Today we went to the imperial castle, but we weren’t able to actually go in because it was too busy. We got to wander the premesis and look at all the pretty architecture and gardens, which was lowkey better. This place was absolutely insane. One of the most beautiful places I have ever been. There were gardens and fields and old buildings and new buildings and shrines and so much more, all sitting in a giant moat. The highlight for me was the koi pond/flower field. It was soooo pretty and looked especially cool with the giant buildings in the background. My favorite part of the scenery was seeing the dicotomy of the natural, old stuff with the industrial, new stuff in the background. It made it feel like some gateway to another world.
Picture I thought was cool, showing what I mean by the dichotomy
After the imperial castle we trained over to Harajuku to see a Shinto temple. Before that it was lunchtime and we had about an hour to find somewhere to eat and do whatever. We walked around this cool side street with a bunch of little hole-in-the-wall places but ended up eating in a food court because it was easier and had options (*cough* *cough* esther *cough*). I got a yummy corn dog and then a strawberry & banana smoothie at a different place when we were walking back, it was sooo good. We met up with the gang and then walked across the street to the Shinto temple and massive wooden Torii gate.
Big torii gate
The Meiji shrine was really cool but it was getting hot so we called the day and all split up to do our own thing. Since we were like 2 stops from Shibuya it was time for round 2. Me and Vincent went back to this record store that had a bunch of ghibli stuff. I got 2 cds as gifts and he got 3 ghibli vinyls. Then we tried to go to this big music store but it was like impossible to get in even though it said it wasn’t closed, so we assumed the workers were just doing inventory or something. We found a different music store but it was really small. Then we went into a different record store that had a lot more western music and modern music than the first, but nothing I was dying for. After shopping we met up with Maddy and Esther to get dinner, which took far longer than it should have cuz we were being stupid and undecisive. After dinner we trained back to Akihabara and crashed.
Today was one of those long-walking days, but it was sort of by choice!
In the morning, I got up early at around 7am and headed out at 8am to catch an early morning train to Shinagawa and Hamamatsucho station. The train was extrememly crowded though, as I had boarded during Japan’s rush hour, so we were all packed into the train car like sardines. Why would I do all this, you ask? Well, to see the Tokyo Tower of course!
And climb all 600 flights of stairs.
Ever since I’d heard from a friend on the trip that you could get a certificate of some kind if you climbed to the top of Tokyo Tower via its stairs, a flame of determination had been lit within me. I had resolved to climb the tower before I left, and obtain that certificate of completion. Plus, it’s just stairs, how hard could it be?
The view of the tower as I approached from ground level.
Turns out, not too bad, but not easy either! I started climbing at around 9:15am, and didn’t arrive at the top until about 9:25ish. At flight 350, I began to sweat a bit, and by the time I reached the top at 600 flights, I was pretty sweaty and it was pretty humid. But I did it!
There was even little stand built into the stairway railing for your phone for pictures! (Used here)
The view from the observatory floor I was on was incredible, and below each of the cardinal directions there was a “Then and Now” photo comparison of the city skyline, which was cool to see! There was also a video playing that described the history of the Tokyo area and how it came to be as it is now. It was interesting hearing about the philosophy and values of Tokyo, and how it strives to keep tradition while also updating it, and making a “relaxed cool” atmosphere. I also hadn’t known before that Tokyo had suffered two major destructions, and rebuilt itself twice.
Again, the view from the tower did not disappoint!
Afterwards, I headed back to the hotel to meet with the group and head out for the day’s activities. The itinerary ended up getting swapped that day, which put a reservation I had made in advance in slight jeopardy, but I was able to switch it around no problem, so all was well!
We first visited the Imperial Palace grounds/garden, and walked through the outer walls. They were so large, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how large and tall the buildings that used to sit atop them were. The garden was also extremely scenic and tranquil, there was so much green and water!
The grounds were filled with stone architecture and lush greenery. The garden even had a small waterfall/stream!
After the garden, we took a train to Shibuya to go see the Meiji Shrine, but first things first: food. I hadn’t eaten since this morning before Tokyo Tower (which was only a peanut butter bread roll and green tea), so I was famished. I followed the group like a zombie for a little while, as we went into a nearby mall to find a food court. The group was thinking of going to a diner place on the top floor, but I really wanted to try some more Japanese or Asian style food, as I was in Japan after all. I found a nearby Gyoza/dumpling place on my phone with Google Maps, and so me and Belle decided to break off and head there instead.
