“Hey Raven, there’s a Gudetama Cafe in the city!” Jeff announced, showing her the reel he found on Facebook. Or Instagram. Whatever.

“Wanna go, babe?” I asked.

I mean, of course she wanted to go! Like, duh! Why would she not want to go? Already we had hopped on to the website and had a look at the menu with all its cute food pics and pretty much knew what to order already.

Except that when we were actually there, we suddenly didn’t. You know how that is.

True to Melbourne temperament, the weather was shit. Rainy and dreary with some form of protest going on in front of the State Library. Wet grounds; police visibility; Jeff on his detachable roller skates; and me accidentally wearing the state-issued colour theme I didn’t even realise until I noticed I blended right in with everyone else wearing black like we all just wanted to match the shade of the sky.

Today I wore Jeff’s late mum’s leather jacket and my still-alive-thank-you-very-much sister’s jumper that she left behind because she couldn’t be bothered cramming it in her luggage nor upgrading her baggage allowance. My way of remembering them because I thought of them as I thought about what to wear and I kinda missed them.

My sister, most especially, who had the gall to leave me down here while she’s enjoying the provincial life in France picking wild cherries and eating escargots and staring at the freaking Alps as she sips her espresso in the mornings.

Meanwhile, I’m here continuing the little tradition she started with her niece: that of exposing her to new and fun and exciting things outside of the house.

I mean, I’m all for new and fun and exciting things too as long as I’m not driving.

Lucky for me, Jeff didn’t have work today so he drove. He knows the city well enough to navigate to the nearest and cheapest car parks. Not that it would’ve changed our plan if he couldn’t come because Raven and I were quite keen to tap our sticker-embellished, very cute Mykis and just train it to the city.

The cafe was located at Melbourne Central. I was surprised that it was actually quite small, although they also had alfresco-style seating outside with a yellow Gudetama theme.

Raven much preferred the Cinnamoroll-themed room with its pastel blue chair back cover and cloud lighting fixtures hanging down the ceiling. It made for an intimate dining experience, considering the size of the space.

The food was actually pretty good. I mean, they’re just your regular meals decorated with some Sanrio character topper/sticker and then slapped with an extra surcharge or what-not to pay for branding and marketing like all novelty cafes do. But we were there for the experience so it was quite exciting to see our orders when they arrived.

Raven reckons the food was cute AND yummy at the same time. She gave it 5 stars. You can take her word for it.

*Raven at 10 years old