Work Related : Vectober

Hey, hey, October ended fast!

Did you promised yourself to create something everyday in October for Inktober? Well, here is my version instead of using inks, I used vector because that's what I'm creating everyday. I hardly use pen these days. I posted it up in my Behance here.

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The Sailor Soldiers :

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My everyday items :

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Fitness, health, and random stuffs :

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How was your Inktober?

Work Related : Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe, Grand Launch

Last Monday was the Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe's grand launch ! 

At last, after a while. The project started around 10 months ago and the soft launch was held a month back when I was in Tokiyo. So I couldn't make it during that time and I didn't go to visit the cafe since it was opened. I've been waiting for the grand launch. Partly because I want free gourmet foods, partly because I want the free gifts. Hah. This is the invitation card :

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We waited at the Subway near my office, ordered a chicken slice sandwich and discussed about the illustration works for my latest freelance work. The event started around 7.30pm but we were stuck in the heavy rain until 8pm+. We were late, and missed the official ribbon-cutting ceremony and Kitty herself. But we both got in nonetheless. Yeay!

I saw Mandy, Nicole, and Ally afterwards. They were all dressed up and looked presentable. AF and I was drenched wearing our casual office attire. But oh-well. 

My phone's battery was slowly dying when I tried to take some pictures to bring back home. I saw stuffs that I designed and things that we all created together for so long. It is finally there T^T This picture was taken from their official Facebook account. Here is Kitty in front of the artwork that I did. Not to say that I'm fully proud of it - it won't even be in my portfolio because I feel like there are disturbing empty spaces in the artwork that I thought of filling later while designing it but got approved and I didn't managed to make any changes. I'm proud of the spaghetti though. It was really hard to illustrate it using that stroke :

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And I also designed the mascot for the grand launch : one in the kitchen suits and another one in a dress. The Sanrio HK did some changes a bit, they added things that they felt suited Kitty better. In any ways, I'm still a proud mama :

*pictures from HK Facebook

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It felt surreal for me to see all these things in real life. We've been looking at it on the monitor for almost a year, can you imagine the wait? I even forgot about some of the little things that I designed early in the process. This is such a great experience for me, other than Begadang Backpackers, I enjoyed this project. Can you see the Coffee chart poster on the wall? Well that was from me :D

*picture  from HK Facebook

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The buffet was all special and 'gourmet' as they mentioned. I wouldn't know the differences, I'm not a food appreciator in any way :D I ate minced fruits topped with salmon, spaghetti with mushroom and wild mushroom soups and several mini cupcakes. We were 2 very awkward peoples among all the pretty bloggers and celebrities. Oh, how I love AF for being as simple as we both are. 

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I was expecting more sweets and pastries buffet - it was a French themed cafe, and coffee perhaps? But there was none. I can't believe that I'm complaining about the free foods =.= But that's fine, I'm going to feed this random sugar-craving tonight.

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Amber Chia arrived when we were preparing to go home. *Did you heard about the chaos over the Hello Kitty's limo and Rajnikanth? Hah. I couldn't be bothered with all the crowds so we just went out afterwards. Oh yes, I also received 3 Kitty macarons, a small cake, HK water bottle and a paper bag as the gift :

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Congratulation Hello Kitty Team ! :D

Work Related : Dribbble

All digital art enthusiasts and designers might have heard about Dribbble :  a community of designers answering that question each day. Web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, icon artists, typographers, logo designers, and other creative types share small screenshots (shots) that show their work, process, and current projects.

I wanted to be a part of them. Although I have an account for several years, I only got to follow and like all the designers that I love but not post any shots or write any comments. I strongly feel that I need to keep my online portfolio updated to get more interesting projects and improve so I thought Dribbble is one of the great platform  available other than Behance. And Behance proved to be really useful in my career development.

So I've been waiting and trying. 

Last week I finally - finally got an invitation to be a player at Dribbble. 

I was invited by a local UI/UX designer : Razlan Hanafiah. At last ! Thank you ! T^T 

We get 48 shots every month, so every post matters. 

