Category: Tokyo

Sayonara, Japan!

We have finally reached June 7th, the last day of my trip to Japan! I woke up early to visit FamilyMart with Jessica one last time, and she left the hotel around 8 AM which left me another hour to sleep in.

I checked out of my hotel around 10 AM and left my bags with the hotel to visit the Senso-ji shrine grounds one last time to get some final souvenirs for my family. Being out in Japan alone was definitely nerve wracking, as this was the first time I’d truly been alone the entire trip. Once I had finished shopping, I found a local yakiniku place to get lunch, which only magnified my fears. Not only did I manage to spill soup everywhere while trying to slot the tray into the table (honestly I think this design is a little flawed in general, but I’ll admit I was stupid for not taking the very hot very spillable liquid off of the tray before doing this), but after they had switched my table I managed to also pay for the wrong order and had to trouble the staff to refund me. This was what solidified my readiness to leave Japan, as by this point I was very tired and thoroughly ready to get home.

I returned to my hotel and gathered my bags (at this point I had four of them, and maneuvering them all was no easy task) and lugged my things onto a bus to get to the train station, where I barely made it to my train on time. The train ride was nice as I was on the express train so we didn’t stop until we got to the airport, and the views were very pretty. It was a somber moment to recognize this as my last train ride in Japan, a method of transportation that I had so heavily relied on for a majority of my trip. I will forever be grateful for how accessible and cheap the public transportation is in Japan.

Out of my fear for something going wrong in the airport process, I skipped the mall and sadly the Pokemon store in the airport and hurried to check in my things and get through security. To no surprise, security was incredibly easy, and I then had to sit in the airport for three hours while I waited for my flight to board. There were a couple stores in the airport terminal itself where I managed to get some last minute gifts and a nice water bottle for myself. I also bought one of those wireless mini photo printers, so that I could easily print photos from my phone for the scrapbook that I intend to eventually make for my trip.

Eventually Jasmine joined me for the flight, and the second leg of my trip began. Our flight was ~11 hours in length, and felt a lot shorter than the first flight. I spent the whole thing either sleeping or watching movies, mostly because the charger port at my seat was broken and I didn’t want any of my devices to die. Eleven hours later, we landed in Chicago, and I zoomed my way through customs and retrieved our bags at the baggage claim. I will say, finally being able to speak to someone in English and knowing that they’d be able to understand me was a blessing.

I said goodbye to Jasmine and rechecked my bags with Delta, and spent another two hours sitting in the airport waiting for my flight. At this point the exhaustion was beginning to set in, and the post-trip depression also began to set in as I paid for my $4 water bottle from Burger King. Oh joy.

My second flight was around 2 hours in length, and I spent the entire thing asleep. Despite having a middle seat and waking up with an awful pain in my neck, the sleep was definitely worth it, as I had to deboard the plane and retrieve my bags a second time and hobble my way to my mom’s car who travelled to the airport to pick me up.

And with that, my trip to Japan is finished! I have spent the last few days attempting to fix my sleep schedule, which I believe I’m only now beginning to accomplish, and also trying to find a home for the immense amount of trinkets and goods that I had brought home with me. This was truly the trip of a lifetime, and I hope to return sometime in the future and do all of the things that I didn’t have time for during this trip! I’m so grateful for all of the things I got to do and all of the people I got to meet, and I hope that my desire to travel and see and do more will continue for the rest of my lifetime!

And thank you to everyone who actually read all of this. I appreciate it! It’s fun to be able to share my experiences with others, and I’m really happy that this blog was a required part of our trip. Here’s to more travels!

The Climb

I’ll be combining Monday and Tuesday into a single blog since they were both relatively uneventful (in comparison to most of the other days on this trip).