The gyozas, I have to say, were absolutely delicious. The place was a sort of local hole-in-the-wall shop, where we sat down at a bar surrounding the steamers and place where they cooked the dumplings, so we could see them make it in real time. And the price was unbeatable! I was hungry, so I ordered 12 dumplings and a side of rice/chicken miso, and my friend ordered her own set of 6 dumplings, and it all only came out to about 1260 yen!
An absolute win for food.
Once we were caloried up, we met up with the group again and went to see the Meiji shrine. It was probably one of the biggest and most regal shrines we’d seen on our visit so far; The walk up to it was filled with trees and a wide open gravel pathway, with huge Tori gates and large walls that separate the grounds of the shrine into sections. It was really stunning, and after cleansing with the water ritual and praying, I got a stamp for my stamp book as well! Once we all had a chance to experience the shrine, we split up into smaller groups and were off on our own the rest of the day. I went with a few other friends to the Pokemon and Nintendo stores in Shibuya, and then afterwards we all went to Shibuya crossing and took the train back to Akihabara.
The scenery was stunning, as always.
Once back, it was time for Monster Hunter Café! This was the reservation I had made in advance for Thursday, but swapped for tonight. Today was also my 21st birthday, so our reservation was for a sort of a celebration as well as for the experience! The props and decor of the bar was really good, and it was cool to see these items I’d only ever seen in-game realized somewhat in real life. They even had 4 switch docks/PS4’s that you could play Monster Hunter on! The PS4’s had Monster Hunter World installed, but since only one machine was in English and the others in Japanese, we couldn’t really figure out how to play together unfortunately. The ordering system for food and drinks was similar to the Pokémon café, as both went through an online order sytem where they bring out the food as you que it up. The food was mostly just ok, and the drinks were pretty good, but we couldn’t really expect much more from a themed café. I had a “Well-Done Steak” which was pretty tasty though!
For our free day in Tokyo, Brody and I went to Shibuya and planned to do a lot of shopping. We knew we wanted to hit the three-floored UNIQLO there, but we found so much more.
We did some research and found ourselves initially in Shibuya109, which we then realized was a female clothing store, but still thought was interesting enough to walk through because the designs and fashion were really cool. However, I didn’t come out empty handed as there was a place where I could get a very good matcha latte.
Brody and I in the Shibuya109 elevator
After leaving Shibuya109, we went to MAGNET, which was the male equivelent of Shibuya109 under the same company, however much smaller. Brody and I found some very expensive places, but eventually hit one of the many places I would become a costumer at: RECOfan, a record shop. Here, I bought two Studio Ghibli records as Joe Hisaishi is one of my favorite composers of all time, and they were much cheaper than if I bought them in the United States.
After that, we went towards the Parco mall which holds the famous Nintendo Store and Pokémon Center, as well as a Jump store (which covers most shonen anime). Of course, I spent some more money at these places, acquiring many stickers and even a painted manga panel, as well as some plushy gifts for my friends back at home.
Next, Brody and I went to UNIQLO, where we bought even more clothes (this being our third time to a UNIQLO in Japan). Lastly, we hit the Converse store, where we got some Japan-only kicks.
Everything I bought in Shibuya
After the massacre of our wallets and the encumbrance of our spoils, we went back to Akhihabara to meet with Maddy and Esther for a hot pot dinner. It was delicious and, surprisingly, empty. It was also connected right next to our hotel, which made it convenient. We ended the night with an attempt to go to karaoke, but after Maddy’s unfortunately late birthday ruining our plan to get drinks, we abandoned the plan and called it a night.
After an exhausting week, we were able to get up reasonably late and rest. The plan for the day was to get to Tokyo and to our hotel in Akhihabara. After a pretty quick two-and-half hour bullet train ride, we made it to Akhihabara and found our stay at the REMM Hotel, which was literally right next to the station, as well as the rest of Akhihabara. We settled in, got some food, and went to Madarake and Super Potato.
Madarake was a cool, warehouse, almost thrift-like store that had anime, games, art, manga, figurines, and just overall a lot of Japanese content, and even some Western things as well. It was really interesting, but also so much to look through in the hour we had.
