Chebu for Christmas

Way back when, I mentioned that I'd make Cheboraashika (Japanese spelling) part of my sister's Christmas present, but I guess she forgot, because when she opened the present I sent her, she nearly fainted! I really wanted to send her a mess of items, but I'm not that rich, and it turns out that little Chebu is experiencing a lot of popularity right now, so there was no shortage of items. What was the problem? I couldn't find the store!!! A few months ago, a friend brought me to Kichijoji and showed me all around; we got tea, ate fish pastries, saw a local festival, and went to a bunch of stores. But it was dark and we covered half of the city and because he knew where we were going, I didn't bother keeping track. Anyway, during that trip, we were looking for a good birthday present for his friend and came upon this little store tucked in the basement of a corner in a back alley. Sounds like a bad horror film? Well, it was actually pretty neat (see Kichijoji photo album for more detail) and they had a mountain of Chebu items. My mission: find the store again, on my own, secure the toys, and save Christmas!

But even the best of plans....well, you know.

I ended up walking around for 2 hours the first day unable to find the store. Now, I've got a pretty good handle on some of the places in Kichijoji now, but like I said before, I haven't seen this particular store in a few months. So, how did I try to track it down? This may sound asinine, but I started walking to places that had a familiar feel and didn't go to places where I knew it was not. And it worked, too! I felt my spider senses tingling as I got in the area where I kind of thought it was and was able to track down most of the other places I haven't been in a long time, but I couldn't for the life of me find that store! It was getting dark and cold and things were starting to all close up, so I gave up for the night and went back to ICU. Back at the dorm, a strange burst of inspiration hit me. "You know, I remember the store being rather popular with younger people. It probably has a website. I could use the internet to find the exact location of the store. That would save me so much time! Why didn't I think of this before?!"Because I was all caught up in the moment before and thought I could track the place down like a blood hound, that's why. Brilliant, right? So with the power of the internet, I went back on the Emperor's birthday and sure enough found the place immediately (go figure).

I would tell you more about the gifts, but let's see the runner ups that didn't make it back to America:

I wonder if Anna liked her gift... let's see!

Looks like all is well that ends well. I actually have the same set of Chebu Tupperware as Anna does, so we match just like sisters should (side note: my little angels, Lucy and Emily, also got bento lunch boxes that matched each other).