Mini mushroom ornaments. Green pipe lights suspended from the ceiling. Welcome to Mario Land! Japan is the home of Nintendo, while Tokyo has a never-ending stream of themed cafes. So it will come as no surprise to find STAR CLUB, a Mario-themed shot bar. It's quite dark inside so the pictures aren't great but you can find all the Nintendo goodies that you ever dreamed of on display here.

It's a typically small Tokyo hole-in-the-wall style bar so 20 people is probably the maximum you could fit in. I usually see a few solo drinkers sitting at the bar and some small groups (including at least one bunch of tourists) at the tables. There's a 500 yen seating charge but it's the standard for bars in the Shinjuku Kabukicho area and, honestly, most of the other bars aren't half as interesting as STAR CLUB.

And here is the best feature of STAR CLUB! You can play Wii games for free with your friends. Or join in with a group of strangers and make new Tokyo buddies! In my experience they tend to turn in to a drinking game but if you can't let Mario decide your liver's fate in a place like this then where can you?

My drink above was one of the bar's original Super Mario-themed cocktails which are all delicious but I recommend the almighty "1UP". The bar doesn't serve any food apart from some small snacks so make sure you eat before you go. A full menu list is available on the STAR CLUB website.  Enjoy!

Get that Jeremy Scott!

Today I will share with you my secret trick when I go to recycle shops in Japan. I know that not everybody likes to wear second-hand clothes and this might make it seem even worse. If you want to buy non-brand clothes, for example putting together a Larme or "vintage", look then it's ok to go to any good used clothing shop (like Zool). Most of those shops import from Canada or the USA so their sizes run larger.

But if you want to buy an expensive brand item then it can be harder to find a foreigner-friendly fit. Smaller girls might not have a problem but I'm 169cm and...curvy (?) so browsing the rails of dresses and tops can be a waste of time for me. Never fear though! Here is my best advice - buy menswear! I have bought jackets, trousers, hats, scarves, bags and more from the men's section of recycle shops. My favourite piece is a Jeremy Scott X Addidas tracksuit, the top of which I get so much use out of. In the photo above I wore it to language school when I was feeling sick and below was obviously a "throw on all the patterns" kind of day.

If someone is the kind of guy who wears expensive clothes, then there's no reason to think that he wouldn't take just as good care of them as a girl would. I was so tired of sleeves never reaching my wrists that shopping in Japan used to drive me crazy. If you're a foreigner looking to pick up some second hand brand goods in Tokyo, why not try the men's section. At the very least you can oogle the ikemen shop staff!

Despite growing up in Dublin, I don't really think that I know it very well. It's usually the case that you can see more of a place as a tourist than the people who live there. I'm from the suburbs, which have their own charm, but never seem exciting to me.

I spent my final year of college living in the city centre and it was a totally different life. I was lucky to have a lot of classmates from foreign countries or even other parts of Ireland because they had little choice but to go out and explore. They all had far more courage than I did. But I also think that a year - or a school year, so about nine months -  isn't nearly enough time to get used to a place. It took me 3 years to feel like a pro in Sendai, which is roughly the same size as Dublin.

The last time I was back in Dublin, I stumbled upon these murals near Camden Street. I was only there because my mother and I were meeting my brother for lunch and suddenly we found ourselves in these amazing backstreets. I don't know how long the pictures have been there for but they made me feel kind of sad that I don't know this side of Dublin at all. I could show you this kind of place in Sendai, Tokyo and even Seoul so leaving home hasn't been all bad. I just learned a different kind of life. 

But now I really want to go to Dublin just as a tourist. Why are flights so expensive?!?!