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?!?!

The Tokyo Cosmos Festival is held every September to November in Showa Kinen Park in Tachikawa. Like sakura season, the flowers don't necessarily follow the blooming schedule so you can be lucky or unlucky no matter when you go. Depending on what part of Tokyo you travel from, it can be a 30+ minute train ride to Tachikawa so it's better to check the latest photos on Twitter or Facebook before you you go. I'm speaking from experience because when we went in late October, most of the famous pink cosmos were already gone!

The park has a 410 yen entrance fee but it covers a huge area and has beautiful gardens all year round. It also has barbecue facilities and rental bicycles, rowboats and croquet equipment so there's more than enough entertainment to last a whole day. I recommend you buy one of these cute doughnuts outside, just to keep your energy up. Looking at flowers can be very taxing indeed...! 

Here comes the sad part. We saw a lot of lovely yellow cosmos but the fields of pink cosmos are the big draw. The little sign above shows what it's supposed to look like. However all we got was...

This.

Oh well, maybe next year. We didn't regret going because it's one of the better parks in the Tokyo area and it's nice to discover places to take long walks. There were a lot of families with young children enjoying the playgrounds and there are snack stands scattered around the park if you need refreshment.

The Showa Kinen park website has a flower blooming schedule on it but, as we learned, it isn't that reliable. The nice point about going near the end of the season is that people were allowed to pick flowers and take them home. I don't know if that's allowed all through the festival period but it doesn't seem likely. Anyway I would feel guilty about ruining the view for others! Fresh flowers are very expensive in Tokyo so this is a good way to brighten up your home, as long as you don't mind only getting yellow cosmos!

Discovering Chinatown

Christmas in Japan is a hodgepodge of cultures and traditions. Mainly romantic, a little bit religious and - for me - last year it was a little bit German and a little bit Chinese. Yokohama is home to the largest Chinatown in Asia and it's the perfect location for a day trip from Tokyo. 

Of course, I discovered all this by accident. Last December I got slightly lost on the way to a German Christmas market in Yokohama and found myself stumbling through Chinatown. It was all very Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately I couldn't stop to take a look around because of my German market date, but I made a mental note to come back later. As impressive as Chinatown is, hot wine and pretzels were calling me. 

Gateway to Christmas

The German Christmas market was held at Akarenga, old redbrick warehouses that have been re-purposed into shops, restaurants and more. If you think that redbrick doesn't sound very Japanese, then you're right - but Yokohama has always had an international flavour. It's now home to a number of foreign curriculum-based schools, such as German and French. 

So it's a good choice for the location of a European-style Christmas market. Full disclosure: I've never been to a real German one, though I have been to Czech and Belgian ones. There's nothing like a good market anyway, and my belly was ready to be filled. As it was a Japanese event, the light displays were naturally spectacular. I think that walking down a tunnel of fairy lights is possibly my favourite Winter activity.

O Tannenbaum

Snack time: pretzel and hot spiced wine

There was a decent selection of food, mostly of the German sausage and related dishes variety. I wasn't very hungry so just had a delicious pretzel and a cup of hot spiced wine. We all sat together on public benches and feasted. Living abroad can be tough, but moments like these forge a bond between all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds. The magic of Christmas?

It wouldn't be a festival without incredibly over-priced souvenirs

The one area in which the market was lacking was souvenirs. I was hoping to buy some ornaments for my Christmas tree and maybe a wreath for my front door. Those are typically found at Christmas markets, right? Unfortunately, there were no tree decorations, just some mugs and figurines. Personally I thought they weren't worth the asking price and it was disappointing to come away with nothing.

The creepiest Santa you ever did spy

After all that we made our way back to Chinatown for some food. The market was great, though not as great as it could have been. On the one hand, it's always nice to have events that are free to enjoy if you don't want to spend any money. On the other hand, it can make you homesick when it's almost what you want...but not quite. I'm not German and I'm not Chinese, but spending time in those cultural zones made me feel a little closer to home. Given the choice, I'd rather not spend Christmas in Japan, but I suppose that good food and good cheer can be found everywhere!

Back to Chinatown for supper