Purikura Pandemonium

I am missing some pictures so, for now, I am totally eluding the obligatory "Japan trip" post. But no matter. Let's talk about something related to my trip, but not quite it! :D

The subject: purikura. They are magic Japanese photo booths. Walk into one of them and you will be greeted by five panels that distribute a soft, even white light onto your face. Put 400 yen, and begin.

Purikura is, erm, a bit crazy. A cute Japanese voice will guide you throughout the three stations - one for taking pictures, another for decorating, and the final for printing. But this is by no means a simple path to follow - you will be probably be rushing like mad, trying to distinguish the "Strawberry Parfait" deco station from the "Chocolate Macaron" one, and racing against the timer to try and decorate/make some sense of all these letters you see on screen, and choose the pictures you like the most for printing.

My boyfriend and I failed at purikura. The first one was a real mess - we didn't even decorate the pictures we took. We were like

Didn't help my boyfriend knows not one word of Japanese, so all the time he was like

"Was does it say there?"

"Is it telling us to leave?"

All the trouble aside, purikura is sure to make you laugh. I couldn't get enough of it.

Besides, it leaves your skin super soft and your eyes super bright! It's like being a model! *don't laugh, it actually made me feel like one* *forevernotamodel*

Yes, it's the same five pictures with different layout! :D but I look so unbelievably kawaii I couldn't help but post both.

If I had the chance to do it again, I would probably wear more mascara/false lashes. Otherwise, some machines can come up with very creepy results.

Case in point. My boyfriend's face is obscured by his own request XD

And I had such expectations about this machine. But it seems like it never found my eyes, so it went ahead and uhm, kind of erased my eyelids. I guess I can't complain - the machine must be used to finding lush black lashes and I have no lashes whatsoever. Such a pity. Because Nishikawa Mizuki (one of my favorite models) sponsors this purikura, I kind of hoped it to be better :(

Finally, we became pros. In the end we got the hang of decorating the pictures! Lol.

But, what I think are the best purikura we took came from the first machine we ever used, of which I can't remember the name, nor did we ever find it again. Trust me, purikura is a photo booth labyrinth. You don't choose, you just use one that is empty, lol.

Aww!!

Yes, it's the same pictures repeated to infinity... lol. We were so lame we didn't even know how to choose different pics!

And, lo and behold, the only picture we could get any machine to send us to our email. The rest were no use. They told me to wave my cellphone in front on the screen... but dang it! I don't have Softbank or Docomo!! I don't have the wizardry Japanese cellphone lines have! I can't download the picture by just wishful thinking!

So yeah, um. It sent it to my email. It was the only machine kind enough to do so.

Not bad!

Unfortunately we had to stop purikuraing because we were running out of money hahaha. 

Think of this - one machine, 400 yen.

400 Yen equals 4,86 US Dollars.

4,86 US Dollars equals... 21 Argentine pesos.

Maybe next time, Tokyo, when I'm richer!