Golden Week pt 2★Toy and Doll Car Museum

I Love Japanese Cars.
**Really ridiculously picture heavy**

I was raised by a father who loves cars, and as the daddy's girl I was, am, and have always been (don't get me wrong though--I'm a momma's girl too), it's only natural I would love cars too.

Especially Japanese Cars.

Not to divulge too much, but my father did spend a fair amount of time in Okinawa before I was born and owned a Nissan Skyline (prior to the turbo charged version) as his first car. I have heard about Japan and their lovely cars since infancy, plus add in Sailor Moon on TV since I was in elementary school (at 5am on ABC Family) and my love for Pokemon games following in suite from my cousin--is it really any wonder why I love this place so much?

Anyway, the same day we went to Haruna Shrine, since it was still early morning, Ryosuke suggested we come here--the Toy and Doll  Car Museum( おもちゃと人形　自動車　博物館). This place is literally made so everyone in my family is happy for hours.

There are three main parts of the museum.

Teddy Bears...EVERYWHERE!

Upon walking into the museum (and paying a hefty fee of 1080yen) you will be greeted by a bunch of teddy bears.

Then walking into the room full of them, you will be given a history of famous people in teddy bear history a long with worry about the health of many of the ones that are in bird cages handing from the ceiling. Literally any nook and cranny they could fit a teddy bear, they did.

Super cute though, and while I was too lazy to read all of the history entries of the various women in the glass displays, it was amazing to see all kinds of teddy bears from all over the world and from the past to now.

My mom loves teddy bears, like a lot. She is convinced she can have a pet bear and even though it is a carnivorous predator wants one of her own. So I tried my best to take a bunch of pictures for her, but the problem was, I am only using my phone and the glass doesn't seem very good to cancel out any reflection of all the lights in the place so I'll give you a few.

A walk through Showa period Japan

I like history, and old things especially if they involve Japan. Not a history buff when it comes to America but East Asia, and it's long history really gets my groove goin'. I didn't even know that this was part of the museum and it's really an added bonus! When there aren't horrid crowds of people...

It was probably the worst time of the year (Golden Week) to visit this place considering both of our anxieties with crowds of people in small places--but also this small section of the museum involves small exhibit rooms and a narrow hallway.

EITHER WAY!

It was a really cool way to see old signs, and toys, and a old candy shop--I was so fascinated by it all that I kinda forgot to take more pictures...

Also there was a weird girl with an unnecessarily serious face while having her boyfriend take pictures... Being the horrid people that we are, Ryosuke took a picture doing an impression of her...we laughed too much about it.

After that you are essentially forced into a room of all old toys from the time in a big huge display case! It was amazing, especially because my eyes were drawn to the beautiful display area of Sailor Moon goods. Also, old Godzilla toy!! I LOVE GODZILLA!!!!

After the toy display area, came my most favoritest part--the carssss.

Classic Cars like Woah

Ryosuke clearly knows me best. The main point of coming to this place was for this, the Classic Car Museum!! I'm really bad at planning anything, there may be plenty that I want to do, but it all depends on what is realistically feasible to either our wallets, or time, or gas, etc. So that then makes me unsure of what to do and probably frustrates Ryosuke more than he'd like to admit.

So since we had plenty of time and he didn't want our only reason for driving this far to be for this shrine that I should've taken more couple pictures in...he suggested this beautiful land of amazing cars.

First there was this room that had a couple display areas of a single car in a Showa period setting with a bunch of cars lined up against the opposite wall. Then a room of cars that were not allowed to be taken photos of...not exactly sure why.

No more pictures beyond this point--Ryosuke sneakily took a couple, but they are a bit blurry, so just this one.

Then I saw the sign, for the real show--up to the second and third floors, is the real 'Car Museum' from the Yokota Collection. If you are a car fan, you know about this place. Especially if you are a fan of Initial D. Considering that the setting of Initial D is basically Gunma, hardcore fans will know about this place and spazz to take a bunch of pictures.

After climbing the stairs you are greeted by this amazing scene. Real life Initial D, not like the Chinese live action with Jay Chou (which I did thoroughly enjoy).

The next area is up another set of stairs, to the real show. I almost cried. I wanted to show this to my father more than any one in the whole wide world, so I literally took pictures of every single car in this show room. I will spare you the photo dump, but if anyone really wants--please leave a comment and I'll make a separate post of all 70something pictures.

I was so perfectly happy with this. But there was more!

After a bit of a confusing hallway, there was a small old candy shop--where I should have bought a candy donut making kit... and many other candies that are usually difficult to find, but we didn't get anything there and kept on through the confusing hallways.

In this museum there is also a Squirrel Park, a International Winery, and a coloring booth for the cute kewpie-chan plastic doll (the mascot of Kewpie mayo) to color with pain pens at the end of the whole museum. 

The Squirrel Park, was just a small enclosed space, sort of outside, with some squirrels. You could buy a small packet of food for them to come up and reach for, but since they are such small animals there was already a lot all over the place and no point in trying to feed them more.

After we ended up in the food court/cafe area and also saw the Kewpie coloring booth but decided we needed to eat first. I wasn't driving so I tried the 200yen glass of the daily wine with my meal.

The food...to be completely honest, was really terrible. I suggest eating right before you go. To get through everything, and if you want to take more pictures (though the time I spent on that third floor showroom of cars..was probably a good twenty minutes just there), it really takes a couple of hours.

The food is presented in a white bag that looks like it was steamed, and I'm sure it was...which gives nothing to the flavor and gives the blandest taste. The wine was also super strong for my weak self, but I used so much concentration on coloring my little Kewpie-chan that I pretty much lost my buzz by the time we left.

