Day: June 3, 2023

6/3 –  Farewell Japan, until we meet again!

And so, we reached the final curtain call for this crazy, wonderful, amazing, jaw-dropping experience of a trip. Today was our last day in Japan, and man, it was a little tough saying goodbye.

We woke up kind of late, about 6:15am, and with an 11am flight that necessitates arriving at the airport 3 hours early at 8am, and a 35 minute train ride from our hotel to Haneda airport, that means that we had be out of the hotel at 7:25am the latest. A bit of a time crunch, but we’re no strangers to that. We readied ourselves, checked out,  grabbed some konbini food, and we were off. The train ride was painless, and we got to the airport at about 8:15am.

It was a little rainy outside, but not too bad.

Checking in at the airport also went pretty smoothly thanks to our pre-flight check in online, even though I almost walked into the security check with my checked luggage still in hand! Pavel caught me luckily, and we sent in our checked luggage and passed through security without issue. After that, we just had to sit and wait an hour and a half until our flight was ready to board.

I made one last Japan konbini run, grabbing some hot green tea, a rice ball, and a melonpan!

While we were waiting, an old Japanese man approached us out of the blue! Turns out he was from the Japan Tourism Bureau, and just asked us to fill out a survey about our time in Japan and how much we spent on what kinds of things. Afterwards, he gave us both an eraser shaped like a sushi. It was a bit awkward at first, but I was able to verify that the bureu did in fact exist, and it wasn’t a scam or anything like that.

Finally, we were able to board, and got onto our flight! It was a 12 hour flight back to JFK, and so we strapped in for the ride. The flight, surprisingly enough, went by really fast! I ended up doing some writing, and watched both Terminator: Dark Fate and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, which were very entertaining. Our in-flight meals were similar to the first time we flew, and I got a chicken teriyaki set again as well as some pancakes for our second meal/breakfast. I also played some more Octopath Traveler. Before I knew it, we were touching down in JFK!

The meal was pretty similar to first one coming in.

Going through JFK was also pretty easy, which surprised me, as I thought there would be more hassle going through Customs and getting all my merchandise over. But in about 30 mins, Pavel and I were both through with our bags! My parents picked us up right as we left, and afterwards we were greeted almost instantly with a classic US welcome; The monorail we needed to take to get to our parking terminal broke the moment we stepped onto the platform, but no one was informed and the employees there didn’t even know what was really happening. We had to figure out that a shuttle bus would come to pick us up, and figure out where on our own. And even that took 20 minutes, by which time my dad was able to get a cab to the parking lot and come back with the car to pick us up. Compared to Japan, where everything was on time and worked consistently and conventiently, it was quite the welcome home shock. I don’t think there was any better contrast between Japan and the US than with this! 

About an hour car ride later, I arrived home and Pavel was picked up and headed home as well. And so, the most amazing trip I’ve ever taken comes to a close. I experienced so many new things, learned a lot about Japanese culture, saw local icons, played and made some really fun games, got to meet and get to know some truly amazing and awesome people, and have the experience of a lifetime. I’m truly grateful that I got the opportunity to go on this trip, and am already hoping to go back again sometime!

Until next time, Japan!

Imperial Palace and Meiji Jingu (feat. Mewtwo and Hachiko!) (5/31)

Today started simple, meeting everyone in the lobby at noon! Since I was up a fair bit earlier, I went and got another kebab. They’re TOO GOOD! In love with that place’s garlic mayo. 100% worth.

After meeting up with the group and with our Lord and Savior Whomst Guide Us to Tourist Destinations Toshi, we headed off to Tokyo Station! The building was a really interesting and unique blend between modern Japanese stations and the old architecture, designed by Kingo Tatsuno.

As a group, we all walked over to the Imperial Palace, where we navigated to the Imperial Garden! There were tons of things there. Neat shrubbery, flowers galore, and a really interesting exhibit where 47 Japanese prefectural trees stood. There was also koi and a quaint waterfall. The freshest air I’ve breathed in Tokyo for quite a while.

Soon after, we headed over to Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine over in Shibuya.

Since we had some time, and Shibuya is a big center for youth culture and fashion, we decided to take some time to get some lunch and walk around. Since I wasn’t terribly hungry, I decided to try some smaller eats. I fetched a melonpan from Family Mart, as well as their famed “Fami-chiki,” some really cheap fried chicken that’s supposedly great for it’s price! Well, in my opinion, it certainly wasn’t the best. It’s a “If you really need some meat in your diet” thing for me.

Nevertheless, after walking around, I found an Ikea that was selling Kiwi sorbet for—get this—50 YEN. That is 36 CENTS. Absolute steal, and I was able to empty my wallet of the insane amount of coins I was carrying. Double-win!