Here is my Dribbble portfolio at this moment. I uploaded my version of Sailor Soldiers because they are my latest works. I thought about posting stuffs from works as well but I know that I will get annoyed with the combination of illustration and vector work in my portfolio - there's no folder :( My OCD can't deal with the differences of my leisure work and my work-work. 

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Yeay for finally being accepted as a dribbbler of the world!

*jakunzist mode*

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Ohh, and I found a really interesting website on UX Designer Salary all over the world. Although the salary paid to UX designer in Malaysia varies from being really low to quite high in the survey - we can conclude that most of them still receive fairly low salary, but tiny bit higher than normal graphic designer *based on jobstreet posts. Unless I'm going to work in Eastern Europe, India or the US. So I'm still considering whether to pursue my next skill to UI/UX or focus on illustration and icon design. Hm hm hm. 

Based  on the survey, average UX designer's salary across 70 countries is around $57,117 or RM 243,705 per year or ( $4,760 or RM 20,308 per month ). Not bad. I should definitely consider to migrate elsewhere :F

Work Related : I'm a Backpacker by Halian Azurin

Months and months ago, I got a freelance job to do illustrations for upcoming Travelogue Korea by Halian Azurin. As this would be my third time working for a book company but first time to be finally on print, I am super excited :F 

The first one was with PTSone, but I only did the coloring part - they cancelled the whole finished illustrations due to the similarity of every characters T^T but I got full payment nonetheless so I got no complains just frustration. The second one was with Karangkraf, it was for a children book on traditional games in Malaysia - I hired my ex-collegue to do rough sketches for the whole scenes because he worked as a sketchboard artist and he did it super fast. But I never found the book at any the bookstores - it was printed but I just never found it at bookstores. So this is my third and official first time :D

The project started even before I got married, I've been keeping the excitement in secret and I finally got to see the physical copy after so long. Last week I just received the book from them :D Thank you Miss Jann ! It is a nicely detailed book on backpacking in Korea. If you are a fan of travelogue, or will be going to Korea soon, you should try this book.

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I only did some of the illustration parts like : map, clothes, seasons, foods and several more items. It's not much than what I think can be offered, but I'm still excited to combine two of my personal interests : illustration + travel in one project. Hope to get more of this in the future :)

Some examples :

PS : I got a whole lot copies of travelogues in my keeping and this is a nice addition.
Hope you guys will support them as well, you can go to these links to buy it :

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Wesite PTS | Putehpress

You can buy it here : Bookcafe

Buy the e-book here : Im a Backpacker - Korea

Run : Gym and Haze

A week after we bought a Groupon's voucher to unlimited 1-month passes to a gym, we both got sick. It started with 4 days of AF resting and 5 more days of mine. It was awful and I couldn't do anything much other than watching series and movies. 

Now we are both on track again, Tasy included - *because we mentioned to her about the special affordable offer. The haze's condition turned out really bad lately after we thought that it got much better last week. False alarm. All running events got cancelled and postponed. Yesterday : Putrajaya - 184, Bukit Damansara - 178. See, following my instinct on buying the gym's pass for a month instead on joining another running event turned out to be just right. For RM 58, I got to run as many times as I want. 

By now I reached 37 km 46km of running and 11 km 14km of walking in our 3rd week. Not bad, la kan? We got roughly around 10 more days and I'm aiming for reaching at least 50 km of running this month.

+ a week more to go ! should we extend our gym session for now? 

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I also met my ex-chief of editor while lunch 4 days ago. He's in his 50s, quite fit, lean healthy body, got a copy of "What we talk about when we talk about running", used to be an avid runner but got injured - like all avid long distance runners lah kan. He doesn't seem like he regrets his years of intense running, I just remember he said this : "Well, I no longer run these days. I can't.", in 'that' tone. But he goes to the gym now and got himself a trainer to build his muscle. He home-grilled chicken breasts for lunch and maintained his food intakes and he happily said to me; 

"You just need to be a little bit more disciplined with your self and you can. I no longer run, but I still can do other things to train my body."

