Author: Jasmine

Day 2 in Akiba

05/30/2023

Starbucks for breakfast today! I had this cookies n cream chiffon cake at a Starbucks in Hiroshima, and it was so good that I immediately went for it again at the sbux nearby our hotel in Akiba.

A small group of us wandered out to explore & shop since we had a free day today. We had plans to go to character street (and for some, the kirby cafe) but first, crepes!

Ironically, I did not order a crepe despite being in love with the fake food display. Ever since arriving in Japan, I became slightly more obsessed with soft serve than I ever have been in the states. So I ordered a small cone for 300JPY.

A bunch of us craved something savory after the dessert and got kebabs from the stand next door. Thank you Jess for holding my chicken kebab as I took the photo above ?

We shopped around character street and I got to experience some of the cute kirby desserts with those who went. We also stopped by muji!! Weird to say, but I’ve always wanted the handheld paper shredder from their website but the shipping costs stopped me before. I was able to snatch one in person for myself during our short drop-in and I was living the life.

By around 5pm, we were getting HUNGRY. I had a date to meet up with a friend for dinner tonight, so I thought I could eat a few pieces of sushi and still be hungry enough for dinner. Jess and I went to a sushi place where I made a huge mistake. For some reason I didn’t think I would get full off of a full set of sushi and happily chowed down on the fish & miso soup.

The sushi chefs were super friendly & funny with us, and we were enjoying the food so much that I just ate as much as I could. I met up with my friend in Ikebukuro 3 hours later and ended up only ordering a slice of cheesecake due to how full I was from the sushi.

I met up with my friend to grab a package that I had shipped to her earlier this year, and to make a trade off with our merch. She works as a professional translator, moonlighting as a mangaka & illustrator in her freetime. She had recently tabled at an event and sold out of her original series but she had saved one copy for me, so I greedily asked for her signature while sliding over some of my own merch as thanks!

The meal she ordered looked delicious, and unfortunately I ate the worst cheesecake of my life this night. The little pink bud things on the whipped cream were sakura flowers. For some reason I thought they looked fun to chew so I popped one in my mouth and a sour taste immediately blossomed in my mouth, mellowing out to a bitter taste a few seconds later. I died a little. The cheesecake itself was insanely dense (in a bad way) and very tasteless?! The berry sauce unfortunately did not help the flavor much, not to mention how TINY the slice was. It was around 700jpy and it was the first time I felt juped by the pricing of food since I arrived in Japan.

We went karaoking for almost 2 hours after dinner, and then said our tearful goodbyes at the station before heading back.

Back to Tokyo! -> Akihabara

05/29/2023

The classic breakfast photo! Today we’re leaving Kyoto and heading back to Tokyo. I’ll miss Anteroom Kyoto…..their beds were comfy and the breakfast every morning felt so healthy and tasted delicious….!

I had iced my leg after getting back to the hotel yesterday, and here you can see a fresh bag of half-melted ice ontop of my luggage as we all waited to board the shinkansen back to Tokyo (about 2 hours travel time).

Our next hotel is in Akihabara, called REMM Akihabara! It was actually located directly next to one of the station exits which was extremely convenient. While my leg was in slight pain the entire time we walked around, I was so excited to see all the merch in sight. Genshin billboards and hololive collabs…..dreamy sigh.

For dinner, Jess, Chloe and I went straight to a maid cafe (Akiba Zettai)! Judging by the name, I assumed it was just thigh-high themed but it was actually a cat girl maid cafe……but! The girls were super sweet and we still had a great time. The food was cute, and we had fun conversations with each of the girls before we made Jess choose a maid to take a polaroid with. We’ll treasure this photo forever!

We explored animate afterwards (where I promised myself to come back as soon as I could) before heading back to the hotel to crash for the night after a long day of travel.

Game Jam Day 2

05/28/2023

Game Jam Day 2. Today was a blur. We worked hard on our respective parts for the game before having to present to everyone.

Omurice for lunch!

We met two very cool developers who critiqued our work and got to see what everyone else worked on during the jam. It was very interesting to see the concepts that everyone went for. Some were very cute, and some were very shonen-esque.

Here’s our very cute group photo once we were ready to head out!

