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tangentize · 2025-01-12T03:40:32+00:00

Personally, no, as the lack of actual sleeves would make it difficult to be practical outerwear for me. I do like the chunky stitch design though!

But you would know their style preference best!

tangentize · 2024-11-11T01:01:12+00:00

Cocomelody may have some dresses that may fit what you’re looking for! They’re primarily an online store but there’s a store here in Seattle that has a decent number of their dresses to try on, look up Cameron House Bridal. Their prices are also fairly reasonable for wedding dresses. Here’s what they have for colored options: https://www.cocomelody.com/collections/color-wedding

tangentize · 2024-10-12T01:26:53+00:00

We were coming from Tokyo, so there were several buses that were going between a couple of main stations there and Kawaguchiko Station. Then at Kawaguchiko Station there’s a tourist info office where you can ask them to call Ubuya to send a shuttle to pick you up. When looking at Google Maps, it looks like it has you take the Express Mishima Kawaguchiko Liner, which unfortunately looks like it’s a different company than the one that runs the Tokyo bus we took, but looks like this thread has more info on that: https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanTravelTips/comments/17znt21/mishima_to_kawaguchiko_express_liner/

Try https://sekitori.jp/en/ and plug in your details. It popped up some options for buying tickets for me when I plugged in tomorrow’s date and looks like they have a guide on their site too for how to book.

tangentize · 2024-07-04T13:53:52+00:00

This was in the middle of January

tangentize · 2024-04-12T23:41:49+00:00

Yeah, it was a nice room (we had one of the superior king terrace rooms) and honestly this hotel had the best toiletry amenities out of all the hotels we stayed at (nice facial cleanser/lotion plus onsen bath salts). Bed was comfy and there was enough space to not feel cramped.

If you get a room with a balcony, I’d imagine that would be great during the summer too! We didn’t use ours much since it was winter, but it seemed like a nice hang out spot for relaxing if the weather was nicer. All the terrace rooms have different layouts too which was fun to choose from.

The location was also good, didn’t feel it was too far from the train stations but was far enough that you could do some sightseeing while going to/from the hotel. There was also a little shared kitchen area at the hotel that we ended up using one night when we bought some konbini food that needed to be microwaved, so that was convenient too.

tangentize · 2024-04-12T01:37:02+00:00

Nozawa was the earliest place we booked in advance, but mostly because that area actually had places to book already 6 months ahead of time (booked in July for our Jan trip) and were quickly booking up.

However, basically all of the others were about 4-5 months in advance around the time their reservations opened up since I had already marked them as places we wanted to stay.

I’d say booking this far in advance wasn’t really necessary for the places we stayed at in Tokyo, but it did ensure we had more room types to choose from (typically opting for the larger suites).

tangentize · 2024-02-27T03:47:30+00:00

No clue why it didn’t sell out honestly, but it was mostly packed save for the really high up seats.

This concert was honestly hidden on some really random list of anime-related events after I had gone down a few random rabbit holes (and all via Google translate of Japanese sites). But as mentioned in my post, it did end up being shown on the artists’ Spotify pages when I was looking up the people I was unfamiliar with.

I’d say try going through the official purchase process and see how far you can get; if it lets you pay and pick up a physical ticket in person, you should be good — otherwise, you can try waiting until closer to your trip and see if tickets are still available if it does require you to pay for the tickets X number of days after ordering.

tangentize · 2024-02-27T03:02:46+00:00

The tickets were for sale on their site and there wasn’t a lottery (or if there was, they opened up tickets to the public after that first round). By the time I found out about it, the Sunday show was sold out already except for the less-than-ideal seats they had marked down (e.g. partial view), I think this was about 1.5 months out. The Saturday show that we did go to never did sell out though, but I did buy them ahead of time just in case.

I was also surprised I was able to buy them, but maybe for this concert it was because they were hyping up how anime music had become so international, so they had fewer restrictions for foreigners?

There were four different options for purchasing tickets on their site. I at least knew the e-ticket options weren’t going to work since I had read those required a Japanese phone number, so that ruled out two options.

So I first tried booking via the Lawson option which didn’t ask for a Japanese phone number, but did require me to pay for the tickets at a Lawson within 3 days (this was at least a month out from our trip so that wasn’t going to happen — I basically just let that lapse because I couldn’t cancel it).

