Why I Love Shopping in Japan

Japan is my most favorite country to shop at. Yeah, Hong Kong only comes next, and Bangkok comes third. While many think that shopping in Japan is ridiculously expensive, I'm here to be a myth buster. Shopping in Japan could be more expensive than shopping in other Asian countries. However, the technique here is to know where and when to shop in Japan just so you could get a good deal, most especially for signature items.

All of my previous trips in Japan were during Spring; and as far as I can remember, I was able to catch a lot of bargain items due to the changing of the season from Winter to Spring. I remembered shopping a lot from H&M and in Harajuku. Well Shibuya 109 is their fashion center but everything there is just expensive no matter what season it is. The brands there are all local designer brands and those shops really set the trend.

The best time to shop in Japan is from mid-December to mid-January. This is when you see the SALE sign everywhere! One weekend in December, we went to Yatsugatame Resort Outlet (outlet shops of local and foreign brands) and we've gone crazy shopping at Coach Factory where we shopped for an hour. We got 2 wallets, 3 bags, 2 bangles for just 100,000 yen or less (around Php 40,000). The Japanese people are too shopaholic that there are a lot of outlet malls/parks all over Japan. The biggest of which is the Mitsui Outlet Park Shiga Ryuo in Kyoto with 237 stores. The one we went to was the nearest to our place (less than an hour drive), located at 4000 Kobuchizawa-machi (town) Hokuto-shi (city), Yamanashi-ken (province).

The craziest shopping day is the New Year's Day! Yeah, what a way to spend so much on the first day of the year haha! Every New Year, most of the shops, most especially the local brands are preparing HAPPY BAGS. Each happy bag is filled with an entire set of outfit or multiple random items from a store and it's available on promo price. The usual price of a "happy bag" is 10,000 yen or Php 4,300. But its content is actual worth more than that. However, the catch here is that, you don't know what exact items are inside -- the style, design, color. What you only know is the size and the actual worth of all the items inside. Well, I've seen some that displayed the actual content of the bag but they're more expensive than the surprise ones. I watched in the news that there's this shop wherein a lot of people have already lined up at dawn to get HAPPY BAGS worth 10,000 yen each but are filled with items worth 100,000 yen or Php 43,000. Can you just imagine how awesome of a bargain that is?!? (I actually took photos of the happy bags but I lost them 'cause I failed to sync them to my laptop before deleting them)

So on New Year's Day, I went shopping in Tokyo with my cousin and aunts and I spent 2 hours in H&M because there were a lot of ridiculously discounted items and a lot of customers as well. I bought 10 items for only 5,000 yen of Php 2,200. That's a mix of dresses, shorts, tops, and skirts. I could've bought more but I limited my spending and my family has been waiting for me for so long at a resto across H&M. haha!

H&M Harajuku

at the roof deck of Tokyu Plaza (Harajuku)

will never get tired of shopping for bargain finds

In Japan, we live in the province but we're just a minute or two away from boutiques and department stores. I think we go shopping like at least twice a week. On weekends we go to the malls in nearby cities such as the Aeon Mall in Kofu (Yamanashi), Don Quijote (Matsumoto, Nagano), etc. Imagine how much this trip damaged my pocket. But still, I was thankful 'cause I got a lot of free shopping from my aunt, uncle, and cousin.

my cousin is my forever shopping buddy

Conquered my Fear of Heights at Fuji-Q Highland

I have this fear of heights so I don't usually ride high attractions, most especially rollercoasters. But when some friends and I visited FujiQ Highland in Yamanashi last June 10, I had no choice but to ride all of the rollercoasters there! Actually I was able to ride 3 out of 4 rollercoasters only because the scariest rollercoaster, the Eejanaika (4-dimension rollercoaster) was closed.

It's my first time in Fuji-Q Highland, although I've already seen the place one time when we visited Mt. Fuji. Anyway, I was so proud of myself that day because I was able to conquer some of the world's tremendous rollercoasters.

 didn't know I had to squat to get a better shot lol

I wasn't the one who paid for my entrance fee so I didn't know how much my ticket was. We headed to our first ride which took us more than 30mins in line. This ride was Fujiyama, the King of Coasters. According to my research, it's the 4th largest rollercoaster in the world. It seemed like it has the longest duration of 3:36. While up there, we can see the entire amusement park. Unfortunately, Mt. Fuji wasn't visible since it was covered with clouds. The only downside was, my neck and back hurt after the ride.

while at the queue for Fujiyama

 so high!

done!