We started Monday with a trip to Ginza, as there’s a 12-floor UNIQLO store there that we both wanted to visit. The rest of the area was super expensive (think Dior, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, etc.) so we didn’t stick around for long, but the UNIQLO store was definitely worth visiting! I got some cheap shirts (including some Splatoon 3 collaboration shirts) and a nice pair of pants that I had bought previously in a different color. The whole place felt like it was trying to be an art exhibition while also being a store, which seemed like a product of the district it was in but it was kind of neat!

We were pretty beat after travelling to Ginza as it was a pretty far trip and the pure exhaustion from just how much we had been doing for the last three weeks was finally starting to catch up to us, so we revisited the pasta place I praised before for a mix of lunch and dinner and settled in for a night of self care. I dismissed my fear of the customs officers and broke out my switch dock so that Jessica and I could take turns playing Tears of the Kingdom on the TV in our hotel room. While I’m sure we could have dragged ourselves back out for another adventure, we were both pretty beat and I don’t regret taking a night to relax and prepare ourselves for what would come tomorrow.

We woke up a bit late on Tuesday morning and headed to Tokyo Tower for the dreaded 600-step climb to the top. I was much less excited than Jessica for the trek, but it ended up being a bit easier than I expected it to be! They had signs on the way up to question you about some fun facts about the tower, which was probably the only thing that kept me going as I got a second to breathe while Jessica translated the signs. At the top of the tower was a pretty cool view and a small shrine you could pray to, and on our way back down we stopped at some Hello Kitty themed gachapon machines and I got a picture of the statue inside the tower. Pretty cool!

We decided to stop in Ueno as we were coming back from the tower, since it was already on the way and we didn’t trust ourselves to have the energy to leave the hotel again once we were back and showered. We stopped in at a merchandise store outside of the station and picked up some miscellaneous goodies, and then went to visit Book-Off (a pretty well known secondhand store) with no luck.

After that, we took a walk through the park to find a cluster of public activities that featured two more Pokemon sewer grates (YES, I did go out of my way to find more. Don’t judge me.) and I’m REALLY surprised that we didn’t visit this area during the main portion of our trip. There were two museums and a zoo, all nestled into this absolutely gorgeous park that would have been lovely to explore compared to the other somewhat depressing museum we had visited instead. But seeing Diver City instead was worth it!

As we were heading back to Asakusa, the hunger began to kick in, and we ducked into a place that had dumplings for lunch. We ordered 12 dumplings and a large helping of rice, which also came with two fried chicken nuggets and some soup, and it cost us 820 yen in total, which was barely $3 each! I will always mourn the loss of super cheap but still good food now that I am back in America.

We finally got back to our hotel and were able to clean ourselves up and sit down and organize all of our stuff to prepare for the trip home tomorrow. It was quite the daunting task, but a necessary evil that I’m very grateful I left time for. Knowing that this was our last night in Japan made me sad, but deep in my heart I was ready to go home.

Food in Day 9: Second Free Day

For our second free day, Maddy and I went to Character Street in Tokyo Station to buy some (mainly from Ghibli) character-themed goodies. After that, we went back to Akihabara, looked through Radio Kaiken, went back to Mandarake to take our time looking through their merchandise, and various other stores in the area. After spending a lot of money and taking even more steps, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

Who makes a better breakfast than McDonald’s in Japan? My answer is no one, especially if you consider how cheap it is. I ended up getting a chicken McMuffin, a hashbrown, and some hot coffee. I personally did not appreciate how bitter the hot coffee was, but I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my meal. The chicken McMuffin was savory and filling, and although I do not normally like mustard, the mustard in this sandwich was not too overwhelming so it didn’t bother me.

Maddy and I found this interesting steak place in Akihabara that was on the second floor of a building of restaurants. I ordered a rice dish with steak, cheese, garlic chips, and a fried egg. The sauce on the steak was so good, and the met itself was delicious. The yolk of the egg was runny which is exactly how I like my eggs, and the garlic chips paired well with all of the flavors present in this dish. They also gave me a side of broth which helped to mellow out the powerful flavors of my lunch.

