Makuhari Dokidoki Flea Market

I can't remember how it started, but during this year's Golden Week, one of my best buddies and I decided that we wanted check out the annual Makuhari Dokidoki Flea Market.

We drove as we had our usual obligatory trip to Costco afterwards - so we gave ourselves an extra time to get there at opening time, in case we ran into the epic traffic jams that apparently form around around Makuhari Messe because of this event.

Tickets available at the door for 600 yen!

In fact, there was no traffic whatsoever. We arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule, so we stopped by one of the ticket booths located right at the escalators leading from the parking lot to the Messe and purchased tickets for ourselves and our lovely kohai who would be joining us later on.

...but then, we got absorbed into the human traffic jam waiting at the walkway leading into the Messe.

Sea of people waiting to get into the flea market.

They didn't let us in until exactly 10am...but then it was shopping showdown time!!

For the record, there were two more halls of the same size...so much flea market to be had! (taken around 10am)

I hadn't been to a flea market in ages, but I don't think any of us were prepared for how hard core this flea market was.

After a bit of scouting, we decided to fill our stomachs before really tackling the shopping:

International food corner! There were also rows of booths with foods from different areas of Japan.

Toppogi from the Korean place!

The flea market in full swing.

A couple hours later, the crowd had really gathered (no worries - we'd done a fair share of shopping too!). This photo is of the same area pictured 3 photos above...crazy!

The flea market was split up into different areas - for example, an area dedicated to luxury brands, and another dedicated to vendors selling out of the back of their car. My favorite area was by far the "artist's alley" of the flea market.

"This pug sticker is cute...but so is this one! う〜ん迷う"

Matcha green tea and rich chocolate gelatos!

Finally, we were shopped out - so we concluded on a sweet note with some delicious gelatos! Mmm.

And my personal haul from the flea market:

"What a haul, what a haul!" - does anyone know what anime that's from?

(front left) 3 postcards from an artist - 200 yen apiece (I think?)
(front right) 2 mini stickers from an artist - 150 yen apiece (and I got one for free!)
(bottom) Bright red kimono under robe - 1000 yen
(top) Sculptures (owl in a tree, and person? holding an onigiri) 800 yen apiece

ALICE.

By far my greatest discovery of the day - this gigantic stuff Alice doll! I'd seen a bunch of merchandise from this series a couple years ago - all sorts of Disney characters were considerably "simplified" (and I have a thing for characters with dot eyes).

I was so excited when I found Alice that I immediately ran over to the sellers and asked them how much - they looked at me like I was crazy (I guess they weren't expecting to sell it?) and said "er...100 yen?"

SCORE. :)