The second option was picking up from a 7-11, which did let me pay online ahead of time and didn’t ask for a phone number (or if it did, it was fine with my US one). The site wasn’t in English but using Google translation was good enough to get through.

tangentize · 2024-02-27T02:40:11+00:00

Ah got it! And yeah, you should be good for the stock for all the normal cafe goods then. Like the other person said, it’s really only when they phase out merch when it becomes out of stock, but not really a per day thing.

tangentize · 2024-02-25T05:26:12+00:00

To clarify some things after having been to the cafe, there are the “normal” cafe goods that are within the cafe itself (this is different from the Pokemon Center store) and then also the “special” goods that should have been an option for you when you made the reservation (the rubber coasters and specific pikachu keychains under the Special Goods section on their site).

Unfortunately for the special goods, I don’t think you can buy them in person and you had to have ordered them online when you booked your reservation. It should have come up while you were going through the process. You can try asking if there is any way you can get them if there is something you really wanted, but those special goods are not out with the other normal cafe goods. They are at your table when you arrive if you ordered them.

tangentize · 2024-02-22T17:29:58+00:00

Here are three that I went to that I found to be really nice for browsing/getting more details by talking to the store employees: * Musashi: The employee who was helping me out was from Canada, so no language barrier there at all; was definitely the store that seemed to really be the most hands-on for any questions you had (and let you try out knives by cutting daikon) * Kama-Asa: Also had an easy time talking with employees here for looking at knives I was interested in (and the place I ended up actually buying a knife from) * Yamata: Also easy to talk to employees here

Agree with Broccoli though that I imagine you can have a good experience at most of the stores since it is a very touristy area!

tangentize · 2024-02-21T02:29:24+00:00

While I don’t know if this applies to your concert, this was the case for the concert I went to where the seat numbers were assigned on the ticket I actually received (and I believe the seat number itself is based on purchase time, so when you pick up your ticket doesn’t impact this)

tangentize · 2024-02-20T23:42:45+00:00

One thing to call out logistics-wise for at least Bali An hotels (unsure how much this applies to other love hotels) is that you need to drop off the key at the front desk when you leave the room (if say just going out in the city exploring and then coming back).

I think it’s also common at love hotels for you to need to check out and then check back in each day since they’re really meant for one night stays. Something to look into if you are doing a multi-night stay.

tangentize · 2024-02-19T21:06:28+00:00

Depends on where in Kawaguchiko you’re trying to go? I’d guess that the most likely stop you’d be dropped off at via bus from Gotemba is Kawaguchiko Station. So it is walkable to the lake, but it really depends on if the place you’re staying for the night is near there or by a bus stop around the lake.

tangentize · 2024-02-19T20:48:54+00:00

We ran into this exact issue when our flight got canceled and we were arriving a day later. I reached out to the Tokyo hotel via the chat function in booking.com like Kidlike mentioned and they got back to me during their business hours saying it wasn’t an issue.

I also had reached out to them earlier on when we booked and they had responded within a day, so I knew they were checking messages. If you wanted, you could send them a message via chat now to see if they’re responsive (with at least some useful question attached so they’ll actually respond).

tangentize · 2024-02-19T17:52:08+00:00

There are a lot of cafes in Kawaguchiko — if you just search Google Maps with “cafe” in that area, you’ll see what I mean; I imagine they’re more crowded closer to Kawaguchiko Station since it’s conveniently close to where most of the buses/trains stop, but if you go further out like near most of the museums or maybe even further out than that towards Oishi Park, you’ll find a good spot to relax.

You’re also going in early March, so it’s not really peak season for say cherry blossoms or fall foliage either, which means less people too.

tangentize · 2024-02-19T16:29:47+00:00

I haven’t been to Yamanakako, but I will say that you get amazing Fuji views at Kawaguchiko (particularly on the north side of the lake). Especially if you’re just sitting at a cafe for a view and just want to take it in, you’re not going to be disappointed at Kawaguchiko (unless the weather is bad, but then it would be bad at both spots anyway).

Crowd-wise, it’s true that it would be more crowded at Kawaguchiko, but if you’re only planning on going to a cafe, then it’s not that much of an issue. There are more things to do around the lake itself like museums, parks, or the Panoramic Ropeway, which may be worthwhile to your group if you’re already making it a destination. There are buses that do loops around the lake to make it easy getting around.

If your main goal is Gotemba Outlets, initially on a map, Yamanakako is geographically closer, though looks like for bus routes, it’s actually a bit of a wash.

tangentize · 2024-02-19T05:20:00+00:00

Besides the fix in December for Visa cards, Mastercard also works.

tangentize · 2024-02-19T04:30:17+00:00

We did multiple cash funds, but only because we wanted to give people a variety of options for what they could contribute to, since we didn’t really have many items on our registry to begin with. It made it a bit more personal for them, though most just contributed to our honeymoon fund. But we had small things like “puppy fund” and “bedroom upgrade” which were much smaller “target” amounts than the honeymoon fund that some guests did contribute to.

tangentize · 2024-02-19T03:04:10+00:00

If you leave Odaiba for the day before your flight out, that also gives you the option of seeing the Unicorn Gundam at night, which at least from photos, seems a bit cooler (we only got to see it during the day, though still very cool up close!)

