Category: Kyoto

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!

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!

May 30th:

Today we had Akihabara to explore. We started by grabbing breakfast on a side street close to us. We got crepes and a meat skewers (they were next to eachother).

Next we headed to character street in Tokyo station. Belle and Megan managed to get Kirby Cafe Petit tickets and took me as a plus 1 so I bought a ton of stuff naturally.

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After that we headed to a 7 floor sex store. Not going into detail on that just don’t want to forget.

After that we headed to MUJI. I love Muji pens but I’ve never been to a store before so I was very excited. They were playing like fantasy guild indie game music. It honestly enhanced the aesthetic experience. Below is my haul.

I have had really good juice experiences in Japan so far. The juice here is superior so when I saw Muji apple juice in a cool round juice “box” I bought it.

After that Jasmine and I stopped at a sushi restaurant where I ordered Salmon sushi and the chefs laughed at me because apparently that is a very foreigner thing to do. But they were all really funny and the sushi was amazing.

Then Jasmine and I watched Demon Slayer and I SLEPT.

May 29th:

My idea of Japan before doing any research on it as a kid was that it was a world of anime and pokémon. Now I know that is probably an awful stereotype but as soon as we arrived at Akihabara I thought “this is it”.

Child me would have peed herself on the spot, there was not a single billboard that didn’t have an anime character on it.

Before exploring we settled into the hotel (which was a little suspicious). The shower curtain opened up into the room. As in you could be laying on the bed watching someone on the shower. Aside from that it was a GREAT location. The station was 10 steps from the hotel.

The first store we went to was also suspicious. I bought porn for my friend as a joke. He’s gonna hate it I can’t wait. I’m sorry I am not going to put a picture. This is a school assignment.

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Later Jasmine convinced me to go to a MAID CAFE. It was super socially draining and awkward but it was a really new cool experience and I’m glad I went.

The food was better than I thought. Don’t get me wrong it was all very overpriced but I was expecting it to also be poor quality. The spaghetti was adorable with the little seaweed cat egg face.

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Because of the Cat combo (cat themed cafe if you didn’t get that from the photos) I got a “free” polaroid. I was worried about the price of everything at first but it came out so amazing and now I can remember it forever.

May 28th:

Being down the KCG programmer, me being sick for the first day and a half, and working with three language worked in our favor. It was such an amazing experience to watch a pile of ideas and fear of not finishing turn into an AWESOME game.

I’m not sure how to post the game right now so maybe I’ll do it later? But the music, art, UI, mechanics and everything came together so much better than we all could’ve hoped for. Everyone seemed really pleased with the results. Kat (who switched groups to help us) and Maddy were programming until the last possible second.

I’m sure everyone in Game Jams feels this way but it was too short of a time and I am a bit sad we didn’t get more time to work with the KCG students.

On a more positive note Yume said he would join my minecraft server.

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After the Game Jam we all decided to go to Osaka!!!

Lots of shopping. Most of my time was spent at the Mugiwara Store (I almost cried, not a hyperbole)

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May 27th:

I know that it is customary to take your shoes off in homes and many resturant’s here but upon entering the clinic we had to remove our shoes as well!! Not to mention they had slippers of seemingly only one size for visitors. Below are Steve and I’s new fashionable footwear.

The doctors was WEIRD. They looked at my throat for one second and made me put this tube in my mouth that blew lowkey gross air into my lungs?? I couldn’t figure out how to inhale it. They kept telling me in Japanese but I was so confused. Then they promptly kicked me out gave me a prescription so I guess it worked out. So strange, but effective??

This was my technically first day of game jam as I missed yesterday. At first I wasn’t supposed to go but working remotely was near impossible and I would have preferred not participating at all as I felt I would hold the group back and add little help to it.

Eventually, I was allowed to go! I met everyone and at first I was very concerned with the team that we had. It was one programmer and the rest were artists. The majority of the day Me, Emma, and Yume worked on character design for our American Japanese combination boss rush game.

There were really tasty snacks so I ate a lot and was exhausted by the end of the day! Some assets and food below.

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Yume and Ryusei were super amazing and I tried my best to say anything I could in Japanese but I’m not sure how well that went. Also, working together was super interesting because we were bouncing ideas around in English, sign language, and Japanese it felt like magic. How the heck did we do that.