And when he asked what we had for lunch, and we answered "another unhealthy foods, shame on us", he said :

"You need healthy foods. It's easy you know, just go to the supermarket and buy some chicken breasts, marinate it for a night and grill it in the morning before work. I can do it, you can too".

Since than, I started bringing home-cooked lunch from the previous night's leftovers. 

And put so many tidbits at my table in the office for snacks when I need distraction from my roaring stomach : nuts, raisins, banana, biscuits. Healthy kan? =,= 

Little Stories 209 : Phone Plans

I've been using Maxis since after school. 

I didn't think much about the service, plan or charges because I'm hardly connected pun. So yesterday I went to the Maxis Center to pay my bill. While waiting for her to process my fees, I munched my secret cashew nut supply from my bag and looked at the pamphlets next to me. I saw a 'Lite' plan pamphlet for light user : RM 48 (1 GB internet, 100 minutes talk, 100 sms).

"Can I change my plan?"
"Sure, are you on contract?"
"No".
"Then that's easy, you can just choose a plan and I can change it for you".

And I pointed at the pamphlet. I've been using RM 78 per month plan forever - it consisted of 200mb internet and what-ever it was ages ago. She was even surprised by the existence of the 200mb internet plan and I had to explain to her that it's been years since I look around the current offers. Ppfft, I feel old. 

So she asked for my IC and she clicked and typed things on her keyboard. Several minutes later, I got a notification stated that I changed my plan and also cut the previous broadband line that I subscribed to last year when I was living alone. So, from those 2 lines that I've been paying around RM 140 every months for so long, I finally did what I should do from the start, now I'm starting to pay only RM 48 per month -

Lesson :

1. Even if I'm not really attached with being connected, I should be aware of current plans that they are offering. It is so much cheaper than what I've been paying, I can save A LOT.

2. Ask. 

Tokiyo Trip 12.2 : Kichijyoji

Day 6 : Kichijoji ( Monday ) Part 2

After visiting Ghibli Museum, we walked towards the Inokashira Park right next to the museum. We picked a nice bench overlooking the park and set our lunch packs consisted of several onigiris and our random drink of the day. It was a nice cold breezy afternoon and we saw several young mothers strolling along with their young toddler - the nicest view so far.

There was a young mother following her child, both didn't wear any slippers beneath their feet, playfully spreading their hands taking in the clear air. They walked pass us, her child innocently pointed to the birds around us - those birds were waiting for our rice leftovers. Behind us, there was another young mother with her child. Both sitting on the pathway, pointing and examining little things beneath the beautiful sunlight that shone right at their spot among all the tree leaves roof.  I love those little intimate moments of  a mother-child relationship. 

I thought how refreshing it is, to go out for a short lunch in a park during working hour just to freshen things up after several hours of work. Instead of sitting in my table eating things I tapao from food stalls across the road filled with oil, MSG and god knows what. =.= Right at this point, I am determined to refill my healthy food grocery list. Boo. 

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Anyway, we continue our journey towards Kichijoji right after we cleaned up. There were signs along the pathways so it wasn't so hard to find the way. The park is really big. We found a beautiful secluded shrine on a lake, there was bridges that we can walk on to cross the lake, there were people kayaking and riding the Swan boat, some nice little food stalls, beautiful little dogs, people walking and jogging, random magic performance, a closed-for-the-day local zoo. Things were nice and beautiful, every one looked so serene and calm T^T

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We finally reached the other end of the park and went out to the little shops alley referring to the Tokyo Guide. I stopped by at one of the shop to buy little cat badges with "Tokyo" written on it. There are many arts-and-crafts independent shops in this area. Ohh yes, and we stopped by at Namaste Kathmandu, Nepalese Cuisine for a tea-break Naan Cheese and Mango juice :D

I aimed for Sublo 36 and Pack Mart. And because I was wildly inspired by all these little indie-shop, I took photos of it and illustrated them back. It is almost halfway done - but I can't do it faster lah, the Mac is dying. There are also interesting places like Hara Donuts, Hattifnatt, and Avril. The whole list is in the Tokyo Guide, still up for borrowing purposes :)

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We wished we got more days to explore the city, but the time flew fast. Morning in Mitaka, afternoon in Kichijyoji - it was a great day. We ended the day with taking some pictures in front of Izakaya area and headed back to Ikebukuro.