This was also the day where I noticed my ankle had gotten bit at least 5 times by some sort of bug (not mosquitos…?) and was the start of a few miserable days following this day. It was just a bit itchy in the morning, and my entire right ankle had swollen up by the time we were leaving the university. Luckily, we weren’t walking around much and we took a cab home so my leg could rest in the meantime.

Game Jam Day 01

05/27/2023

Forgot to add this to my last post, but LOOK AT THIS TINY FRAME IN ONE OF OUR ROOMS.

Perfection.

Anyway, today was the big day! Our team had somewhat communicated before meeting, and we had decided on a concept to expand & build upon today, which I was grateful for. While we didn’t communicate as much as I would have liked, at least we didn’t have to scramble for a concept.

My breakfast at Anteroom Kyoto was pretty light today. We headed out a bit late today but still got to campus on time with a few minutes to spare before the Game Jam officially started.

We had from 9:30am till about 8:00pm to work on our games. The entire time I was wracked with anxiety as to how I could contribute to my team. As a photo visual media major with a million hobbies, I could only call upon my self-taught skills in art & audio to contribute to our team. I was constantly trying to find little things I could do.

Cameron handled the heavy lifting for visuals, Chloe handled the UI icons & menu designs, while our Japanese team members (Takato-san & Kiri-san) handled just about everything else regarding the actual building of the game. I was designated project manager of visuals (and facilitated some conversations between our team members) & sketched out drafts of background music that we could use. A few hours before the end of our session, Chloe and I ended up taking on the task of designing our other player character while Cam was hard at work on the asset art.

It had been a while since I last drew digitally, but today was a day of trying many new things in order to pull my own weight! With our combined braincell, we had designed the character together (wirh input & advice from Cam) and Chloe sketched out a very simple walk animation for us to digitize.

Baby’s first……walk cycle animation……..

We laughed so hard at this that we started crying.

Here’s the second attempt, less than half an hour after the first try! You learn fast when you’re embarrassed of your work.

(Pictured above: our poor teammate being brought back to work by his friends while Chloe cheers him on (?) ft. Cam)

Another sideways photo but here’s our western styled bento that we had for dinner! I asked Kiri-san (pictured above) if he could read the box’ packaging label for me to see if I could understand the text verbally but after he read it, I nodded politely while my head stayed empty.

We wrapped up after many long hours and headed home shortly after 8:30pm. Otsu today, everyone!!

Free Day ? KCG campus tour

05/26/2023 (Friday)

Since I slightly passed away from our tiring journey yesterday, I slept in today while my roomie Megan and a few others went out for an early morning kimono dress-up session. I went to breakfast at around 8am and came back and napped until around 1pm.

I headed out with Jess to Kyoto station to grab some new clothes from uniqlo & order from mister donut for the first time! We also managed to squeeze in lunch before rushing back to the hotel to head out again at 4pm to check out the KCG campus.

Here’s what Jess & I ordered wrow! I embarrassingly went into the wrong storefront after getting the menus mixed up and we apologized while going to the store to the left of the menu instead….

Pretend the image is properly oriented I can’t believe wordpress doesn’t have this option included in the base post editor

The food was so yummy…..katsu perfectly cooked & juicy, didn’t feel oily or greasy at all. I could drink a gallon of their miso soup too…

Baby’s first time at a mister donut!!! It’s been 2 days and I’ve yet to eat what I ordered but I’m sure its delicious.

Arrived at KCG’s graduate campus for a quick tour!

We then headed to KCG’s main campus to meet the students that would be game jamming with us! Shoutout to nametag guy ?

It was nerve wracking to meet our teammates for the first time, but I was excited to practice my japanese! One of our team members ended up not hanging out with us as often due to being nervous, but I have faith in him for our actual game jam. They brought tons of snacks for us to try, and we also had pizza-la delivery! I’ve heard of the chain name before but I was not expecting the pizza to taste so…sweet? Many of us ended up sharing similar sentiments after the dinner meet.

We shared a very crowded bus with the KCG students on our way back to the hotel & also saw Kyoto Tower!

Kyoto ? Hiroshima day trip ? Kyoto

05/25/2023

Classic start with breakfast. The karaage was yummy! As was the croissant! Not sure what the spread was ontop of the bread & lettuce but it was alright!

We have a long day ahead of us today, as we are visiting Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park as well as the museum.

The shinkansen ride was beautiful as usual. My favorite part is seeing the fields & mountains.

