Fabric and Butlers and Food! Oh my!

What's a vacation for if not to relax and sleep?  Am I right?  Who's with me?  So... I woke up at 8, but thought I'd sleep a bit more and woke up at 10:30.  Oops.  That pretty much ruled out trying to do much in the morning.

I was supposed to meet Nana at 2:30, so I thought I'd check out the Hello Kitty Cafe beforehand, since it was near where we were supposed to meet.

I stopped at the conbini on my way to the station - it's a habit now.  I wanted to get something to drink.  I really like this chrysanthemum-honey tea I've been drinking a lot (have I put a picture of it in here?  I can't remember) and I've been enjoying the readily available chocolate milk, but I thought I'd try something different today:

It's got such a light flavor!  It's very refreshing.

At the station, I noticed a sign:

There's a blue area sectioned off on the floor, and I've been wondering why it said 'safe waiting zone' even though anywhere behind the line should be safe.  Now I know!

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the Hello Kitty Cafe, but I wanted to eat, so I ended up at a place called Kitchen Pucchi, which had some veggie buns in the window, then when I looked at the menu, they had a great-looking set meal, so I got that.

It came with mushroom soup:

Very hot, but very nice.

dumplings!!!

I was SUPER EXCITED for these because it is legit impossible to find vegetarian dumplings in Japan.  They were very good.

And some sort of semi-sweet dessert.

It was red bean and some other stuff.  It was a bit dry and I didn't care for it, so I left most of it.

As I crossed the street to head back to the station, I saw the Hello Kitty Cafe sign!  UGH!  I WAS SO CLOSE!!!  Oh well.  I've heard the food isn't good there, so it's just as well.

In my wandering to find the cafe, I noticed lots of stores had a table set up outside and were burning incense.  I don't really know why.  It was interesting, so I rudely took a picture.

I guess what's on the table are a bunch of offerings?

I met up with Nana at the station and we went to the crazy huge fabric store in search for fabric so I can make this outfit:

It was pretty difficult.  We were looking for subtly-patterned brocades.  I wanted the under-pink to be almost white, which was AWFUL trying to find.  I finally settled on using the reverse of this one:

but there wasn't enough!  D:  Not even 4 yards.  Isn't it strange they measure fabric in yards here?!  It's meters in Japan!

Anyway, after two hours, this is what I ended up with:

Pink satin for the under dress (it's pretty thin, so I might have to line/bolster it with something), the darker pink for the waist-thing (silk and cotton brocade), the maroon silk for the sash (100% silk), and gold brocade for the trim.  Total: under $40 (USD) for 8.5 yards of fabric. How'd I do?  ;D

We looked around some shops to try to get some trims Nana needed for her cosplay, but didn't have much luck finding what she wanted.

We had some time to kill before Angela got off work, so we slowly made our way back to the station (it was only partially intentional how slowly we got there - we got lost rather a bit), and stopped for ice cream at a shop called I Mei.

Chocolate-vanilla swirl with Oreo-like cookie bits and nuts.  Mm~  (approx. $1 USD)

 And she talked me into trying these egg roll things which she says are famous.  My best guess as to why they're called egg roll is that they're made of fried/baked egg?!  I don't really get it.  XD  But they're not bad.

Stock image because I'm too lazy to take a picture.

Then we met Angela for dinner at THE BUTLER CAFE!!!!!!!!

Noooo idea what 'Chitty Mood' is supposed to mean.   I mean, I know what is SOUNDS like, but...

This fellow stands guard outside the door.

Like with the maid cafe, you can't take pictures of the staff (unless you pay extra), so here are some pictures NOT of the staff:

The decor.

Ignore the horrible color in this picture.  Sorry.  I couldn't get it right.

I ordered the veggie lasagna.  As you can see with Angela's, it came in a dish separate from the plate, which has sauce on it.  The butler then scoops it out of the pan and places it on the place, before cutting it up for you.  

We were given these cute little bells as 'Christmas presents'.  Haha~  We put them on the salt and pepper shakers like hats.

So it was cute.  The maid cafe had more/better food for the money.  There were three butlers.  One was a bit awkward, maybe a bit slow or maybe didn't care too much.  He needed a slightly larger waistcoat or one with another button.  He had black cat ears.  XD  The second guy was taller and had the same waistcoat trouble, but at least had the benefit of glasses (moe~~~).  He had a bit of a speech impediment and wasn't very eloquent.   He had white cat ears with black spots.  The third guy was easily the cutest and smoothest talker.  He was good at making small-talk and generally better at everything.  He had pure white ears.

None of them spoke English or Japanese.  Apparently, there's a Japanese guy who works there who also speaks English, but he wasn't in.  Of course.  XD  It's okay, he probably wasn't cuter than White Ears.  <3

We explored Taipei Main Station a bit.  There's a Tokyu-Hands-like store and they were selling SHAM-WOWs.  I died.  It was great.

Tomorrow's another adventure~ (with karaoke at the end~).  UNTIL THEN.