Ohh, and after we found out about ready-to-eat rice, we bought two packs of it at 7/11 and Lawson to make fried rice that night because the house we rented didn't provide rice cooker. Home made fried rice, fried eggs and a tempura fish from local market. We were that cheap :D 

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Illustration : Etsy, Big Stamp and New Stuffs

New things I ordered for items on my Etsy just arrived during the week I was sick :D 

It was like early christmas presents. 

I sold over 200 items in Etsy since I first open it in 2011, almost reached 500 admirers and 23k viewers all around the world. I never thought it would get that much hits :D The famous items sold in my Etsy are : my Vintage Camera Sticker Pack and Game Boy Sticker Pack that I illustrated some time ago and also Be Strong Sticker that I originally illustrated to help my brother's friend. I got bored with those old stickers and make some new ones but they never really got as many hit as the old ones.

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2 weeks ago I finally ordered custom-made big sized stamp. I thought it would be easy for me to chop-chop-chop all packages with my name on it compared to writing it one-by-one on each envelope/packaging =.= I've been doing that for years. I still personalize each package when I got the time and most of the time, it was out of rush-too-sleepy-too-exhausted-tomorrow-is-workday, so they will be as normal as usual enveloped letter. But now I got this :D

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I also ordered some new printed art-prints for "Be Strong" and "Explore" illustrations. I ran when I saw the Ta-Q-Bin lorry parked in front of my apartment, knowing that it must be those stuffs that I ordered. I really love the glossy printed paper compared to previous fine linen for all my postcards T^T The 'Explore' artprint didn't came as I planned, so I'll stick to my original plan : that is to give it away for people who buy "Explore : Totebag" and Tokiyo Trip Travelogue, if I managed to finish it =.=

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I am still working on completing all characters from Sailormoon series for my next Sailor Soldier Sticker Pack BUT, it might take longer than I hope it would be due to my Mac's condition. I should also consider doing fan-art stickers for : Kiki, Arriety and Chi from Studio Ghibli and also Sakura Kinamoto from Card Captor Sakura :D And to help me buy a new machine to support my never-ending learning process, do buy stuffs from my Etsy. 

Random : Update :(

I'm still sick, so I'll be churning words to write for another week.

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Illustration : Makoto Kino

I called in sick today.
I am super sick and I'm sprawling on my bed waiting for everyone to come home T^T
I don't want to write and I can't do anything much but rest.
So I'll just share an illustration I did several days ago.

This is Makoto Kino or Sailor Jupiter from the Sailormoon series.

Update : Today is a public holiday ( Maal Hijrah ) and I spent the day moaning about the pain and preparing for Ma's birthday tomorrow :D Thank God I got another day to rest at home, I've never been this sick due to gas =,= This is the worst so far. 

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Other Sailor Soldiers :

Rei | Minako | Hotaru

Tokiyo Trip 12.1 : Ghibli Museum, Mitaka

Day 6 : Mitaka ( Monday ) Part 1

I mentioned in my previous post about how devastated I was when we couldn't buy the ticket to Ghibli Museum because it was sold out until October T^T Visiting Ghibli Museum was one of my must-do list. Tapi takde rejeki..

Anyhow, I wasn't over it so we decided to go to Mitaka anyway. 

Early in the morning, we woke up like usual and prepared for a short trip to Mitaka. Mitaka is a bit farther than other main cities in Tokyo, it is not even included in the Tokyo Handy Guide. To go there, we took the local private line Tobu-Toju from Asaka to Ikebukuro Station and then we went to Shinjuku Station. From Shinjuku Station, we took a train (Chuo Line) to Mitaka Station. I forgot how long it took for us to arrive there, probably around 40-60 minutes. 