Before heading in, we stopped by a small food court for lunch. I got this deeelicious cookie & cream chiffon cake from starbucks with Jess, Belle and Megan.

Conveniently placed tree that hides the dome from view (?).

Conveniently placed random man that ruined my almost perfectly clear shot (?).

I took exactly zero photos once we wandered into the park & museum. Besides being ‘respectful’ and not lifting my phone to snap photos, I also felt it was much more respectful to spend my time reading as many plaques & text descriptions as I could. The main exhibition inside the museum is the permanent exhibition, which displayed a large amount of personal belongings left behind by victims.

There was a projected simulation of the timeline & destruction path of the bombing near the entrance of the exhibition which offered a very helpful visual diagram of how the land looked before and after the destruction.

The whole experience was, needless to say, extremely depressing & sobering. When I was learning about nuclear energy & war a few months ago, I ended up doing a deep dive into the destruction of Hiroshima, but there are just experiences & artifacts that you don’t see online. Reading so many personal quotes & stories from victims’ families, seeing the tattered & burnt clothing of victims, and seeing chunks of glass & metal fused together from the sheer heat of the blast really hit me.

Something I really appreciated was how well-designed the exhibit was! The flow of sections leading into the next physical area/room were well-planned, and the one room with victims’ photos/plaques being displayed within a glass or acrylic panel next to gently lit display cases were nothing short of beautiful, elegant & respectful. The text was easily legible despite the dim lighting, and the vibe of the room paid tribute to the tragic event very well.

Now for something that’s just as distressing as the contents we just explored in the museum. This insane clock is right outside the entrance to the exhibits (but inside the building).

If you’re having a hard time reading the text in the photo above, here’s a snippet from the plaque: “The cogwheels represent a virtual countdown which warms us that we are on the path leading to towards the annihilation of humanity. The cogwheel at the top rotates 100 times per minute, but will spin faster if the earth shows signs of being in danger. If it reaches the immovable cogwheel at the bottom, the clock will automatically self destruct.”

HUH?

I didn’t get a video but the cogwheel at the top was spinning pretty fast….and even if the plaque is just hypothetical, I still have so many questions. Some of our classmates spent a good while discussing what we think the text means, and I tried to not fall into a deep pit of existential dread like how I usually do during the conversation.

After the museum, my feet & soul absolutely died while we were dragged around past our bodies’ limitations (or just mine, at least). I sat near the outskirts of the castle with a few others while the rest of the class trudged onwards and then we got okonomiyaki for dinner and went back to the hotel in Kyoto.

Meditation + Tea ceremony + Temples ?

05/24/2023

Starting off strong with a yummy breakfast. I don’t ever eat breakfast in my daily schedule so having it built into our schedules during this trip was really nice and something that I appreciate lots!

Today we set out bright and early for a traditional zazen meditation session with a cool monk at a beautiful temple. I’m not exactly a religious person, but man do I love temples.

The architecture of traditional japanese temples is always so gorgeous, the lush greenery & gentle sounds of nature just instantly put me at ease. I felt so comfortable there.

During the first block of meditation (15 min), my right leg fell asleep about 5 minutes before the block was over, and I contemplated letting it fall asleep and not moving until the session was over but then I got insanely paranoid that I would permanently injure a nerve or something if I didn’t adjust my position, so I had to let go of my (self-perceived) perfect meditation posture.

I used to meditate often when I suffered from insomnia & heavier loads of stress, but I haven’t had the time lately and the session today helped spark my desire and motivation to meditate at home again. It was genuinely so peaceful and lovely….

The monk recommended us to experience the Whacking(tm) at least once, usually reserved for those who have trouble maintaining focus during sessions. I was hesitant at first since I thought I was doing well maintaining focus and keeping my mind clear, but upon the others’ recommendations, I asked for a whack during the second meditation block and I did not enjoy it as much as it was advertised.

When you’d like to request a whack, you’re meant to place your hands together in a praying motion, bow, and wait for the monk to then use his stick to whack both sides of your back (left and right), twice on each side. I was also informed by Toshi-san that other temples may do this unprompted if they catch the meditator asleep, so it was nice that this temple lets you request it!

