 1 day from me. Just wanted to say what we were up to for Golden Week.