Then we lined up for Dodonpa, which took us an hour and 30 minutes in line. The ride was so quick and it was unexpectedly scary. It's the world's fastest rollercoaster. It resembles a jet that's being launched so it accelerated so quickly. After the fast launch were a couple of twists and 360-degree turns. It was so cool!

Wasn't able to take a pic so I just grabbed a photo from Google Image Search (pic at the right)

We got tired from lining up so we decided to have a quick lunch first. Right after lunch we headed to the Panic Clock wherein we were hanging on its pendulum which turned 360 degrees too! I really felt that all I had for lunch will come out of me haha! Next was the Tondemina, a ride sponsored by Pizza-La. It looked like a pizza pie wherein 50 people were sitting around its outer crust (circumference, being tossed left and right up in the air. It's actually fun and not that scary.

 We're supposed to go to the Super Scary Labyrinth of Fear, which is probably the scariest ghost house in Japan. In fact, it was featured in the news to have real ghosts who got mixed up with the staff ghosts in costume. Even some of the staff inside who were acting like ghosts actually saw the real ghosts. That horror house looked like an old hospital. Guests will just walk freely inside this 4-storey building while being chased by zombies. They said that those fake zombies grab hands and even pull them. Fortunately, I got saved! When we got there, the attraction was already closed because the people in line were already enough until the closing time. That was around 2:40pm and the attraction closes at around 5pm.


So we just decided to ride the Red Tower. It works like an elevator. while seated, it pulled us to the top of the tower giving us a nice view of Yamanashi. And after a couple of seconds, it dropped us more than halfway then up again and down. It was a short ride so there's no queue.

And the best part of the day was conquering the world's steepest rollercoaster, the Takabisha! It was certified by the Guinness Book of World Record. It took us around an hour on queue and when it was our turn, I felt like backing out! Imagine, it's a 121-degree free fall! I never thought I would even survive it! I got my eyes closed most of the time during the 2-minute ride!

 speechless!

And that's how I conquered my fear of heights! The next time I go back to Japan, I will be trying the #1 in the list of the World's Largest Rollercoasters, that one in Nagashima Spa Land!:)

Here's the link to Fuji-Q Highland's website: http://www.fujiq.jp/en/

A Day in Heidi's Village

Last June 2, we visited Heidi's Village in Sutama. It was inspired by the Japanese anime "Heidi, Girl of the Alps" back in 1974, which I was able to watch on TV when I was in my early grade school days.

OUTFIT: Pink and Floral (Forever21 Floral Sheer Top, Shorts, and Shades; Unbranded Pink Cardigan, H&M Feather Earrings, D&G watch, Shimamura wedges from Japan)

The place is a huge garden, and it's being used a wedding place too. The best time to be there is during the start of spring, when there are lots of tulips. When we got there, most of the flowers were already withered. The garden was in transformation because they were replacing the withered flowers with new ones. Some roses we saw were still buds about to bloom soon. Here are some of our photos:

 church for weddings

 there's a viewing deck at the top of that tower

 garden wedding venue

 when you're lazy to walk around the village...

 me and my cousin

 Super love my Forever21 aviators and H&M feather earrings!:)

 flowers!

 HDR using Camera 360 app on my iPhone

 just like a kid...

 Peter and Heidi stuffed toys...so cute!!!

 red roses at the background

 emote like that! LOL!:))

 photography on iPhone. autofocus baby!:)

 Pink flowers to match my cardigan :))

 fountain at the background (which we kinda covered lol)

 view from the top

 water mist! brrr!

 Yuki (goat) and Joseph (dog) plus my cousins

quiet on the "set" haha

 Heidi and Lolo Alp

 Me, Kensuke, Tita Mama, Cherry, Nanay (Grandma)

 the background matched my top!:))

The last look before leaving...

 lomofied!:)

Our habit in the car: Photo Ops! haha!