Before dinner, we stopped to get boba. I got matcha with brown sugar and pearls. It was so good. That’s all I have to say. You know it’s good when I don’t have any words to describe it.

For dinner, Maddy, Vincent, Brody and I went to go get hot pot. We got a good variety of meats and vegetables. All I can say is that it was good, but definitely on the pricier side in comparison to the other meals I had eaten on this trip. The broth was also less flavorful than I had expected, but that’s on us for getting the normal broth instead of the spicy.

That was a good way to end our last free day.

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!!

Tokyo -> Albany, NY

Sadly, the trip is finally coming to its conclusion. I loved Japan and definitely did not want to leave, but after the amount of excitement from the past 2 weeks, I wasn’t entirely dreading getting to go back home.

Thankfully, Esther was on the same flight as me! The two of us headed to Haneda airport around 11 am in preparation for our 3pm flight from Tokyo to Washington DC. We had to do a bit of waiting around at the airport for baggage check to open, but once we were through security and had checked our (very heavy and merch-filled) luggage, we could relax a bit.

The flight itself went very smoothly and I was able to get some cool pics of clouds and mountains 🙂

We landed in DC after 13 hours of sleeping and listening to music. Unfortunately our layover did not leave us with a lot of time to get through customs and recheck our luggage and we thought we were going to miss our connecting flight. Thankful, Esther was able to make her flight to Rochester on time and I successfully made my flight to Albany! Crisis averted.

I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again, but I can’t wait to go back to Japan! It was definitely the experience of a lifetime and one of my favorite places I’ve ever visited.

CyberConnect 2 !

To start off the rainy morning, the group headed to Unreal Fest! Unreal Fest was held in a venue in Akihabara not far from the hotel, so despite the typhoon weather, the walk wasn’t bad at all. Once inside, we were able to wander the game showcase area to playtest tons of cool projects. One of my favorites was a cinematic, journey-inspired sea life game where you played as various sea creatures. Starting off as a small fish, you soon transitioned to a dolphin, a large school of fish, and more as you swam through beautiful oceans with an amazing orchestral soundtrack. Another favorite of mine that I saw was a small puzzle game called On The Rocks. I believe this was the result of a game jam, and it involved using pinball-like mechanics to transport a marble into a glass at the bottom of the level. What made it so interesting, however, was the various movement mechanics that were derived from simple just tilting paddles. It was also a very fun experience that I definitely think had potential to be developed further.

After Unreal Fest we had some free time, so Esther, Vincent, Brody, and I got some udon for lunch nearby and then went for some final shopping in Akihabara. I went back to a store I had visited a few days prior to get a gift for a friend and found something called a “Zeldabox” from the 2003 Wind Waker release and it was such a good find.

Inside is 2 small figures, a Wind Waker guidebook, a poster, and a cd with select songs from the franchise :0

I was also so excited to find a 1999 copy of Majora’s Mask for the N64 for relatively cheap.

Finally, we concluded our final day in Tokyo with a visit to Cyber Connect 2’s Tokyo studio. Cyber Connect 2 is responsible for the development of popular anime games such as the Naruto, Demon Slayer, and Jojo games. We got a tour of the studio where we could see the workspace layout and artists and designers at work. Cyber Connect is known for its gorgeous animation work and translating the art styles of manga and anime into games.

Labs!

An early morning trip out to the Tokyo port area brought the group to the Gundam mall! This mall featured a life-sized Gundam statue that even moved and played audio every once in a while. Although I am not a Gundam fan and know basically nothing about the franchise, it was still a fascinating landmark to see.

Not far from the mall was the Miraikan Museum of Science and Innovation. We were able to split up and spend some time in the museum and there were some really cool exhibits. Almost all exhibits were interactive in some manner, with some examples being a robot that mimicked viewer movement, modern health science exhibit, and a game in which you can see the trajectory of a hypothetically future.