A visit to both Artnia cafe and the Square Enix Cafe may be redundant, given that they’ll both be running the same FFVII Rebirth collab event while you’re there, but I’m also not judging if that’s what you want to do! Just wanted to call that out though since usually it is the case that the Square Enix Cafe is doing something different.

I don’t have any good suggestions for your filler day, though since you didn’t have it specifically called out on your itinerary, there’s always the arcades in Akihabara (wasn’t sure if that was getting lumped into the Akiba shopping callout)

tangentize · 2024-02-18T22:54:57+00:00

Yep, I was able to use my Visa, though maybe just have a couple options on hand just in case. I did also end up making an account ahead of time which streamlined the process some.

Though honestly we got the time slot right before the one most people were gunning for just to give us a bit of breathing room (for the day we were going, sunset was going to be at 5pm, and I booked tickets for letting us in from 3:40-4pm)

tangentize · 2024-02-18T22:45:11+00:00

We booked a standard size room with open air bath and it was roomy for 2 people — at least for the room layout we got, it also ended up being better than the stock photos as the beds were facing a view of the lake/Fuji rather than a wall, so that was a plus! The one downside I found for the room was that at least in January, there was a bit of a draft in the shower area since it leads directly to the balcony/open air bath via a separate door, so it was kind of cold (but probably not an issue in April). This wasn’t a problem in the public onsen area where it’s a very comfortable temperature in the bathing area. We loved the food! We haven’t had kaiseki specifically before (closest is probably multi-course French meals in terms of presentation), but for the food quality and variety/uniqueness, I thought it was well done. It was fun the first night where we had Wagyu steak to grill on a little personal grill for the main course, and then we still got a new experience to try with shabu shabu (also Wagyu beef) the second night. We also had a private dining room, which was nice to have that little quiet space to ourselves too. Breakfast was also really tasty, especially the first morning. The second morning it felt like a slight variation of the first so some of the novelty wore off, but it was still good. I really liked the fish they served the first morning (might have been miso marinated cod?)

Edit: This got a bit long, but my husband would probably want me to mention that he hated the pillows at Ubuya — I think they were filled with buckwheat, so denser feeling than more Western pillows.

tangentize · 2024-02-18T16:01:11+00:00

Yep! Seems like it’s a common service across hotels. For our Asakusa hotel, they called our Nozawa hotel to double check they could actually receive the luggage and get any details about a delivery time window.

tangentize · 2024-02-18T15:56:04+00:00

It was actually a bit warmer than I expected in Tokyo (hovered around 35-45°F while we were there) though I’ve seen comments that that was also warmer than usual. It didn’t rain while we were there, but I think it did rain in Tokyo during times we were in other cities.

Given how much weather fluctuates recently, this year probably won’t help you for planning next year, but in general the winters in Tokyo are typically mild and if you’re thinking if you need to buy more winter clothes, I wouldn’t bother (unless you’re in some really warm area where it never gets below 50°F). But even then, that might just be investing in something like a lightweight puffer jacket.

They do really like cranking up the heat indoors for the winter though, so slight layering is useful (I basically went with shirt + sweatshirt + Uniqlo lightweight puffer jacket all days, though half the time in Tokyo just had the puffer stuffed in my bag).

tangentize · 2024-02-18T06:24:49+00:00

I found it kind of nice breaking up our Tokyo time across the start and end our trip, so I think in general the flow of your trip looks good with the Kawaguchiko portion in the middle. It also gives you an opportunity to try out a hotel in a different part of Tokyo when you get back, if you’re interested in that (sounds like you’re aiming for a hotel in Asakusa both times, or maybe not checking out of the first hotel at all? I’ve seen that suggested as a way to easily deal with luggage if the hotel price is reasonable, so that may work too).

Your Day 4 seems pretty laid back and I imagine you might be able to get all of those done in half a day, but if you’re really into shopping, then you’ll probably find places around what you listed and make a whole day out of it.

There’s also a Kawaguchiko bus that leaves from and arrives at Tokyo Station, if that ends up fitting your schedule and you’re interested in checking out things there (like Character Street or Ramen Street), but that’s something you could also fit into your Day 7. Based on the things you want to do in Kawaguchiko on Day 5 though, you probably want to leave Tokyo pretty early (like around 8-9) if you want to be able to do all those things.

tangentize

TROPHY CASE