Me looking around Mandarake
Afterwards, we split up to be on our own, and some of us went to Super Potato, a retro game store. It was really cool, but also quite cramped so it was difficult to thoroughly explore their collection. Afterwards, some of us separated further and went to ANIMATE, one of the top anime stores in Akhihabara, and it had a lot of content, but not much of what I was looking for, such as stickers or apparel.
After that, we went to a few more stores, but the rain really hindered our mood to explore, so we turned in for the night. However, we had an immediate free day in Tokyo to look forward to in the morning.
The second day of the Game Jam started off with a bang as I was motivated to tie up with my arch-nemesis: Unreal Engine 5. As I worked on hitboxes, I found that my code was working, but not entirely. Hitboxes were spawning and de-spawning correctly, but just no in the place I wanted them to. However, before I could amend this problem, I had to fix some bugs with controls and animations, mainly that if an input was put in and held too long, the model would freeze. After an hour of messing around with Animation Notify events, I was able to fix it completely, and all by myself, no internet or anything, besides some documentation about Notify’s.
However, time was running short, so before I could work more on hitboxes, it was time to merge my team’s work. Because we didn’t use repos, I put my files onto a hard drive and gave it to my teammate Kento. After about 30 minutes, he told me I had to merge it on my computer because he lacked some external tools I installed to be able to link Visual Studio to my Unreal Engine. Thus begun the difficult process. I failed to merge multiple times because my C++ classes were not properly importing into the KCG project, so I had to manually re-create everything in record speed, having to ignore a good portion of our lunch break. After all was said and done, I had accomplished it, but not without a lot of stress.
Then we met the judges who went around to each group and gave feedback, and, despite having very little besides art and controls, we weren’t bashed too badly. After that, we cleaned up and thus ended the KCG Game Jam of 2023, with the score between me and Unreal Engine at a tie of 1-1. as I definitely took the win this time.
Me showing off our Game Jam game
We got back on the bus and the evening was ours to do as we liked, so a lot of us got together and celebrated the Game Jam. However, Unreal Engine and I are still sitting at an unsatisfactory tie, and our match will be decided in the future. Of course, I will undoubtedly win.
This is it folks, the day I’ve been waiting for. My credit cards are not PREPARED for what I’m about to do to them today. I woke up early at 9am and secured a reservation spot for the Kirby cafe petit on character street. Character Street is an area near the Tokyo station that has all themed shops for different brands like Pokémon, Kirby, Ghibli, Shounen Jump, Snoopy, etc.. I was on a mission for the Kirby cafe petit. I got my reservation for 1:40pm.
To kill time a whole gaggle of us gamers got together to get breakfast and do some light shopping. We went to Starbucks for breakfast 1, I got a pretty good scone. Then we went to get crepes. All of these were sugary crepes but I got a tiramisu crepe. It was yummy and warm :),
After crepes we all split up while others were eating. I took a trip to the Razer store ( like the gaming peripheral brand) to see if I could get a new mouse for cheap. This was an experience to get into the store. It was in the basement ( where true gamers live) and had all green RGB LED lights. It was so funny. Also fun fact! Everything in that store was more expensive than it’s American price point! I thought that was funny.
Once everyone was done eating we starting walking to the train station when we ran into Sten! He was a bit lost and didn’t really know what to do so he tagged along with us to Tokyo station. We got on the trains and headed 2 stops up to Tokyo.
Finding Character street was an adventure in itself as it was hidden from us. I think it took about 15 minutes to find a sign pointing towards it. When we got there though, I saw the promised land. Kirby cafe petit right infront. At this point it was about 12 so we had some time before the reservation. We all split up and went to the themed stores of our choice.
I went to the Shounen Jump store first since I like their anime’s currently. I got a sticker of one of my favorite characters and some candy. After, I went to the Ghibli store and got some really heavy books, a sun catcher, and paper ball theater that I will have to build back home. My shopping bags were pretty heavy at this point so I walked around a bit with Sten and Skyler for their shopping and killed off some time. There was a Pokémon store but the line was astronomically long for check out so we left.