Arriving at Meiji-Jingu, we were absolutely stunned by the size of both the arriving torii gates and the giant trees lining the pathways. Like it was carved out in complete confluence to nature. Pretty in a way I can’t even describe.

We soon arrived at the temple, which was grand and wide, with two very circular trees to the left and right! It was very pretty, especially as we were approaching golden hour. The shadows hit just right. On the way back, we came upon some sake barrels with the names of (what I assume were) sponsors painted on them. They looked wonderful in the evening sun.

Afterwards, a few of us broke off to head to the Pokemon center (and the nearby Nintendo and Capcom stores) near Shibuya Station.

In terms of the Pokemon Center, it was SUPER sleek, with a really nice and smooth design and a really cool Mew statue in a glass capsule! There was also a really adorable exhibit that scanned your outfit and created a Pikachu that wore something similar to what you were wearing! There was also a custom shirt creator, but the line was a bit too long for that.

I also visited the Nintendo store, but didn’t end up finding much of anything new from the last one. Nevertheless, enjoyed the statues and the vibes 😀

Afterwards, we headed to Shibuya Station to go all the way back home. We had no idea, but we found our selves smack dab in the middle of Shibuya Scramble!

After getting a bit lost, we eventually found our bearings and ran into the Hachiko statue: the dog of unwavering loyalty. Boarding the Yamanote line, we squeezed ourselves in, and finally led ourselves back to Akihabara.

To end off the day, a bunch of us followed Fabian to the nearby Monster Hunter cafe! Monster Hunter’s a giant Japanese fantasy RPG video game franchise, something him and a few others were a big fan of. Also, it was his birthday! Happy 21st birthday, Fabian!!

The cafe was a huge vibe. Tons of amazing decorations everywhere, a neat selection, but as expected of a pop-up cafe, pretty alright food. Nevertheless, the drinks were a hit and the nerdiness we got to hear was a joy.

Back at the hotel, I got to proselytize everyone on one of my favorite movies as of late, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves! Tons of them had it on their watch list, so I was glad to be able to show it to everyone. Unfortunately, however, due to quite the long day, we were all nodding off at the half way point. Oh well, we’ll save the end for another day.

As everyone went to their respective rooms, off the lights went, and off to the bed for another day!

Last full day in Japan :(

June 2nd: Today’s the last full day in Japan :(. While I’m sad to be leaving, I’m happy to go be in my own bed and be a hermit for a bit. Our plans for this day were to go to Unreal Fest and visit the CyberConnect2 studio. We all met up around 10am to walk to UnrealFest which was also in Akihabara .

UnrealFest was a little underwhelming compared to the size of GDC but it was cool. A lot of cool indie games. A small of group of us even went to a panel but it was all inJapanese so we only got the broad strokes.


At about 12:30, the event was kicking people out to go eat lunch. It was pouring rain ( thanks typhoon) so we wanted some warm food. Belle, Skyler, Pavel, Fabian, and I ended up going to this really good wagyu place where you grill your own steak. It was delicious and not too expensive.


We had about an hour before we had to meet up back at the hotel so Skyler and I went back to the arcade. We did not win anything but we did get some yummy taiyaki. So I had a good time.


We met up at the hotel to say goodbye to Toshi sensei and to thank him for joining us on the trip. Afterwards we went to the CyberConnect2 office to tour the studio and see their properties.

I don’t have any photos but the studio was really cool and seems to have some big games in the works. I did get a cool stamp though!!! It was nice to see what studios look like in Japan in comparison to the studios we have in the US. I’m also still surprised how common it is to smoke cigarettes in Japan, the studio had a smoking room for itself!

After our tour we were sent free for dinner. The school trip is officially over. Brody, Vincent, Esther, Maddi, Jas, Jess, and I grabbed dinner at Royal Host. It’s like a family establishment. All of us pretty much got steak and bread.

Here’s some puffy buns.
After dinner I wanted crepes, so I got crepes. It was pouring rain like hard so I ran with my crepe into the station and found my way home. I immediately ate and took a hot shower. I also took my down time to start packing and planning the route to the airport for Liam and I tomorrow.

At around 10pm, most of us gathered to say goodbye, say some nice things, exchange hugs, cry a bit, and finish the DND movie. It was an emotional night but I’m so glad to have made so many friends and memories on this trip. I’ll get emotional in my next post though.

See you later for my last post about going back to NJ. ✌?

Diver City and Team Labs!!!

