Belated Happy New Year! (feat. Namja Town)

...very belated lol.

It feels like time passes in double speed here in Japan ( ಠ ಠ )

Snapshot from Roppongi

Anyway, both Christmas and New Year's went by in a glance.

Christmas was not so eventful as it's pretty different from Christmas back home. When you are used to celebrating with your family with a big traditional feast, Christmas decorations and presents, a "couple" orientated Christmas is just not.. very... appealing. 

Christmas eve look ^^

Christmas presents from friends ^^

But anyway, I asked my nice boss if we could have a small Christmas party at my workplace and was able to gather a few friends. It was nice and cozy, but I would at anytime prefer Christmas at home I think!

Japanese New Year was very different as well! For once, there's no firework! I'm not so fond of doing fireworks myself, but looking at it is pretty and since it's a tradition once a year, you're just used to a New Year's with fireworks. And it's a family tradition where the family gather and have dinner together. On the 1st (either at midnight or the first days of the new year) everyone will go to a temple to pray.

I gathered with some friends and we went to an izakaya to eat and drink, and then went to the local temple around midnight. SO many people were already standing in line to pray, it was crazy! A lot of stands were lined up with New Year's food too.

Line to Meiji temple!

We went to Meiji temple a couple of days after New Year's and it was still super crowded! So we just gave up and went to the food court lol

NAMJA TOWN

So a week ago I went to "Namja Town" located in Sunshine City mall in Ikebukuro.

It's a small indoor theme park, however it also features a "Gyoza Stadium" and "Ice cream City". Entrance is cheap so it's still worth going there even though you just came to eat lol.

Gyoza with cheese!

My friends and I bought a gyoza from a different stand each to try a bit around. The gyoza stands should be from the most popular and famous gyoza restaurants and it was a bit pricy as well compared to normal gyoza you buy, so our expectations were of course pretty high. Well as you might have guessed already, we were kinda disappointed.

Round gyoza with chili sauce, gyoza with cheese on top and inside

It was good but not.. amazing.

Hakuoki!!

And then! I found out they had a lot of Otome game merchandise as well lol! My favorite series Hakuouki was there as well so of course had to get a fangirl photo with them lol.. /otaku

Entering the ice cream museum!

Sea urchin taste

Natou taste aka. fermented soy beans

Garlic and mint taste

Museum: display with all the different flavored icecream

Yeah there was a lot of weird ice creams, but of course you could buy regular ice cream as well hehe. Afterwards we walked around a bit. There was also arcades, a cinema and a stage. After lurking around we finally went out and just did some small shopping in the mall lol. Namja town was fun, but well, I'm not sure I'll go back haha. Benn there, done that :P

And that was it for now! We are already past mid-January! Can't believe how fast time passes x_x

I will be back again hopefully before February! (hah right as if... >_>;)

Thanks for looking and hope everyone had a nice New Year's!!