Finally, we reached our last destination do the day — TeamLab Planets!

TeamLabs is a series of interactive art exhibits that immerses viewers completely in the art. Upon entering, visitors must take off their shoes and socks and wade through cleansing water. This is because the exhibits are barefoot and involve mirror floors, water, and textured surfaces. My favorite exhibits were the first room with pillow-like flooring, the maze of crystalline sparking LED lights, and this pond of virtual colorful fish.

Honorable mention was the hanging flower garden 🙂

Broke x2

Today we visited the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo! While we weren’t able to get actual tickets inside the palace, we spent the morning exploring the beautiful imperial gardens. The most memorial portion of the gardens was the koi pond. It was serenely calm, had a small waterfall and various flowers and plants scattered on its banks. Hence the name, there was also koi fish in the pond! I’m continuously awed by their vibrant colors and spent a while just sitting on the bridge watching them. I also made a pill bug friend!

After exploring the gardens for a while, we then headed over to Harajuku to grab lunch. We found a food court that had a really cool decora-themed interior. I got a korean corn-dog and fried seaweed 🙂 I will also never stop talking about the street fashion in Harajuku and I could easily spend all day people watching to observe the fits.

The group then headed to the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya, known for its large Torii gates. We spent some time at the shrine observing the gorgeous scenery and paying respects to the local deities.

After the shrine,Vincent, Brody, Esther, and I decided to hang around the Shibuya area since we were already here. Esther and I were told about Shibuya 109 (a shopping complex specifically for women’s clothing), and we’re immediately eager to check it out. In Shibuya 109 I found my dream store :0. The store was a blend of goth, punk, and skater styles and definitely embodied my dream style. Sadly, everything was so insanely expensive else I could have easily bought out the entire store. I followed them on Instagram though and I will be back someday with more money. Shibuya 109 was still a successful venture and I ended the day with a few new articles of clothing I was super excited about.

The Return to the States

Finally, the day had come: the flight home. Brody and I didn’t have a flight until 6:42 PM, later delayed to 7:05 PM. We left the hotel at checkout time, around 11 AM, and we said a hearty goodbye to those who were there. Brody and I were comfortable with the idea of getting to the airport and chilling out for 5 hours, so that’s what we did. We took a train back to Narita-Tokyo and went to the check-in station for Singapore Airlines – our airliner.

However, we did not expect them to open at 3:40 PM, 3 hours from our arrival time. So, we got our last Japanese McDonalds, where I had a crazy good chicken-teriyaki burger and shaka shaka chicken. I sat and caught up on some Star Wars comics as Brody read some manga until 3:40 PM, where we rushed to drop our massive amounts of clothes and merchandise we had bought during our stay. We made it past the very lax security and to the gate, where we would sit for another three hours with a small gyoza break somewhere in there.

Finally, we boarded our flight and prepared for a 10 hour flight, in which I watched an anime called Forest of Piano. The flight was long, but I was able to get some sleep to help me out with the inevitable jet lag back home. After a not-so-bad 10 hours, we landed at 12:40 PM at LAX. My father picked us up as Brody and I went back to stay the night at his place, Brody meeting some of my relatives for an excellent Mexican dinner.

Brody and I going through the over-hyped US customs

Brody and I got back to my dads house after dinner and binge-watched three episodes of the latest season os Succession (crazy good show, I would recommend it any day) before passing out from our exhaustive day of travel, only to wake up to another full day of travel from LAX to ROC, where we would be taking different flights with different layovers.

Japan was one of the best experiences of my life and I’m grateful to both Professor Jacobs and Professor McKinzie for allowing me to join them on their expedition abroad, and I am thankful to have met all of my fellow students on this trip and gotten to know them. To those who graduated: good luck on your future endeavors! To those who did not: I look forward to seeing you this upcoming year, where we can brag loudly about our fantastic summer trip.