HYPER JAPAN 2011 at London Olympia

A few weeks ago, I found vouchers on Groupon for Hyper Japan at the London Olympia. I'd never been at this paticular fair and since the bf really wants to visit Japan, I thought we'd go here as we cant really afford the real thing right now ;)

So after a super busy crafty day yesterday (more on that in later posts), we got up early today and arrived the London Olympia at around 10.30pm. There was a bit of a queue but we only had to wait for about 5 minutes and that only because the people in front of us couldnt locate their ticket LOL. Even so it was definitely a record for London!

Anyway, back to the event. We got in, we walked around, we saw a TON of cool things and had a blast :) We took so many photos but here is a small selection that describes most of the day:

Being the Hobbit that I am, I spotted the candy stand first. Check it out, coconut M&Ms! Have never seen these before... Didnt try them as hate coconut, but still very cool :)

I just love this photo, it's so purple! Ice cream Oreos :) Sadly at £4.50 a pack (!!!) a little pricey, but they sure looked cool!

We went a floor lower after quickly cruising past the stall on the ground floor, and I spotted this stand with tons of plush! I love plush animals but fnd they take up so much space that I dont buy them anymore. There was a tiny plush ghost here which I loved but didnt buy in the end. Maybe I'll make one similar to it one day ;)

I also saw this chocolate hat, very nifty idea and made me feel very creative.

The lower ground floor also displayed a lot of computer games, comics, and videos. This photo needs some explanation: a few years back we went to Disneyland Paris where we saw a girl in tears after the park closed for the day. The little girl was unconsolable and the mother didnt know what to do. She asked the girl what happened to make her cry so hard, upon which the girl replied: 'I didnt see Yu-Gi-Oh!' OMG it was so funny! Not for the girl of course but since we were actually in Disney... anyway, the photo above was made because of this as I FOUND YU-GI-OH! Hahahaha...

The 'Make A Wish for Japan' Foundation had a workshop to learn how to make Japanese paper flowers, and since the bf was happily wandering I had to sit down and learn this...

Some help with the tying...

Taadaa! I made my first ever Japanese paper (napkin) flower :) Dont worry, I didnt wear this in my hair in the end, but the posing was fun LOL

We then saw a Cosplay show with this girl, she was so cute! I took so many pictures but couldnt upload them all...

After the performance we wandered around the stalls a bit more and I saw this gorgeous kimono

As well as some proper Japanese slippers and boots

This bag was so cute! Mmm, maybe sometime soon ;) Not I dont have enough bags already...

I took this photo for all of you in blogland, fabric teacups! So creative! They were advertised as sugar bowls (little bags of sugar of course) to add to your tea table. But very well made :) I asked first if I could take a photo of course.

Totoro and Co were of course very well represented also. Do you see the bus on the side as well? And Kiki's cat on the other? So cool!

This was the cutest! Had to take a pic as couldnt buy it. It's Jack :)

As we went back upstairs for some food, the bf found the Asahi stand with this massive bottle of Asahi. I just had to get him to pose ;)

We saw the end of the Cosplay competition and stood all the way in the back. These costumes were very cool though. Who knew there was a NBC manga/cosplay??

But this guy was (for me) the best by far. Of the 5 costumes I ended up seeing, this guy was the coolest. Check out his weapon! I have about 3 pics (this one is courtesy of the bf who has much longer arms than I do and therefore could aim over all the other people much better), and this one was the most complete of the set. I have no idea who won as we left before the end but I hope it's him!

The Groupon voucher I bought included participation in the UK Sushi Championships (yay!) so we had to queue (for an hour!) and got to taste 5 different pieces of sushi by 5 restaurants and then we had to vote for out favourite. Except for the queueing, this was fun! These guys (I called them the Kill Bill guys LOL) made the one that I liked the most).

We happened to be standing in the queue right in front of these guys so saw the entire process. Very interesting to see :)

You might have noticed the lack of bags in the pictures? No, the one in the first picture is the goody bag we received on entry. In the end, we bought some food, and we each bought one thing only. We only had a small amount of cash with us and most stands didnt take cards. The bf bought a bottle of sake (with our very last money LOL) and I bought a sushi making kit (luckily that stall accepted cards). More on that once I'll try it out hihi...

We had a really nice day, especially since I paid £9 for each ticket instead of £20! :) Keep your eyes peeled for any sushi news, am thinking I will start by the end of the week and any tips will be more than welcome!