nykeiko travels and buys: Tokyo Japan shopping haul

This is my food shopping haul from our not-so-recent trip to Tokyo, Japan back in May 2018 :/ I know, I am super guilty for not posting regularly on this blog. I have another post drafting about our trip to South of France from  last month so I thought I should post this one before the other one goes live!

So we were in Japan for 5 days and four nights with the family. How fun! I've been to Japan before but I have always wanted to visit Tokyo and felt like I didn't visit Japan at all if I didn't visit Tokyo first. So now, I finally feel like I've been to Japan!

It was a beautiful trip and I loved every moment of it except sleeping in a double bed with a toddler sandwiched between us. That was lousy.

We visited Tsujiki market, Shibuya, Harakuju, a nice big shrine, the Imperial Palace and of course ate some local delicacies. We stayed in nice little hotel in the Ginza district and walked/metro just about everywhere. We even did a day trip to Mount Fuji plus strawberry picking which was the highlight of our trip.

Traveling with a 2 year old toddler and a 74 year old senior buddhist vegetarian (eggs allowed only) made this trip all kinds of challenging but we somehow managed to enjoy ourselves. I kept imagining how MUCH MORE I could have done, seen or eat if it wasn't for babysitting but thinking back, the goal was to spend time together as a family and that , we did!

Today's post, I wanted to share with you all the shit I bought. My rule was that it has to be MADE IN JAPAN or else there was no point of paying that $ for extra luggage. We flew budget airline SCOOT and there was a fee for checking in a bag which I made my dad pay so that I can fill it with good stuff. Scroll down...

Saw a Natural Lawson and naturally went into it out of curiosity. There's a lot of LAWSON convenience stores in Japan but not NATURAL LAWSON. We stayed in Ginza and it seems like there was a lot of things going on. 

I put some of this serum on after I blow dry my hair. I am not sure what the benefit is and I don't really see the difference but it smells like Lavender which makes me feel so calm.

I bought this coloring map on my last trip to Taiwan at a Daiso. I only bought one map for a friend's kid and then regret not getting any for myself. In Japan, I grabbed a couple and can't wait to color this when the kid is like, ten.

My friend in Japan let me know about LOFT. A chain that sells everyday commodities and I was so excited to visit this multi floor store in the heart of Shibuya. I bought the following items:

I was on a quest to find a cute lunch box for my kid when I have to start packing her lunch at daycare (ARGH am not looking forward to that). This one looks like the Creuset's croquette but a hundred times cheaper because it is NOT Creuset. Loft had SO many variety of bento boxes, I was overwhelmed.

This is what my daughter is going to use when I prepare rice or noodles for her lunch. HOLY shit I feel a whole new level of motherhood now that I have to start preparing her lunch EVERY single damn day. 

This is for lunch prep purposes.

Lunch box #2. I went into this fancy Japanese made souvenir shop and got this lunch box for myself or the kid. I don't care. It's made in Japan and I can use it on a stove.

Does going to foreign supermarkets excite you as much as I do?
I visited a few grocers in Japan and wanted to shop like the locals. Price points are usually lower in grocery stores and I picked up these bags of matcha tea latte and powder.

Some drugstore stuff. Babulong cold/fever powder is my go-to drug of choice! Super effective!

Some cure all ointments (I haven't used because I prefer Polysporin).

and of course, cute little Hello Kitty bandaids for cute boo boos.

I bought this randomly at the airport to snack on the plane. I ended up sleeping on plane and never opened to try it.

Dave read you can only get this flavor at the Narita airport so he got a box to give away to friends and family.

I always get red bean green tea mochi this when I stop over in Japan. It was my mom's favorite snack too so I always made sure I got her a box on my way to Taiwan. This was yearsss ago though when I did not have the luxury of flying direct flights from Montreal to Taiwan.

I heard this was an awesome snack so I finally got some. Royce chocolate on anything is always a good idea.

Life is like a box of chocolates, you just never know what you're going to get. This is a box full of chocolates.

At the Narita airport, I went crazy on buying snacks, cakes and cute food.

Dried fish and squid for snacking.

I wasn't interested in these large POCKY until a guy with a tray of POCKYs to sample came towards me and I tried it and I'm like mmm, I'll take this box. Samples work!

Final purchase of the airport before leaving for Taiwan:

Oops, this wasn't MADE IN JAPAN but it's sold ONLY in JAPAN but made in China. Also, I've always wanted to get a kitchen set for the kid but this one is also a kitchen set but  a lot smaller and a lot cheaper too. Luckily, the kid doesn't put things in her mouth and I have been neglecting to follow the choking hazard warnings for a while now.  

Update: She looooves playing with this. Worth every penny.