I can’t believe it’s taken me to the end of June to finally share with you guys the magical birthday I had. As it’s been so long, I can also put Sam’s birthday celebrations in the same blog so at least it saves me from spamming you with posts haha. If you’re not interested in reading what we did on our birthdays and just want to see the pictures – no worries – just scroll to the bottom of the text and all the images are below. I hope you like them!
For everyone else who is staying to here the details, I’ll start with my birthday. As I had a long shift on the 17th, my actual birthday, we spread the celebrations out on various days of May. It started with our usual Eurovision party on the 8th May (it was early this year as Eurovision was the following week and we always are sure to have the party before the finals). With time difference and whatnot, the party was actually in the morning for those who joined from Europe, so I’m extra grateful for everyone who took the time out to join this year as I know the timing was a bit inconvenient. In true spirit of the country we’re representing that year, Sam and I also always decorate the house, get dressed up and try cooking food from that country for dinner. This year we were Finland, so we made Finnish Chanterelle Gravy for our meal and it was really delicious!
The following weekend, on the 14th, after I finished work, we went for drinks at a pub in Ikebukuro with some of my new work friends. It was so nice to hang about together outside of work for one of the first times and it was really nice for everyone to meet Sam too.
On the 15th, we went to Tokyo Disneyland! We almost didn’t get to go because the tickets were so hard to get for foreigners. The convenience stores and Disney stores run off a separate system to the Disneyland shop online, so they were saying the tickets were sold out where they weren’t, and the Disneyland online shop only accepts Japanese credit cards (and I mean CREDIT cards ha). We couldn’t use my Japanese debit card to pay for the transaction, we couldn’t use a UK credit card, we couldn’t use our cash card or the card we usually use for larger transactions because none of those things were, specifically a Japanese credit card. Big love to Kana at the Ikebukuro branch who let us use her credit card and use give her the money – you literally saved my birthday dear!<3 I literally felt like a princess, celebrating my birthday in Disneyland. We had an amazing time, ate some great food, went on some amazing rides (big shout out specifically to the beauty and the beast castle ride thing with all the animatronics, also to the ride where we got to ride in a real steam train and of course to the mini mine train thing that made us feel the rush of going really fast on a ride again). Also the parades were absolutely amazing, and the atmosphere was so magical I think it’ll live on inside me for so long (along with the song to Baymax’s Happy Ride which I still cannot get out of my head a month and a half later)!
On the 16th, we spent the day relaxing and watching the Eurovision final and baking my birthday cake. On the 17th, my actual birthday, we had cake for breakfast and played computer games all morning, before going to work. On the 18th, to finish off my birthday celebrations, we went out for vegan burgers in Nishi Waseda, at a place called Great Lakes. The burgers are handmade by the owner out of vital wheat gluten and shitake mushrooms. They were so so delicious!
For Sam’s birthday, we couldn’t celebrate the weekend before as we moved house (I will do a blog post about our apartments next for anyone who wants to know/see. On the 15th though, Sam’s actual birthday we were both working, although not a super long shifts luckily. We spent the morning chilling and eating good food. We had heart shaped waffles for breakfast and really nice iced coffee. Sam got to open all his presents and we went shopping for a nice bath bomb and chocolate for him to have a relaxing evening after work. We also went to a bakery to get some fresh bread for us to have easy yet delicious dinner. At lunchtime, we went for ramen at our favourite ramen bar in Seibu, Ikebukuro. After work we had vegan bacon butties for dinner and then had a nice hot chocolate and snacks whilst playing video games that evening after work.
That weekend, Sam decided he didn’t want to go anywhere as it’s the rainy season so it’s super hot and humid all the time. Therefore we stayed in and relaxed some more, watched some movies, played some games, and I baked Sam the birthday cake of his choice for his to snack on all weekend.
As always, I’m super grateful for the messages and love you guys send us, and for the effort you put in to reading these blogs. Sending you all our love back and, of course, I’ll drop all the pictures from our birthdays below!
-Alice