June 1st: Today we’re going to Diver City! Diver City is an area near the center of Tokyo on and island. It’s very popular as it has the Gundam base ( gundam is a very popular robot franchise). Diver City is also home to the museum of Science and the future which we also went to. It was a cool train ride with some cool sights as well as the walk to the gundam base.


The gundam was really cool and we got to see it transform as well! Behind the gundam is a mall! We went around the mall for a bit, saw some poorly translated shirts in English, and a weird amount of US college merch from like Harvard, Holy Cross, Rutgers, etc.

After grabbing some donuts from Mister Donut ( 7/10 frosting was a bit hard), we all met up and headed to the museum. This museum was a small walk away and discussed the problems we face on this earth and what we should do. However, the museum would not give you any answers you had to come up with it yourself. Personally, I had a bit of a crisis walking through but the big Earth, robots, and the ISS walkthrough.


After the museums we had the very anticipated team labs!!! Team Labs is an art installment where you become part of the art. It’s like, everywhere on social media, and very pretty. The experience has two parts, the water and garden. You start with the water part. The fun thing is that you have to take off your shoes for the whole experience. I really can’t describe how amazing it was. There were so many new and pretty things to see. To make up for my lack of descriptive words, here’s a lot of photos!!

It was truly amazing and I would 100% go back. After team labs we went back to Akihabara where I took a shower and got some chicken for dinner from Lawson.

We also did Karaoke!!! Liam, Skyler, Belle, Fabian, Cam, and I went to do karaoke! It was so much fun and we got snacks while we sang and we tried to do as many Japanese songs as possible. It was rough but I’m happy with how much I’m able to read as quick as I can!!! Liam was super impressive with his fast reading and singing!!

After that a group of us started watching the dnd movie! We made it half way through before a lot of us became sleepy and ready to hit the sack. The movie started really good though!

See you tomorrow blog!!

Free Day (5/30)

Today was a free day, so we were let out of the cage to do whatever we felt like today! After totally not sleeping in, I met up with a few friends to go get crepes before heading over to Character Street just by Tokyo Station! Along the way, I also got my first ever kebab. Quite ironic that my first one was in Japan, but nonetheless, tasted GREAT!

Character street was MASSIVE, with so many franchises and tons more that just screamed kawaii. There was even another Snoopy store! Personally, I was more there to follow the others and see what there was. Luckily, there was a Pokemon center, yet STILL NO GENGAR! Despair. The saga continues.

After coming back from the outing, I was curious to see what was around Akihabara, so I roamed the streets for a little while longer before heading back to the hotel. More Don Quijote, Mandarake, the Radio Kaikan, and some absurdly huge game centers. But overall, since I’m not a huge shopping guy, I never found myself sinking too much money into anything. Nevertheless, such a crazy atmosphere to walk around in!

I also tried the famed Mister Donut brand at a nearby place. Turns out those mochi donuts RULE! Will definitely be getting them more. Glazed was also very soft delicious.

After crashing in bed for around 2 hours (walking and sightseeing for >6 hours a day is cruel on your legs), I went out for dinner with a few other friends at a sushi place called Ginzo. Now this place had a great vibe to it, and it was going SO great initially! I was able to write everyone’s orders in Japanese on the paper the chopsticks came in, only for my hopes to be dashed by the restaurant seemingly forgetting about us for about a whole hour. I managed to flag down the server and figure things out, but overall that was my first experience handling that sort of thing. Put a damper on how well it was going, but oh well! As the Japanese put it, しょうがない.

Since our mood was a bit hampered, we went over to get a small little treat from a different donut place. I couldn’t resist more donuts, so I got a nice sugary one. Turns out there was a promotion which had galaxy-looking frosting on some of them! They looked really interesting.

Finally, we went to the Yodobashi shopping street, where, you’ll never guess this:

GENGAR PLUSHIE

I was completely overjoyed. 3 Pokemon centers multiple secondhand stores with no luck, and it ends up a hop skip and a few escalator rides right next to our hotel? World is cruel, man, haha.

The place we found it at was a trip. A mix of so much it was insane. There was even what I like to call a tripod forest.

Since the night was still young, and Karaoke was closing too early to really have a lot of fun, we decided to have a movie night in our hotel! Luckily, we could hook the computers up the TV. Since it was thematically relevant, we decided on the Netflix movie Bullet Train! It was fun being able to point out all the accuracies and inaccuracies in the movie.

In terms of a movie review? Very entertaining! Fast paced, rather gory, but very hilarious. I would recommend it if you’re looking for some absolutely insane entertainment.

It was a great time being able to gather a bunch of peeps over to watch something. This group’s been a pleasure to be in! In the end, I was pretty tired, so I hit the hay. On to tomorrow!