The time has come, Kirby Cafe time. I was ready, so ready. With the reservation we get to choose 4 sweets from the bakery, 2 take out items, and all the merch one could ever want or need. Jess and I were on one ticket so I got 3 desserts and she got 1 ( we agreed on this it’s ok). We also both got a star bread (it’s a big, like thick white bread). After we ordered our sweet we perused the store. I knew exactly what I wanted to I filled our basket pretty quick. I won’t bore you with words but I have many many photos I will show instead of the haul. Here ya go:
I felt at this moment, a tear shedding from my eye. A single tear, it has been my moment. We all exited the Kirby store and went home to eat our sweets. It was so yummy. The cheesecake was delicious and had cheese on it. The tiramisu was creamy and smooth. The Kirby car cake. Oh my. A dream come true. He was a sponge cake with some jelly and this soft pudding/jello like strawberry substance on top. It was amazing.
After consuming we went out again to Uniqlo, Muji, and other stores. I ended up at the Square Enid cafe ( creators of Kingdom hearts) and got some merch. I was so happy and I refuse to look at my credit card bills as of right now.
After shopping a bit, Cam, Liam, Belle, and I got dinner at this place our professor recommended. The food was good but the servers forgot about us. Would not go back. We also then got some donuts as a little treat. That was yummy.
After donuts we all went home and rested for a bit before movie night!!!! In Skyler and Liam’s room we watched Bullet Train ( surprisingly not available in Japan we had to VPN to America). It was a really funny movie and I would watch it again! After the movie it was about 12:30am so I went back to my room, took a shower, and went to sleep.
This was a whole day and oh my am I ready to just exist with my items. I went a bit crazy but I’m happy for it. Come back tomorrow blog for another crazy adventure. Peace ✌?
Before long, the day to return to Tokyo had arrived. I woke up slightly later than intended, ate a quick buffet breakfast, and boarded the bus for the station. Before long we were on our way playing games with our headphones in.
Upon arriving at the hotel in Akihabara, we spent some time inspecting the various oddities included in the room. Ranging from the massage chair, in room massages, a rain shower, the interesting shower setup, and a tv where one cannot watch regular tv. We spent some time recharging before leaving the hotel for Mandarake. At Mandarake, we speedran from the top floor to the bottom floor in 30 minutes. From there, we split and I explored some of my favorite shops on my own. I found a giant EVA statue for $1000 at Japan’s Hobby Lobby. No purchases made though…
The streets at night were very cyberpunk with the rain
Later that night, I met with Belle and Megan for crane games and arcade games. I spent way too much money getting my favorite vtuber, Mori Calliope and had to use a “sumimasen” for help multiple times before the staff made it nearly impossible to lose. Afterwards, my luck turned around and I won a Ruby plush from Oshi no Ko in 4 tries.
We got Megan’s RWBY to do a headstand. Unfortunately, no one else won any crane games…
From arriving to the KCG campus to work on our game until around noon, we only had 3 hours! It was a mad dash to get everything done on time, and get everything to a polished, finished state.
The KCG gang was kind enough to offer bento boxes and enough omurice to feed a small village, haha!
We decided on the name “Café Lingua”, a cool-sounding blended name for a language-based game.
Above is a preview video of our game made by Ryuki! Sadly most of the sound effects weren’t put in in time for final presentation, but oh well.
Two esteemed individuals, Akira Thompson, the Studio Head and Game Director at RainBros LLC, and Yuya Shiotani, a UE Community & Education Coordinator at Epic Games. They were great to have, and we all went around playing our (monstrously buggy and unfinished) games, receiving feedback.
(Not to brag or anything, but I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO INTERPRET FOR THEM! I was super nervous but it was crazy to be able to be put in that sort of role. Aaaaa)
Overall, it was great being able to collaborate with students, and more effectively learn how to help with communication. Turns out diagrams are VERY important lmao!! Especially with a language barrier. Even when understanding the language, they’re a very useful tool. The more ways to understand, the better.
Osaka-ing
Back at the hotel, we were faced with a free afternoon. A bunch of the others decided to go to Osaka, over to the Pokemon center, Nintendo store, Capcom cafe, etc.
Now I was anticipating a restful afternoon, buuuuut
I caved 😀
Thankfully with my experience having already gone to that Pokemon Center, I knew exactly how to get there!
We all had a blast looking around, abusing our wallets completely. Even me, the notorious never-spender found himself buying a cool shirt and a tin of cookies.
