♥ Japan - Frozen Treats

Summer is a great time for frozen treats! With the weather being so hot, we see stands for shaved ice, frozen fruit sticks and ice cream everywhere. The convenience store always has a large selection to choose from also. Flavours in japan are a bit more adventurous on top of the usual chocolate and vanillas. We also picked up some orange, lemon and grape Popsicle earlier,  surprisingly the Popsicle itself was not coloured the epxected  orange, yellow and purple that we are used to back at home. I wonder if it has to do with the reduced use of food colouring.

Our local Ministop has shaved ice with jello bits, fruit and soft service ice cream on top (250 yen) in Ramune/soda, strawberry and lemon flavors. Shaved ice and fruit at Korea town includes some red beans and corn flakes costed 500 yen. A similar one at Lawson runs for 200 yen. The ice cream sandwhich was 180 yen.

These were some of the snacks we picked up late at night to help kill the heat.

♥ Day 8 - MaiDreamin Maid Cafe Akhihabara

Today for diner after a day walking down Akhihabara's anime haven, we finally stopped into our first Maid cafe in Japan. We went by @Home Cafe which is very popular, but the wait line was long, and so as we walked down the street a maid from Maidreamin gave us a flyer. We decided to go here instead, the maid named Kahone led us to the nearest location as there were several locations in the area. There was a seating charge of 1000 yen to sit off to the side of the stage. To sit in the special center seats it would have costed 1400 yen. There were various set meals which included a main course or dessert parfait, 2 commemorative items (such as a polaroid with your maid and a keychain). These all started from 2000 yen. There are also items a la carte starting at 360 yen.

My final decision was the special parfait I saw on their flyers and posters outside ( I got the strawberry bunny parfait) for 800 yen, chicken karage for 500 yen and a polaroid photo add on for 500 yen. Prices of the food are started to other cafes too, but here it is overly cute! We sent love to the food (delicious, delicious, moe , moe kyun ) a little chant the maids got us to do to make our food extra special. i know most cafes will not let you take photos within the area, and we did see signs along the wall but our maid said it was okai to take photos of the food - I am glad I was able to take some photos here!

There was also a dance and song performance mid way through with a karaoke sheet for us to follow along. It seems our group was the only one who were not regulars, everyone else knew the song and hand gestures. The girls were always energetic and so cheerful!

It was an awesome experience,although for friends who are not into this cutesy charade, they will be blushing red through the entire dinner service!