There wasn't as many people as the other station and we even had the first cabin for ourselves in the end. The train ride was beautiful, we saw various buildings tiny buildings on our way there :

Siri Eskapi Tokiyo - Mitaka from Farikarim on Vimeo.

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We walked to the Mitaka's tourist center and asked if we could buy the ticket to Ghibli Museum - but they told me that those tickets are sold only to locals who stays in Mitaka *I mean, what's with tourist center that only sells tickets to locals? The museum sells a limited number of tickets each day, so.. yes. 

I was excited to see a custom bus stop signage of Totoro, from afar. But we decided to walk, instead of taking a bus. Just so I can really feel the pain of coming to Mitaka but can't enter the museum, even more slowly T^T 

Here is the signage along the road.
It was around 1-1.5km walk.

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The city was calm and really beautiful. I decided to choose Mitaka as a place to live if I could choose one city in Tokyo :D *plus, I can be nearer to the museum as well. There were nice structured buildings, no crowds, easy-breezy cold almost-autum weather, random cute icons along the road, Ghibli bus T^T

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After a while, we arrived at Inokashira Park and saw a map of the park. We were getting nearer. I saw a lot of momiji trees alongside of the pathway, it must be nice visiting the place during autumn, kan. When I finally reached there, I had a mixed feelings of being happy and sad and angry T^T I really wanted to go inside.

These are all I got during my short visit outside of the museum :

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Almost everything was customized into Ghibli's stuffs : the lamp posts, the gate, the emblem, the entrance, the bus, the signage, the flag, the buildings T^T Too bad we didn't get the ticket kan, too bad.  I promise myself that the next time I visit Tokyo, I'll pay someone local to buy me the ticket super early.

Tokiyo Trip 11 : Ikebukuro

Day 5 : Ikebukuro ( Sunday )

We didn't really rest since the day we headed to the airport and our body was aching from extensive walking. It was Sunday and I checked the weather, it was supposed to be a rainy day in Asaka on that day. I was still paranoid with the flood news several days before, so I asked Af if we could just go to Ikebukuro that day and spend a slow day in the mall. He agreed, *wee!*

I know Ikebukuro got so much more to offer and even though we stopped by on the station every single day, we didn't really explore the place - almost at all. For that Sunday, we chose Sunshine City, the closest one from the station. We planned to go to their aquarium or planetarium.

I remember a lot of underground walk to arrive to the mall.
The first thing we did when we finally reached the place were : 

1) go to the toilet 

2) find a nice bench in the mall and eat our onigiris for lunch

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What we did at Sunshine City :

1) We found a Ghibli shop (!!!). If you are planning on buying Ghibli Studio's merchandize, you should find Donguri stores. I found out later that night about how they were selling those official merchandizes only at specific places ( I found one in Tokyo Station, in Sunshine City and Skytree ). Mr Miyazaki decided to make all items hard to get in other places, so finding one in Tokyo was a huge deal for me.

I didn't take any photos of the shop because I got too excited with choosing what to buy *especially when you have a strict budget to follow =.= I finally bought a planner (1,800yen), a handkerchief (250yen) and a random badge from Studio Ghibli - Castle in the Sky (250yen). We also bought finger-puppets of Totoro + Chi Totoro (AF's) and mine is the black cat, Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service (all 150yen each).  I really wanted the tea cup, but God, I can't. - *the shopping spree didn't stop here.

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2) We found so many big stores selling all famous anime's merchandize and I also bought my clear-glasses here. We saw the line to the aquarium was really long so we cancelled our plan *maybe because it was Sunday. Even the planetarium was closed for renovation until the upcoming October =.= Everything didn't go as we initially planned. We later decided to buy a strawberry juice + a cafe latte and find a place to lepak2.

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3) We went to the rooftop. *after we checked from their building's guide map
We saw some Japanese people wearing weird clothes, making poses and taking pictures. We didn't realize that we were in some kind of cosplayer's event until we walked farther down :F There were hundreds of cosplayers gathered in the Higashi-Ikebukuro Park just outside of the building ! I have never been in such a huge passionate crowds. The best part is it was totally unplanned :D

They mostly ignored us and they also took huge amount of pictures. There were also weird group of men wearing cute girls' costumes *they were far from cute and a man with his pet cats *more than 5! sitting together in the crowd. Ohh, and they also have fancy name-card with contact details and photo of them. 0,o It's not only the young-adults, there were also full-grownups! I wonder what makes them do it.