I had really a great time and despite the really expensive price tag on just getting in, and on all the gifts that I wanted to buy but ended up not getting at all... I would love to go again and take more, better pictures and one day hopefully take my parents.

Please if you have the chance to go, make sure that you do!

Thanks for reading!







Sakura Matsuri + Sunday Date

I love festivals!

 

The food, the nature, the culture, the food, and THE FOOD!

 

Japanese festival food is probably everybody's favorite part and the main reason that people even go in the first place, haha! I am very picky, duh, and since yakisoba is my favorite food EVER, I must admit--Kanto area's yakisoba sucks. Give me my saucy, wild yakisoba from Kansai area ANYDAY.

 

My town's cherry blossom festival holds a very special place in my heart, it's was thanks to this festival last year that Ryosuke and I were able to realize our mutual feelings for each other and started dating a fews day later! Ever since then, I have vowed that I will without a doubt go and make sure that I can enjoy the cherry blossoms with him.

 

 

I just happened to get a sweet selfie stick for less than ten bucks the day before and was just getting used to how to use it with the crowding.

 

So Ryosuke lives about twenty minutes away from the park, which is up on the main part of the town..up a huge steep hill! Considering everyone in Gunma drives, it would only be obvious that we should walk instead of using one of our cars to attempt to find a parking and drive around in circles. I am trying to get into some sort of shape since I do absolutely nothing active apart from going up and down stairs at work--at the very least a hike-like walk is completely necessary. On the brightest side, it was a beautiful day and breezy enough to not be super hot. It really only takes from 15-20 minutes and with a bottle of water, I survied!

 

We arrived at the festival about an hour after it had begun, and typical Japanese style it was already getting quite crowded and fully underway. The first thing that I was super craving more than anything was grilled steak on a stick! ハラミ/harami (tender meat from the middle)!! I used to think that カルビ/karubi(short rib) meat was the best, but the amount of fat makes it a bit--not as appetizing for me but the ハラミ is were the thick, delicious meat is at. Ryosuke got it last year and I followed in my drunk suit, for it to soon become my favorite and most looked forward to snack.

 

UNFORTUNATELY, for Ryosuke, his カルビ was...under cooked and we were a bit too far and scared of the man who served it to really say anything. Fortunately for me, mine was perfect, perfect, but I didn't want to go back to get more since I felt bad Ryosuke had such a bad experience. :(

 

 

 

After that sad bit, we passed through the other side of the park and I bought the most delicious chocolate filled--pastry and attempted to buy yakisoba from a stand which I thought would give me saucy noodles... Only to be disappointed some more by a simple mistake on my part. I decided to get in line too late, I turned around and another woman with her kids got right in front of me--and swiped the last noodles... The woman behind the counter proceeded to very rudely tell us to go somewhere else and that there were plenty of other yakisoba stands... I rarely deal with rude people in Japan, and Ryosuke made a good point of telling her how patiently we waited as we walked away. I finished eating my chocolate filled delicacy and stared at the trees to calm down from a possible blow up on the rude lady...

 

 

 

We made our way back to the main festival side of the park and made our way to a booth that was selling Grilled Chicken, Herb Sausage and claimed DELICIOUS Yakisoba. The booth next to it was selling 小籠包(Chinese soup buns) and pretty flower ice cream. The grilled chicken, was--a bit on the simple side with a good spicy sauce, but the sausage was a bit TOO herb filled and the yakisoba was--not so great. I really wish that I can go back to Kansai area during a festival and get my hands on that saucy deliciousness I have been craving soon...

 

 

Either way, it was a really nice time, and for a festival in my little town the food was pretty good. As with the way to the festival, the way from the festival was also involving the hill. But I feel like the way down was not only a hellova lot easier, but we took a nice long break on some stairs to take pictures of the beautiful view with my selfie stick!

 



Since it only took a few hours out of the day, Ryosuke wanted to help me and make my shelf that I want for underneath my desk to put stuff and leave at school instead of crowd up my tiny apartment. I had no idea that in the main home store in the area you could actually build whatever it was you needed using the supplies you just bought and renting the equiptment. So long as you bring your own materials, just fill out a form and it's free to use as you please.

 

I tend to forget that Japan doesn't have big houses with garages, and that a place like this would be most definitely necessary for those who need/want to build something of your own but don't have the space. We are both pretty new to the build-it-yourself world and were a bit sheepish to the whole experience. Funnily enough, I bought the wrong size of screw and the available driver was crap. But thankfully for us, an experienced builder was in the room as well and lent us his driver as well as gave us better screws (so we gave him our too big ones).



 

Like I said we aren't the handiest pair...so it came out a bit lopsided...woops. I'll take a picture once I've figured out how to fix that problem. Either way we enjoyed the experience and like with the other shelf, we did it together and had fun, so the outcome can be a bit--not perfect.

 

After an hour of hard labor, we were starving and luckily for us only about ten minutes away was the delicious hamburg restaurent 'びっくりドンキー', it's a 'Western' style restaurant, probably supposed to be modeled after hamburger places--with a Japanese twist as per hamburg. A great place for just meat and rice at a fairly reasonable price. Then to my happy suprise, the current campaign menu included Hokkaido ice cream! I chose for the fanciest plate including rare cheesecake and A SUPER DELICIOUS waffle! I'm not a fan of cheesecake so Ryosuke ate that for me and I enjoyed the strawberrys and waffle.

 

 

 

Another lovely date weekend!

 

Thanks for reading!