After meditation, we headed to one of the locations we were at the previous day to witness and experience a traditional japanese tea ceremony (not full length). The hostess was kind and understanding, and taught us about just some of the nuances behind tea ceremony etiquette. When drinking from the bowl, you want the most decorative part of the bowl to face you, the person who will be holding the bowl, and you turn the bowl twice clockwise before drinking, so that your lips are not placed directly on the beauty of the bowl.

While I enjoy matcha, I am not great with bitter foods or drinks. But I offered myself to be the volunteer to drink the hostess’ dose of matcha due to my interest in the ceremony! Yes the matcha was bitter. I drank all of it out of respect and then proceeded to drink the dose of tea that I made myself shortly after. As someone who is extremely poor at downing any amount of liquid more than a cup (and as someone who is bad with bitter tastes), I think I had a real brave moment today.

We then headed to the Nishiki Market to grab some food, before I popped back to our hotel to rest for an hour or so. We were scheduled to go to Round1 for bowling at 6pm, so I headed back outside about 40 minutes prior to the meeting time.

Bowling happened. I believe some KCG students played with some of our students, but I had a very full team with Emma, Todd, Shannon and Kat. I forgot how awful I am with bowling, but they had a special vocaloid drinks menu so that was my coping mechanism for the night.

We headed out and arrived home at around 10pm, our feet feeling like lead from the past 2 days.

First full day in Kyoto ⛩️ Day 04

05/23/2023

Woke up at 7:30am(??) to eat breakfast in the hotel lounge (@ anteroom kyoto).

Simple but yummy! I love smoked salmon toast.

We met our lovely tour guide Yuuko-sensei and headed out on our long day of touring at around 9:15am.

Since we all visited the same places today, I’ll post just my favorites!

My nicer photos & videos are still on my SD card…in my camera.

The tldr is that we visited & saw lots of shrines & important religious/cultural landmarks today (Kinkakuji -> Arashiyama Bamboo forest -> Fushimi Inari)! These are all places I’ve seen lots of shows & series referencing, as well as just seeing gorgeous photos of them online in general; it was incredible to see them for myself now, and our guide did an amazing job giving us succinct descriptions of each locations’ history & significance.

This bridge wasn’t mentioned as part of our tour, but I noticed the name on a sign while we were walking through Arashiyama and asked our guide, Miss Yuuko, about it. I had recognized the name surprisingly from a Kuraki Mai song before ever actually seeing photos of the bridge, and she and I sang a bit of her songs together while we walked around?! I have never been so glad of my knowledge of J-musicians until today.

After our tour ended, we were taken to KCG’s campus and straight to the theater room to watch Mugen train together and to meet with more important faculty!

This is my 5th time watching this film, and I swear it hurts me more each time. It took all my energy to not audibly sob like how I normally do at home, and I think this drained me more than after all the walking from earlier today (I miss u every day rengoku).

Maybe a little weird of me but I took the chance during one of the less engaging scenes of Mugen Train to make a quick trip to the restroom outside, and it was really nice!! While the stalls were small, it was clean and I really liked how the restroom was designed?! The view out the big window inside was lovely.

After the movie (and trying to hide my waterfall of snot & visible tears), we all headed to yet another food court within the station nearby for dinner.

I got udon. Again!

Kakeudon again, this time with ebi tempura and a singular inari, to celebrate our trip to fushimi inari taisha today.

I’ve finished typing this post exactly at midnight, and we’re set to wake up in about 7 hours for another early day tomorrow!

Tokyo & going to Kyoto? Day 02+03

Combining 2 days into one since I KO’d the past few days

05/21/2023

Today we were scheduled to meet up with everyone at Shinagawa Prince Hotel. As our group arrived a few days ahead of schedule, we had to travel from our prior accommodation in Oshiage to Shinagawa. We left at around 10:00am.

Cam and I absolutely passed away today. We went from Oshiage -> Shinagawa, then saw the discord ping notifying us that Shinagawa was not the right place after we had already spent a good amount of time hauling our luggage from the station to Shinagawa Prince Hotel (we had to climb multiple slopes while getting lost around that hotel).

We were told to go to Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa, so while looking for the main entrance of Shinagawa Prince Hotel, we switched directions and had to climb up many more slopes to the Takanawa Hotel. We checked our luggage in early and thought all was well enough to go grab food before the check-in at 2pm. It was around noon at this point.