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We headed back earlier than days before and Asaka greeted us with a beautiful sunset view :)
Despite random earthquakes and tsunamis, how can anyone not fall in love with Japan ?

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Public transport : 492 yen

  

Little Things 208 : Stray Cats & Dogs

I always bring cat's biscuits in a small zip-seal plastic or fried fish left-overs in a plastic bag. Most cats around my apartment know me *some dogs do too. Every morning they wait in front of the apartment, the black-grey one always waits under the car *the rudest among all, the 2 orange-brown cats wait at the motorcycle's parking lot area. Those are the ones that I usually see. There are also : the old-white male cat with a collar and old-orange male cat as well, both look so old and grumpy.

I realized that all female cats are approachable, they only need several days of constant food to get use to the routine. They are still awkward, maaaybe because they are not used to human's affection or attention. But they do know me and wait for me everyday :) Most male cats are really hard to approach, they just almost never ask for food. I don't know if it's their ego or it's just hard for them to trust human. 

Stray dogs are also around every morning. The brownish tall one and the short fluffy black one. I always hide the plastic from them - because those fried fishes are meant for the cats and dogs eat a lot. They always get excited, tails wiggling fast trying to come closer, I keep on saying "No, no" with my hand sign "no" and they understand T^T They are so smart. When they approach the foods I put on the floor, the black-grey cat will shoo them away with a scary hiss and scratches. 

Those are my mornings.

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The best things about this :

They recognize me and they come running when I call them.

I only need to do that hand-gesture of "meh, meh sini".

Do you know how that feels?

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Illustration : Rei Hino

Rei from what I remember, she is strict, conservative and serious, she works as a priestess - other than being a student in a private girl school :D She's the second Sailor Soldier recruited after Minako Aino. This is the original manga stroke by Naoko Takeuchi :

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I wanted to draw Phobos and Deimos next to her as well, they both are her pet like Artemis to Minako. But I don't really know how to draw crows. It turned out to be quite kelakar, so I just deleted them both and left her alone :

I started drawing when I first read Sailormoon series, so this manga series gave the biggest impact in teaching me how to illustrate and doodle. I remember sending my artworks to several publishers after SPM and getting a reply like "we are seaching for more 'Malaysian' stroke for our book illustration, your artworks are too anime & manga like". And because that was my first letter blast to possible future employers, getting rejection means the word "failure" stamped on my forehead. I avoid drawing manga-stroke like illustration afterwards.

Even after I've known several people in the industry, I've heard people categorize illustrators from their choice of drawing strokes. Putting label like "Western drawing style or Taiwan or Japanese and such. What are those labels even mean? I thought it's our own personal preferences that guide us to create our own strokes, despite getting heavily influenced by any other illustrators. There is no such thing as 'Malaysian' strokes if they are talking only about "hidung kemek bentuk 3" and "gigi besar". I know how Lat, Gila-gila and Ujang used to conquer the comic industry, but I don't think they should be the general guideline to define "Malaysian strokes" :F

Maybe we don't have any strokes to define our strokes yet, and that's fine.

So for this Sailor Soldier series, I'm going to embrace my personal clean-manga-strokes childhood likings and do fan-arts out of this. Thank you to : Sailormoon (Naoko Takeuchi), Chocolat (Eisaki Kubonouchi), Cardcaptor Sakura + Chobits + XXXholics + Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (Clamp) , Cowa + Kajika + Dr. Slump (Akira Toriyama), and Oh My Goddess (Kosuke Fujishima).

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Other Sailor Soldiers :

Minako | Hotaru

Run : Gym and Headache

I have another 3 months to complete my running goal (105/200km)

It's been awhile since my last run. The haze's condition worsen since last month, and we can't do anything much outdoor. I wanted to run! So last week we searched for available gym in our area and I found a great Groupon voucher : RM58 per month, unlimited usage, no contract. That's much cheaper than most running events in the city nowadays. 