While I was at the Pokemon Center, looking for the ever-elusive Gengar Plushie that seems to no longer exist in all of Japan, I ran into an old lady (perhaps Portuguese or Brazilian), looking for something for her son. She showed me two Pokemon, a Gengar and a Mew. I told her that Gengar was most likely entirely sold out, but I told her to wait there for a second. I was able to ask the attendant if there was any Mew in stock, since there were none on the shelves–to my pleasant surprise, they WERE! It felt wonderful to be able to help her like that. Heart-is-full moment for the day 😀
Afterwards we all went to the basement floor, where there were tons of stores for desserts and more. Originally, I was looking to introduce the others to Rikuro’s cheesecake, however with a 40 minute line, everyone was a bit apprehensive. Completely understandable! We instead split up to look for things we might like ourselves.
I found myself entranced by this adorable mini chocolate cake, and a canned confection(?). They both tasted absolutely wonderful. (Only problem was the canned cake was frozen, but still, picking at it as it slowly defrosted was a fun experience! Tasted amazing nonetheless.)
We arrived back at Kyoto late at night, with the tower shining proud. A wonderful night out with a bunch of friends 😀
After a week in Kyoto, it was time to leave our quaint and oddly artistic hotel and go back to Tokyo for the last leg of our trip. We had a decently early wake up of around 9 and loaded into the bus. We had two buses, one for our suitcases and one for the people. The guy was lifting suitcases all by himself, it was really impressive.
We got to Kyoto station with little time to spare for a real breakfast so good thing I grabbed some bread from our hotel beforehand. Our train came and we all piled on. I spent the whole 2hr ride playing Zelda. This is the first time I’ve touched Zelda in like a week so I was happy.
The Shinkansen ride is about 2 hours between Kyoto and Tokyo. So two hours passed and we got to Tokyo. When we got out of the train it was really really humid and raining. Kinda uncomfortable. To get go Akihabara we had to take 2 stops on a local train line. Toshi sensei helped us out with that.
Arriving in Akihabara was amazing, we got off the train to see anime, everywhere. Quite literally everywhere. Our hotel was right next to the station which was great for my aching shoulders. You know the deal, get the key cards and go up to your rooms. We had an hour of free time before meeting back up. Our rooms are nice, smaller than Kyoto but we have a massage chair! I tried it but the back was kinda hard for me.
Jas and I unpacked, relaxed for a bit, and headed back downstairs to meet everyone. Our classes walked around the city to see the sights and visit some old retro game stores like Mandarake. It was really expensive.
Afterwards we all split up to check out some stores and grab food. As prof Jacobs put it – “You’re free beings until Tuesday at noon”. So we all scattered with some going to animate, book off, and other second hand stores for games. There were a lot of really cool items in all the stores but my wallet was to be saved for the next day. Except for 1 event.
After Belle and I got dinner at this Karaage place ( karaage is like fried chicken) we headed to an arcade. Skyler ended up joining us later on. This was a 7 floor arcade with crane machines, video games, rhythm games, etc,etc. We spent ALOT of time there trying to win prizes but only Skyler came out with 2 prizes. We did, however, okay a lot of video games as well. The atmosphere for those floors were no windows only game. So it was lit up with LEDs.
I also ended up getting a really good score on one of the games. It was very fun.
After spending too much money there we went home for the night. I was able to get some really cool photos of the city at night. It was raining so things are a bit blurry but it was really pretty.
After getting home we basically went to sleep, I literally was out cold 2 minutes into laying on my bed. So I’ll catch ya later for tomorrrow, it’s gonna be a big one.
The day began the same way as the day before with buffet breakfast in tbe hotel lobby. We then returned to KCG at around 9 to our groups to make one last sprint towards the finish at around noon. Because I finished my portion of the art the day before, I spent the day doing minor tasks such as making our game logo. We also had delicious Omurice for lunch. It was my first time trying it and I found it quite delicious. Overall, while some things could have gone better within my group, the experience of participating in a game jam for the first time was a great experience and was very worthwhile.
After another great lunch, two professionals from the game industry came in to critique our games. Their feedback was very interesting to hear coming from 3d design since all our critiques are visually focused. However, all of their feedback revolved around the gameplay and mechanics which was very new to me.
After a brief stop at the hotel, we boarded a bullet train for Osaka. We went to a department store where on one floor there was a Pokémon Center, One Piece store, Nintendo Store, Capcom store, and other smaller stores. I spent a little bit of money at the One Piece Store…
They already have me soldMerch Haul
We also had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the department store before taking the bullet train back. Later that night we had a short Jackbox meetup before heading to bed. Until next time!