Cam and I met up with Skylar to go to our first family restaurant at Royal Host! I ordered omurice & garlic toast.

We also took a quick trip to Akiba to check out the Hololive x Kanda Matsuri collab since it was its last day!

On our way home, we saw once again another change in plans, in that Shinagawa WAS the right place after all. We had to make the walk of shame to the luggage desk and let them know that we wouldn’t be checking in at that location after all, but luckily there was a free shuttle to all the surrounding Prince Hotels so we didn’t have to carry our luggage through the heat back to Shinagawa.

After that very eventful travel journey, we met up in the hotel lobby at 6pm to get our rail pass vouchers exchanged for the real thing and we all went to the food court in the nearby station for dinner before retiring for the night.

Kakeudon for dinner!

05/22/2023

We woke up early today to grab breakfast before taking our trip to Kyoto! We were scheduled to stay in Shinagawa Prince Hotel for one night before heading to Kyoto, and I have to say, that hotel was severely underwhelming for how much extra facilities they had to offer. Shinagawa boasts an aquarium, bowling alleys, etc etc, but the room had pillows that were too soft and didn’t offer nice support, and the comforter!!!! was so!!!! uncomfortable!!! scratchy and thin….

Anyway, we got a small squad to get breakfast together consisting of Jess, Megan, and Belle, with Skyler and Liam joining us a bit later. We went to The City Bakery at around 8am. *takes note if I ever visit again in the future*

I picked up a croque monsieur, some thick bread slices & maple bacon french toast. I saved much of the bread for takeout, and then also ordered an eggs benedict set for dining in. Yummy!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to get ready to check out and travel to Kyoto. A bit before 2pm, we all met up once again in the hotel lobby to set out for the station. It was my first time riding the shinkansen, and it was painfully uneventful due to how cramped we all were. I had planned on getting some work done, but our group was packed into the space and I ended up taking many mini naps while sneaking peeks at the scenery outside and praying for my phone battery to make it through the day.

Once we arrived, we were greeted by KCG faculty and they were very hospitable and kind! Our luggage was loaded onto a bus while we were treated to an amazing 10 course(?) meal at a restaurant called Ganko(?).

My phone battery KO’d after the third course but it was all very tasty! (Minus the faux savory tofu dessert…)

Wandering Oshiage -> Ueno -> Tokyo eki ☀️Day 1

05/18/2023

Last night, our little group had originally planned to visit Ueno together to karaoke, but upon waking up I had realized half the group had left to grab breakfast and so I dragged Cam along with me to Ueno to explore instead! It was our first time actually traversing the transit system and we were quite nervous/scared/anxious/confused, but we got the hang of it by the end of the day.

We are closest to Oshiage station and made our way to Ueno, where we walked through a lovely little district of very affordable products! (not the picture below, I forgot to photograph it)

I grabbed a cute little matcha latte boba (not pictured bc i forgot) as we walked around. We were stopped by a kind old lady who was conducting user research for a foreigner-friendly touch screen nearby and I was compensated with a guidebook and a panda eraser after the interview was completed.

We stopped in a building with the aim of popping in Daiso on 7F and I momentarily got distracted by a cute windbreaker that was on sale for only 1,000 jpy!!! I’m still thinking about it now as I write this, hopefully it’ll still be there by the time I go back.

Within the Daiso, we came across a Sweets Paradise collab cafe with Sixfonia. While I’m not a fan, it was really neat to see a collab cafe in person after seeing them everywhere on social media!

After our quick Ueno trip, we headed to Tokyo eki in order to finally pick up a suica card. They are only available for purchase in specific areas so it was our mission of the day to secure a card.

We must have emerged on the wrong side of the large station, because we were very clearly out of place with all the salarymen bustling around the area. We wandered the area for a short while before grabbing some food from 7-11 and a スーパー and then headed back in the station to Oshiage station.

On our way home, we happened to walk past a Detective Conan cafe! I had originally planned to go to the Ikebukuro location and didn’t realize there was one so close to my accommodation! Unfortunately, the wait for a seat was very long, and we were both tired after a day of running around so we headed home.

After a day and a half in Japan, we have still yet to eat a ‘proper’ meal. The gyudon (picture above) from 7-11 was still delicious though! Here’s hoping that I’ll be able to eat more than one meal a day tomorrow.