Long story short, we both bought it and started going to the gym. We went there early in the morning during weekend while there was no one around. I hit the treadmill and started jogging :D That's the only thing I did. Run and jog.

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Note : I went back with a bad headache just like from the previous 10km Maksak Run =.=  

I'm not sure what's my problem, but this headache is taking over my body and I don't like it. I still haven't found out the main cause of this headache : extreme exhaustion, heat, migraine or low blood pressure? I thought running will help but most of the time when I got too tired, I will end up lying in bed with a really bad headache. So how?

I read online saying how exercising shouldn't cause headache and how dangerous it can be :F I'm also too lazy to consult a doctor or get any prescription because I know they will give me Paracetamol and I'm avoiding those little pills. Plus, I think I mentioned about this in my blog several times already. Yes, I still get those really bad headaches! T^T 

Maybe it's a brain tumor! 

*Yeay, Grey's Anatomy season 12 is on air :

Tokiyo Trip 10.2 : Shibuya

Day 4 (Saturday) - continuation :

Hikarie Building :

It was a bit too far for us to walk to Shibuya Station from Harajuku so we took the Metro. 

We referred from Hello Sandwich's Tokyo Guide and found out about Hikarie Building at the station. It's on the first page of her book stated : 

"When you first arrive in Shibuya, head on over  to the new Hikarie Building and up to it's 11th floor sky lobby to take some photos over Shibuya."

We wouldn't know if we didn't look through the list T^T

So we headed to the building's lift and it brought us to the 11th floor and wa-lahh, we got the free view of Tokyo city :D I was so excited! We saw Shibuya crossing in much smaller scale :

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Hachiko Statue :

We decided to find Hachiko's statue and referred local map. We were lost and went to the wrong ways again and again =.= There were too many people around. When we finally found it, I was a bit disappointed. Young kids and adults were lepaking around the statue, waiting, wasting time, doing nothing, staring at foreigners. We can't even get a decent picture without them staring blankly at us. 

Note : Hachiko statue is located right in front of Shibuya crossing, near the Shibuya station *different exit. Not near Shibuya Station at Hikarie Building. I'm not sure whether this makes any sense, but you will understand when you go there and see how many Shibuya stations they have and how confusing they are. 

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Shibuya Crossing : 

I expected more, but I didn't enjoy the moment right when I was crossing it because I was taking a video. Not exactly the right time to take it, I know. Mental note : I shouldn't do this again, or I will lose my focus on the experience itself. And I should try the view from that exact level-2 Starbucks across the street. And probably try crossing it several times in a day at different time.

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Loft, Parco, Tokyu Hands and 5-floors Muji :

We visited a lot of arts & crafts stores while in Shibuya. It was getting late, so we didn't really enjoy each places much. One thing I remember the most is : Loft has everything all the stationary-obsessed-people want. Those things are quite affordable compared to other places, got variety of cute things in every colour possible, things that we don't know we need and oh-so-heaven T^T

Can you imagine having 5 levels of Muji, right next to several floors of Apple store, and also another Tokyu Hands and 6-floors missed Tower Records? 

Yes, it's artsy-fartsy heaven.

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Tsumumu Factory :

We missed a lot of places that 'I' wanted to visit from the book list. So I wanted to go to Tsumumu Factory as a treat for myself. We checked 2 maps and both we can't really decipher. Shibuya is a real-life maze in a city! We were lost, it was getting dark and we were both super-exhausted. I finally asked 2 school girls about the place and they asked me to follow them. They actually walked all the way to the hidden alley, where the shop is located. T^T My painful feet were so thankful.

The little shop was a real beauty! It is a 2-floor shop packed with all the beautiful little things. I couldn't leave without buying anything, so I bought a Hamamonyo handkerchief with autumn leaves prints *just like my little things :D

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We can't do any walking much afterwards, so headed back right-away.
Another exhausted day well-spent.

Public transport spent : 792 yen