Hobbies and Hot Dogs

Last Saturday Pinn and I made our way out to Odaiba to attend Japan's largest Hobby Show. It was rainy and cold outside, but luckily there was lots of fun crafty stuff inside to keep us warm. The Hobby Show was on for three days, but I could only make it on the Saturday because of work, so unfortunately I missed out on the Prince's talk show. However we did make it in time to see a talk show with Tomoko Takamori - Japan's leading amigurumi artist - and man, is she cute!

That's her on the right! Cute dress and cute shoes.

We were introduced to Takamori-san later by my friend from Nihon-Vogue and even though we talked about her visiting the Tokyo S+B, I didn't think that she would come to our next meeting three days later. Of course I didn't have my camera with me. Dumb. I am going to do an interview with Takamori-san though - the interview will appear on my new Japanese craft site...which will hopefully be up soon!!

Here's Pinn looking super cute in her handmade beret and capelet. We were lucky enough to receive a free bento lunch from my friend - yay!

I actually don't have many photos from the Hobby Show as photography was not exactly allowed. Here's the three other photos I took.

Um, I think this one needs no explanation.

And here's Rira-kuma (relax bear). You could have a polaroid taken with Rira-kuma so I went to line up, but they told me I needed some silly special ticket.....I was so sad.

But the excitement does not end there. The next day Daz and I head off to Costco for the first time. We had fun because everything was BIG.

I made French toast for breakfast with blueberries and stewed apples with walnuts and raisins - yum!

It took us about 40 minutes to get to the Costco at Tamasakai by train. It's really easy to get to and only a 10 minute (or less) walk from the station. Good directions in English here.

We found it!

Daz feels right at home with the gigantic trolleys (or carts as you Americans say)

Since we were hungry when we arrived, we went straight to the eatery. We ordered two hot dogs, one pizza slice, one churro, and two bottomless cups of soft drink - it all came to less than 1000 yen.

Me using the relish machine to load up our hot dogs

Darin eating the gigantic pizza slice

Click to continue on below and see some photos of really large amounts of food. We actually didn't buy any of the featured products....except for the 4kg box of old fashioned oats!!

Yuck - ranch dressing

Darin has been craving liquid cheese. He claims it's an American comfort food. I did promise that Costco would have it and that he could 'pour' it on his hot dog, but this was all we found. It stayed at Costco.

Darin sitting on a large stack of Budweiser. Please take note of the XXXX in the background. We really wanted to take home a slab of Coopers Pale Ale, and even though it was nearly half price per bottle, we figured that we wouldn't be able to control ourselves and the Coopers stayed at Costco.

Darin with a thick cyclinder of boneless ham

And here's me holding one of the few things we did buy - 4kgs of old fashioned quaker oats!!

BTW, if you live in Tokyo it costs only 500 yen to have a box of your shopping (up to 30kg) delivered to your home if you don't have a car!! Also Costco only accepts American Express and cash.

Comments

[freecia]

I love how Costco is International! Very comforting to know that there's a Costco nearby with all the Toilet Paper you want or need.

[molly!]

Costco looks like so much fun! That's too bad about Rilakuma, I love that guy.

[Amy]

Yay Costco! Now you can enjoy the pleasures of Enormous Quantities.

[Jenna]

That ranch dressing is hilarious - it looks like it's in a water bottle! Ewwww.

[Carrie]

We get those oats too! What a deal. I heart Costco.

And Relax Bear is so cute! Sorry you missed your picture with him!

[gleek]

OH! rirakuma!! the "relax" bear :) hehehe, you probably don't know this but when i was there i bought 15 of those plastic rirakuma folders at yuzawaya to bring back for the spiders here. on each one, rirakuma was doing something or other lazy thing and it was cracking me up. i've been calling him the lazy bear ever since! never bothering to look him up, of course. how funny! i have the folder of him munching on a cookie, "bari bari."

wow, so you go out to costco, buy a bunch of stuff, pay an extra 500 yen and it just shows up at your house? i wish they had that in NYC! or maybe they do.. hmmm, i must check on that.

[Gina]

I am so desirious of Pinn's Bento Box lunch. Yum! She wears the beret and capelet so well. Adorable!

[Mariko]

That bento looks so delicious, and Pinn looks very stylish. What fun! And Costco, it looks just like the ones in the US. I guess I was expecting it to have more Japanese stuff, like giant boxes of nori or yakisoba or something.

[Jeanie]

Wow, Costco! hehe I love eating a Polish Dog and a Churro whenever I go.. and so cheap, how can you say no? ;)
Hope you've been doing well!

[christine]

that tin of nacho cheese? never a good idea. (my family knows from experience...)

[empess]

I'm glad to hear that Paypal ruled in your favour. However, is she not certified? They can't take the funds out of her account. That's horrible. The necklace is nice but definitely not worth the trouble! I hope you have much better luck next time!

[Stephanie S]

Whoa! I'm totally overwhelmed by those photos...it's making me remember how excited i used to get when I would go to the "Comissary" (is that how you spell it?) store on the American Army base in Tokyo and buy gobs of Twinkies and US junk food because it was such a treat in Japan. Strange! It must be a total gaijin pickup joint, eh?

[D R E W]

you don't like ranch dressing?!!! i dont like vegemite, so i guess we're even, then...

[heather]

oo! put me on your mailing list for the japanese crafts website! that must me alot of hard-work, がんばってください！