Sofia and her Digital Toy Camera

When we were in Japan last week, all my daughter did was shop, shop, shop and shop. I am quite proud, I trained her really well. (and she's only 5!)

As we were killing time on our last day, we went back to one of my favorite stores, Village Vanguard. They sell a lot of useless junk, that will really make you think twice about whether or not buying it answers a need (or want) that you didn't even know you had.

Sofia felt that way about getting a toy cam. There was a whole range of products available. Different brands, different features, all cute. The price starts from less than JPY2,000 (a little over Php1,000 or SGD$30) for the basic models.

The toy cam display.
Even the eyeglasses at the top right are toy cams.

Now, this is the part that I admit that I gave in and bought Sofia the cam that she wanted. Though that admission comes with another one. I didn't give in because she's bloody spoiled. Hahahaha, though I don't deny that she is. But I am going to come clean and admit too that I have always been interested in buying a toy cam. However, when I was doing research my research, I found out that the real toy cams worked with film and I wasn't so keen on that, so when I saw the Digital Toy Cam display I was also so tempted. Sofia just beat me to declaring that "she really wanted to buy one, please, please, please."

Testing her new cam after we negotiated that she could buy it
if she paid for half. Seriously, this kid was willing to pay.
That's always one of my tests for a big purchase.

The toy cam we bought was hot pink and had a fish eye lens.

Instructions were in Japanese,
so I asked the store to make it work before we left.
We had to buy AAA batteries, but it once uses 1 AAA.

It was easy enough to figure how to take photos. But you can only take 20 shots in high resolution, then you need to transfer the pictures to your computer so you can take more. I struggled a lot in getting my pictures copied and saved and I struggled even more trying to erase the first 20 shots my daughter took.

Google helped, I just applied the instructions for other toy cams I found online. If you need to erase the pictures on the camera, just press M (mode) until the display shows CA (Clear All) and the tricky part I could not get at first was that you had to click twice to get the pictures erased.

Here are the pictures from Sofia's toy cam.

Test shot at village vanguard.

Sofia trying it out on mom.

Taking Lolo's picture while he's taking hers.

This may have been an attempt to take lolo's picture with gammy
but the chairs were too far apart.

Our favorite hang-out.
Namba Station with Swissotel (where we stayed before) and Namba Parks Mall.

Fi wanted bicycle pics. It came out quite well.
Good Job Kid!

Fi's picture of gammy and lolo.

I took this picture of Fif and Ninang Ads with the trees.

Getting our Starbucks (RTD) fix from 7-11.

Fi with our convenience store food haul.

Fif and gammy.

On the top bunk Fif and I shared for the first few nights at the apartment.

Last stop on the way to the airport.
DAISO at OCAT.

At the playroom at Kansai Airport.

Flying back home.

Photographer on the go.

I hope Sofia lets me borrow her camera when I feel like playing with it. I'll offer to trade her use of my Kola Lens Filter. Hahaha. Just saying.