Day: June 10, 2023

Merchandise Heaven

I was very excited for Sunday because I had planned my excursion today well in advance. Me and Jessica went to Yokohama, the second most populated city in Japan! We specifically came here because I had heard of a secondhand anime merchandise store that sells a lot of Pokemon plushes (and boy was I not prepared for the wallet destroyer that I walked into) but we’ll get into that later!

We were awoken Sunday morning around 10 AM by the shaking of our beds – we experienced a 4.2 earthquake that happened just 10-15 miles from our hotel! It wasn’t very strong, but it was still a bit alarming and woke both of us up for good. Just another iconic Japan experience I guess!

Yokohama was very pretty, but also super city-like and a bit overwhelming with the crowds. We went to a restaurant called Yokohama Kitchen for lunch, where I got a platter with steak, chicken, and fries that was pretty good! We then took a slight detour to a store called WEGO, which is well known for its poorly translated English shirts, though I ended up not buying anything because it was pretty expensive and didn’t have too much I was interested in. We also took a trip to a local convenience market (P.S. you can get a pack of 20 pads in Japan for ~300 yen, which is like 10 cents a pad and an INCREDIBLE deal and it made me very sad that I live in America :”) ) and an art supplies store where I picked up some washi tape.

Next was the Yokohama Pokemon Center, which did have a few things that we hadn’t seen at other Pokemon stores but nothing too crazy. We did happen to show up at the perfect time though, as we noticed a crowd was gathering at the back of the center. Lo and behold, we had walked into a Pikachu greeting where we got to see two costumed Pikachu come out and put on a show! We didn’t stay for the whole thing since we couldn’t understand any of what they were saying anyways, but I’m super happy that I got to see them again after seeing one at the Pokemon Cafe! They’re just so cute…

In the same mall on the floor below the Pokemon Center was Suragaya, the secondhand store that I had mentioned earlier. We had no idea what we were walking into. This store was kind of insane – they had walls of Pokemon stuffed animals and anime figured at INSANELY good prices. I ended up spending around $80 on plushies that would have easily cost me $200+ if I was trying to buy them in America. Absolutely no regrets (except maybe for not buying more)!

I also ended up buying a copy of Pokemon HeartGold, in the box with the Pokewalker (a very rare accessory that’s hard to find new) for $45, which is usually more than $200 in the US. SUPER COOL!! (I still have yet to buy batteries for it so I can test it, but hopefully it works, LOL!)

To end the day we decided to order pizza from Pizza Hut to see if it was any different from getting pizza in America. We tried to place an order online, but Jess accidentally set it as a carry out order instead of a delivery order, so we had to call the pizza place and attempt to communicate with them that we needed to change the address or cancel the order. It got to the point where I translated something on my phone with Google Translate and played it out loud over the speaker phone… not my proudest moment. But eventually we were able to cancel the order and reorder it properly, and it was super good!

This was definitely my favorite day in terms of buying merch. This would mark the last time I spent a lot of money on non-practical stuff for myself, which is probably a good thing because I was starting to run low! But I was very excited to visit UNIQLO on Monday, and climb Tokyo Tower on Tuesday. The trip is quickly coming to a close, but every day has something new!

Tearful Goodbyes

Saturday was the day that most of our group was leaving. We spent the morning doing some last minute shopping and saying goodbye to people as they left. At noon, me and Jessica checked out of our hotel in Akihabara and jumped in a taxi with Jasmine to head to our hotels. Jasmine was staying in a hostel nearby so we dropped her off first and then headed to our hotel in Asakusa. The hotel was small but all of the staff were very nice and they had a lot of amenities and free drinks throughout the day that made up for my inability to leave my suitcases open for any long period of time because of the lack of space in our room.

We decided to get lunch at a pasta place across the street from our hotel, which marked the first time I’ve ever tried Carbonara before and MAN it was good!! I wanted to get french fries on the side but the waiter must have misheard me and gave me a sausage instead, which I wasn’t too happy about but I didn’t want to try to explain to him that I had asked for something else with the language barrier so I kept my peace. The pasta itself though was fantastic!!

After we ate, we headed to Shinjuku to look at the giant 3D cat billboard and a shrine nearby. The pictures for the billboard don’t look fantastic, but it did appear surprisingly real in person and made me very happy! The shrine was surreal because the grounds were tucked in amongst massive skyscrapers and office buildings, and felt like a little escape from the chaos of the city. We also stopped in at an arcade that we passed while walking back from the shrine and I managed to win two dog keychains for me and Jessica!

Once we were back from Shinjuku, we had to decide what to do with our evening. After some deliberation, we decided that it would be fun to go to an onsen. For those who aren’t familiar, an onsen is a hot spring bath (ours was in the middle of the city, so it was really just a communal hot tub) where you cannot wear a bathing suit. So yes, we sat naked in a hot tub with a bunch of strangers. And honestly, it wasn’t that bad! Once you get in and realize that nobody around you cares, and as long as you follow the rules and are respectful of everyone around you, it’s a pretty chill experience. But I’m not sure if I’d do it again, and definitely not alone!

I will likely combine Monday and Tuesday as they were less eventful than Sunday and Wednesday, but I won’t decide for sure until I write it. We’ll see! Almost there, I still have a lot more to share!!